Originally Posted by Stratoliner

This ruling shouldn't leave anybody 'stunned' and if it did, you really didn't think this whole thing through. All of the following was known from day 1:

1. JetBlue was planning not just to phase-out the Spirit brand (standard) but eliminate its entire ULCC business model, of which Spirit is the largest in the country.
2. JetBlue's hostile takeover happened only after their initial offer was rejected, and an amicable agreement between Frontier & Spirit had been reached (two companies with the same business model)

Then during, the court proceedings, JetBlue literally disclosed to the court (I'm sure by accident) that their plan was to eliminate this competitor, and raise prices. From a strictly legal standpoint it's pretty cut and dry as an anti-competitive move from the standpoint of anti-trust law. The original anti-trust legislation of the late 19th and early 20th century was aimed specifically at companies like Standard Oil and U.S. Steel whose strategy was to buy out competitors whose operation undercut their own price, and shut them down. There were many cases where Rockefeller would buy a small oil company and shut it down, without integrating it into Standard Oil. Unlike other mergers like Delta-NW, United-Continental, American-U.S. Airways, etc. etc. in none of those cases was the strategy to eliminate the other airline's business model entirely. Southwest's mergers have also been with like-carriers. This was like if Lufthansa bought out Ryan Air and turned it into an airline with reclining seats and jetways.

So on the very surface, it wasn't difficult to predict this very outcome without having to go on with conspiracy theories about bribery from the Big 3 airlines, or whatever. JetBlue is ostensibly a 'low cost carrier' (whatever that means) and it's silly to pretend that this wasn't what they were trying to do: eliminate a competitor which actually offered much lower prices on a fairly overlapping network. That doesn't mean you can't be upset that it didn't skate by or that it's a gloomy situation for Spirit at this time