I think Franke wants this done. There seems to be enough smoke to think it’s close. He met with spirit board days before bankruptcy, possibly outlining what to do before a merger was possible. Now he fires the CEO that most likely didn’t want to pursue the merger. Like a CA that refuses a flight and then they find a reserve to do it. The new CEO is an interim. Bloomberg article with a source days after the ceo swap. I think it’s likely.

 

Holy run‑on sentence, Batman—did your grammar file for bankruptcy too?

Periods. Commas. Grammar. Syntax. Try it sometime—your writing looks like a NK’s balance sheet.

 

Pot. Kettle. Black.

 

Good luck everyone. I went through two SLIs. They were anything but civil.

I enjoy speculation as much as the next guy, but we might want to wait until something has been announced. There are many possibilities and while a merger might have odds similar to a coin flip, treating it as a fait accompli is more than a bit premature.

 

What's in this for Frontier? I'm genuinely curious. If Spirit was to close, there would be many aircraft on the market, many pilots and unemployed airline workers looking for work, and no merger or regulatory headaches. It would be picking up pieces at a much better price than going through the merger process, no?

I truly hope that Spirit survives and eventually thrives. I'm just genuinely curious what's in it for Frontier or anyone else for that matter?

 

There's no guarantee at all that any particular airline will be able to pick up any particular pieces (especially the pilots).

If F9 wants growth in a similar market, NK might make sense intact.

 

It's not quite that simple, strict longevity is not the only factor weighted.

It's pretty unlikely that any unemployed pilot will get slotted above an employed pilot, without extreme longevity delta. Even if that did happen, I can just about assure you that any pilots who wind up junior to furloughs will have a carve-out protection to prevent displacement to the street.

"Career expectations" reasonably means that you have an expectation to not have your job handed to somebody at a failing airline.

 

What makes you think Frontier could get any of the airplanes if they went back on the market? 87 just did. Did frontier grab any? Pilots? I’d bet you almost none of them would go to frontier at least not for any length of time. If frontier wants pieces of Spirit they have to buy the cow.

 

Current Spirit management is going to run the combined company. Idiotic Airline Confidential podcast down played Dave Davis 4 months ago saying Biff was going to run it. Now Biff is dirt. That podcast is compromised with advertising payments/hack opinions

 

Perhaps it's already being orchestrated. Franke flies into FLL to work out the game plan with NK. Spirit draws down service to many overlapping (Western) cities shortly thereafter, and F9 is ready and able to fill the void. While F9 continues to hire cheaper labor and grow, NK gets out from underneath less desirable leases, and mothballs other A/C thst could potentially be returned to service at a later date. NK uses doom, gloom, and radio silence from upper management to scare more <expensive> senior pilots into leaving, then moves to cut overall pilot compensation, which in turn pushes even more senior pilots to update their apps Now they have a cheaper combined labor group overall, face less regulatory scrutiny when the deal goes public, and have lowered JCBA expectations for the combined labor groups. What emerges is a reasonably large combined LCC with a broad, coast-to-coast route steucture that holds a larger domestic market share than B6 or AS, and they get a pretty solid discount on the labor piece of CASM for the next decade or so to boot. It may not be a whipsaw in the traditional sense, but I feel like I've seen this movie before.