Source? Do you have personal relationships with anyone on the BOD? I'm curious how you'd have access to information that would be covered by an NDA.
They need to be #5; #6 doesn't cut it? If B6/NK happens, does that mean that AS will put themselves up for sale to the highest bidder since they'd no longer be relevant and couldn't get to #5 without multiple mergers?

LUV flies guppies. Both B6 and NK have buses. I don't think there's enough value added for LUV to have to dump the entire fleet, pick up a bunch of guppies, and retrain entire airlines.
UAL can't go after B6; not even close to reality. I suggest you review the NYC divestitures that UAL had to do as a result of the UAL/CAL merger. And their combined market concentration was less than B6/UAL.
I doubt that either UAL or LUV have much interest in NK; not enough value added for either airline.

 

Here he is folks, the resident expert on all things SWA. That reminds me, have you graduated from indoc yet? How long have you been there, couple weeks?

 

G4, SY, F9- would all be a distant 6. I think they could live with 6 if it were close.

I put what was possible, I think UAL best move is AS. I think ALK best move is JetBlue, but if neither happens, I think F9 maybe… If WN doesn’t like how any of this is playing out, I think they cough up some cash and grab AS. I have never heard F9 mentioned by any credible source, that is a guess, based on their size.

Yes, the #5 source is absolutely credible! I believe the direct quote was “We have to be five, I mean we all know we have to be 5.”

If I had to bet, I would bet AS/B6 in under 3 weeks. Then we will see if UAL or SWA disapprove

 

Other than you stating it, do you have this quote in print somewhere? Because it isn't on the google.
And what about your source telling you that B6 and AS management are talking to each other?

 

Pretty sure in three weeks, you will find my source pretty credible😉

 

So then will B6 withdraw their bid for NK ?

 

B6 works in my opinion, because it won't kill the OneWorld alliance, or any of Alaska's Int'l "partners." They'll get the extra revenue that JB has on the East Coast, or JB gets the extra revenue on the W Coast. If this happens we're gonna need some mid con bases as well. I see Austin as one possibly. I would rather merge with B6, than be acquired/merged with WN. That's just my opinion. The pilots will fare better in an AS/B6 merger. I still have massive doubts this will happen, but it does look like it needs to for any kind of competitive strategy. I hope if it does, AS mgmt is GONE. Interesting times.

 

JetBlue makes an offer for Spirit and out of that we come up with Alaska and JetBlue are going to merge? Even if, in a hypothetical east coast commuters dream merger, there is to much arrogance in the management at Alaska to willingly give up the name and brand.

 

B6 + NK does not make sense... one would tend to suspect that there's something else driving that.

 

Would they have really gone to all the effort of drawing all those charts and graphs if they weren't serious?