Originally Posted by Name User

Spirit did a sale/leaseback on engines for $250m, pulled $250m from its credit card, and had what, $500m in the bank prior? So, they've got $750m-$1b in cash as they go into this.

I can't imagine they will outright liquidate, their FLL hub is valuable to jetBlue as well as larger carriers like UA who desperately wants a SE Caribbean hub, or SWA who wants their MCO presence which they can then turn into a SE hub themselves. My guess is they will use this bankruptcy to shed all those leases they are paying on while a/c sit around (why didn't they do that on the previous one?) and furlough down to whatever they need to right size their staffing.

In fact if you look at their departures by market:




Would jetBlue, UA, or another carrier let their assets go to a court where they can bid against themselves or would it be better to pick them up once they shed all the debt and dead weight in an all-or-nothing purchase?

I dunno but I'd put more money on purchase than I would liquidation.