Spirit guy here.... i've been trolling the forums for the past few months trying to get a feel for things. Just wanted to say I'm really hoping that JB gets us. I dig your product :)

thanks for saying that.

As a JetBlue guy, we really dig your pilot group. Really good group of people and great unity there. I just hope we don’t lose sight of the positives during SLI.

Just curious, but could you articulate why money is everything?

I’d imagine only acy. Can’t have 8500 pilots on the east coast only.

I feel like that’s EXACTLY what JB wants (speaking as an LAX guy)

Well said!

ACY gone, because AA is the real puppet master and we will give them more traffic for PHL. Maybe we keep some presence there as a satellite of the EWR base?

DTW and possibly LAS are too low yielding for the JB network. They work better with NK low CASM.

ORD/DFW would be solid to keep around mainly because there are large, rich catchment areas as well as having good geography being in the middle of the US.

ATL would be tough considering the main bread & butter of JB is NE-Florida which means overflying ATL. I can’t see any substantial presence for JB there.

Even with all the above I don’t see any big changes to closing bases for the next 5yrs or so.

When it comes to BW, it's not called trolling when you are an actual troll.

Or, supposing he’s not a troll, answer his question and not worry why he wants to live his life differently than yours.

You are aware that ORD and DFW are hubs for your fat mistress, right? Super-fortress hub in regards to DFW. They really didn't like NK entering the market and have been screwing with us ever since. Not sure they'd be okay with their side piece moving in.

It's not often I disagree with the Oracle, but I do.

Rule number 1: Everyone knows the bread and butter is SDQ/STI. NE to Florida is just feed for more SDQ/STI. :)

Rule number 2: I don't see JB doing this Spirit acquisition just to continue being the same old JB. The core focus may remain, but it will be used as a means to fund the expansion of the Brand more nationally, as well as to move the needle off of "Full-Pegged" NE centered from a geographic standpoint for operations.

As for DTW, I don't see it being closed now or maybe ever. DL runs a very profitable hub there, and there is still a middle class and industry/corporate headquarters. Might shift some routes to what works better for a Blue product, otherwise, see rule number 2.

LAS may generally be low yield, so is Orlando, where we committed to being the anchor tenant of the new terminal and very much want the scale/market share that comes with adding Spirit to JB. They added BDL to LAS correct? The point is you can run flights from LAS to most/many large metros as a hybrid LCC and still makes the financials work, I would guess. Same with MCO (main reason MCO has been back butnered for so long is because it was never really unobtainium). SWA doesn't have a base there by accident, and we compete very well against SWA. I doubt very much JB will go through all the trouble of this acquisition, which its stated purpose is to have a more national footprint, and then close one of it's largest bases and its only truly western base of operations. Back several years ago when Frontier and Spirit were bidding up the price of significant gate space in LAS I had heard from a good source that we were also seriously looking at bidding the LAS gates. Now, as you know, they have been in the past so risk averse and loath to do anything that required financial investment and increasing the growth rate, so I think they ultimately came to the conclusion they had enough going on with Mint/Europe/Delta in BOS, etc... at the time, and it wasn't but a short few years later they said they were looking at PHX/BNA etc.

As for ATL, there are lots of markets there that need competition that don't include Florida, so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss ATL. Huge business and travel base of customers there, and I'm sure many would love an alternative to Delta prices. Speaking of Delta, the way they have been so aggressive towards us, it wouldn't surprise me to see us overlap the highest revenue routes in ATL/DTW/LAX.

And again, see rule number 2.

Just my opinion, it's worth what you paid for it.