Originally Posted by
FriendlyPilot
Looking at buying airbus planes does not equal buying Spirit. Southwest can get a lot of planes quickly from lessors without getting a bunch of planes they will have to carry the costs on while they try and reconfigure them for their fleet. Also they avoid the debt. Also the CEO said recently they would prefer to keep a single fleet type but are "open" to exploring other fleets. What I've heard is they are looking at 787s, which they can't get quickly so then they took a look at used 787s.
Nowhere in his comments does it give any indication they are "buying Spirit".
Also there is no "we are preparing for a merger" or anything like you mention in any filing etc.
I get why you desperately want another stable airline to buy all of Spirit, but I don't see anyone doing that and carrying that much debt and ongoing losses not to mention the added integration costs. It’s just far too toxic of a deal.
Completely agree. The article specifically states they are looking for new orders by 2030 which gives SWA time to prepare internally for the addition to its fleet. SWA has always been particular about protecting its brand. To add NK to the SWA brand does not make sense at all. The AirTran acquisition taught SWA some things and it makes me wonder that SWA thinks twice about repeating that mistake.