Originally Posted by
iahflyr
Frontier/Spirit would have happened if JetBlue did not interfere. The justice department was right to shoot down the JetBlue/Spirit merger because JetBlue was just looking to shut down an ULCC competitor while pilfering their assets.
I think Frontier/Spirit will be the next merger. It will create a stronger ULCC airline and be more able to compete with larger airlines.
Alaska and JetBlue make sense from a combined airline perspective, however these companies are led my management teams that want to be the acquirer. Both Alaska and JetBlue bid for Virgin America. Alaska bought Hawaiian. JetBlue bid for Spirit. I just don’t see how Alaska and JetBlue management teams could agree to a merger. Maybe I’ll be wrong on this. Either way, I don’t see it happening until Alaska/Hawaiian is a little more settled.
One thing to add to that. ALK has One World. Which is a great alliance for ALK that has a limited network. It offers their customer's pretty much any place in the domestic and world market. JBLU has limited code sharing arrangements without a full alliance with the big three. If you look at the four largest carriers, all have one thing in common. All have a huge presence in the middle of the country. Most have very large operations in the largest population centers. Which makes their network's that much stronger and diverse. Both JBLU and ALK have dominance in their respective regions but both lack the middle. ALK has One World to fill that somewhat but JBLU doesn't really have that. I would think JBLU would want to tie into something that would offer their network the biggest possibilities without regulatory scrutiny.