Originally Posted by FriendlyPilot

Spirit sold the planes because the operation was bleeding cash. It bought them 3 or 4 months of cash burn, but didn't change the outcome. Also it wasn't US carriers taking those planes, so obviously no US carrier needed them. Everyone is either not taking planes (deferred until 2030 etc) or already has deliveries of planes to suit their growth plans. IF Frontier didn't take the 30 "perfectly good planes" they don't really want or need the rest of the operation either.

Spirit also likely doesn't have an "enterprise value". The problem is that any other airline would have to foot the ongoing losses while most of the carriers that would acquire Spirit are already losing money. There are certainly some assets worth buying (mostly gate space) but even integrating the planes is costly and not worth it. It would take a couple years to fully integrate the operations and unless a purchaser has $1B of extra cash they don't need there aren't going to be any wholesale purchases.

If there was going to be an acquisition we would have seen it already.