While the current snapshot isn’t exactly rosy, it’s also not as bearish as it looks.

Interest rate have risen, but anything looks bad coming off once in a generation lows, and prime still hovers around early 2000’s levels. B6 put the financing in place a while ago, and it would be interesting to find out when/if those rates were locked in at that time or floating.

https://www.jpmorganchase.com/about/...cal-prime-rate

Jet fuel has been more volatile in the past couple decades, but supply shortages which pushed prices up the last couple years have also come back down significantly.

​​​​​​https://transportgeography.org/conte...t-fuel-prices/

While still up significantly from lockdown days, domestic demand has softened year over year, and falling fares have spurred interest in foreign travel. Over capacity and lower ticket prices are a market challenge for low cost carriers, but it doesn’t sound like the death rattle that signals bankruptcy. Nor does several quarters in the red, however it does make a good bullet point for the upcoming merger trial that economies of scale from legacy carriers are a latent threat to domestic majors. What would be a greater detriment to consumers, a nine percent market share or the potential loss of one or both players from the industry.

As far as the share price, with both companies held largely by institutional investors, there is still inherent risk of the merger outcome. While small investors may see an opportunity to buy in cheap, the price pushed higher from a buying spree only to see a 30% drop on the news of a negative merger outcome isn't the type of move that gets fund managers fat bonuses.

As the Zen master once said: “We’ll see….”