Originally Posted by
FriendlyPilot
This is an easy one. There is no value there and you are just buying $2B in debt that has to be satisfied. There are no assets and integrating crews, reconfigurating planes, etc would be painful. The most likely choice is that everyone is waiting for the CH7 liquidation to buy some assets at a discount without the debt of the whole enterprise. Probably some gates and possibly planes. This is why the other airlines stocks were up 10% yesterday and Spirit was down 40%. Nobody will "acquire" Spirit because its not actually cheap. Its incredibly expensive. The best thing for any airline would be its largest competitor buying Spirit in whole. It would be a huge drag on their business.
There are some benefits to buying whole, if you're interested in specific assets.
If the price is right, you can cherry pick what you want, and then auction off the rest yourself at your leisure. Otherwise you'd have to fight it out at auction.
Also gates and slots are typically owned/controlled by the airport authority and probably do not transfer as assets... the local authority would simply re-allocate those to maximize benefit to their local travelers and economy, whether that's a startup airline for competitive reasons, specific destinations, or even bringing in foreign airlines to enhance the tourist economy. The only way to keep gates/slots in many cases is to continue to operate per the original terms of the lease/allocation. Yes, there are a few jurisdictions where you can in fact transfer such things but those probably aren't the ones other airlines would be excited about.
What scope provisions does the NK CBA have regarding sale/transfer of aircraft (outside of BK)?