Originally Posted by
3inthegreen
Here is what you are missing. US Airways, Northwest, Continental all had valuable assets and a brand that wasn't hated by all of America. US Airways had CLT and PHL and over 300 working Airbuses and a profitable Shuttle Route. Northwest had MSP and DTW and Lucrative Pacific Routes and 747s to run those routes. Continental had Houston and EWR which made it attractive to United to fill in the South and NorthEast parts of the US. What does Spirit have? 2 Hangars? A fleet made up of airplanes that either can't fly, or are so upside down on, they can't even sell? An A320 simulator they sponsored in DFW with a partnership with AFG. Spirit has already sold off everything they own that had any value. The NEOs combined with the crushing debt will block any mergers or acquisitions. No one want's to take those two problems on. Now, thanks to the worst Scope language in the industry, a few of you might get lucky enough to be fragmented off to the airlines that do buy whatever pieces are left and sold by the creditors committee.
I remember hearing "Our future orders are worth billions. Someone will acquire us just to get those orders". But those orders weren't really worth anything. Its not like they are free planes. You'd still have to pay for the planes. Also since they were just deferred until 2030 or later its pretty clear they could not monetize their order positions in any way or they would have done that.
United somehow was able to order 270 A321 NEOs/XLRs which are already being delivered (not the XLR yet). So it seems that there were a lot of order positions still available.
Order numbers taken from Airbus.com Orders and Deliveries website. The leases aren't included.