I believe this is timed perfectly with the disclosure window right before spirits labor contracts on the 7th…

This is yet another tell that something is in motion.

switching an earnings call the same day to a week later is odd, and if I’m not mistaken had not been done by frontier since they have IPO’d

 

Maybe, maybe not… why do guys have such a hard on for us purchasing Spirit? Does anyone look at the seniority? Unless your f’n super senior here our integration is probably going to suck a$$ for the sub ten year guys. We can argue well they are going out of business blah blah but ALPA has pretty clear M&A language.

 

I don’t have a hard on for anything. This is not rocket science to connect multiple different events occurring that are leading to an acquisition.

these are multi billion dollar businesses that need structural change in order to regain profitability. Acquiring spirit gives scale for loyalty programs and finally rightsizes capacity deployment across North America.

my opinion on how it will effect me is irrelevant to the event occurring.

 

Sure but how much overlap do we have? Is that beneficial? I’d guess you’d argue well we will rework the route structure. But the ticking time bomb is the debt. Obviously Franke isn’t stupid but you want a contract good luck with the nonsense that is going to ensue if this happens. Not to mention we can hardly run an airline now we want to add more to an already crappy situation. Sounds like a great plan let’s get bigger but not be able to handle the crap we have now.

 

how many billions of dollars is spirit in debt? How many airplanes are they selling? How much scale would a M&A bring at this point?

This isn’t the spirit of 2022 anymore.

Some of you guys are convinced we are declaring bankruptcy in 12-18 months. But buy an airline that’s billions in debt for “scaling” is no problem.

some of yous need to touch grass.

 

😂 exactly

 

Interesting thing is, if you look at Hawaiin, their assets and liabilities, theyre practically in the same boat as spirit but nobody talks about it. 4.2B in assets, 4.3b in liabilities. Spirits roughly 10b in debt and liabilities. You dont hear people losing their mind that alaskan came and swooped them up.
The key difference is Hawaiin has a much better reputation and a product thats more unique and difficult to rapidly replicate than spirit. You also have a c-suite culture at spirit of blowing cash on stupid stuff... bonus's and buildings when your literal only asset that produces revenue, your aircraft, are grounded who knows how long. It's an insane irresponsibility on managments part the way they walked out of the first bankruptcy with literally no plan other than to dish out bonuses. It'd be like breaking your leg, being unable to work fulltime, having no disability insurance... instead of managing your funds... you lose your mind buying a new boat, going on a big expensive vacation while letting your credit cards max out making minimum payments then claiming bankruptcy a second time and walking away.

So sure you can unload the headquarters, some of the old junk jets to some euro airline, hoard spare parts, you'd gain gates and marketshare along with customer loyalty programs, but its almost like being a plumber and your competitor goes out of business... unless you're expanding into new territory; sometimes' theyre worth more gone than buying them up.

And if you still decide to buy them up... spend the money and steal an experienced network planner from a competitor thats profitable... not one from so no-name dumpster airline that no one outside of aviation has ever heard of. You're going to be sitting on a ton of assets and liabilities AKA employees/aircraft that need to be put to use. You cant just run things as is with the current overlap - the efficiency would tank - thats why alaska hawaiin merger works so well for alaska - they expanded and added heavily to their route menu.

but thats my 2 cents that none of you asked for

 

I guess we will see come December 13th.

 

What's supposed to be happening on December 13th?

 

The big announcement.