I think we will see a Spirit/Frontier combination happen because of Spirit's financial situation. AS + JB would be ideal from a complementary geographic standpoint. At the same time, SWA needs to diversify it's fleet away from chronic Boeing risks and JB offers two types - including the highly desirable A220! Will be interesting to watch since consolidation needs to happen at this point while the big 3 continue to grow.

 

Frontier/Spirit would have happened if JetBlue did not interfere. The justice department was right to shoot down the JetBlue/Spirit merger because JetBlue was just looking to shut down an ULCC competitor while pilfering their assets.

I think Frontier/Spirit will be the next merger. It will create a stronger ULCC airline and be more able to compete with larger airlines.

Alaska and JetBlue make sense from a combined airline perspective, however these companies are led my management teams that want to be the acquirer. Both Alaska and JetBlue bid for Virgin America. Alaska bought Hawaiian. JetBlue bid for Spirit. I just don’t see how Alaska and JetBlue management teams could agree to a merger. Maybe I’ll be wrong on this. Either way, I don’t see it happening until Alaska/Hawaiian is a little more settled.

 

One thing to add to that. ALK has One World. Which is a great alliance for ALK that has a limited network. It offers their customer's pretty much any place in the domestic and world market. JBLU has limited code sharing arrangements without a full alliance with the big three. If you look at the four largest carriers, all have one thing in common. All have a huge presence in the middle of the country. Most have very large operations in the largest population centers. Which makes their network's that much stronger and diverse. Both JBLU and ALK have dominance in their respective regions but both lack the middle. ALK has One World to fill that somewhat but JBLU doesn't really have that. I would think JBLU would want to tie into something that would offer their network the biggest possibilities without regulatory scrutiny.

 

Praying for any of the first three scenarios but not the last one 😂😭

 

What does "pilfering their assets" mean? Rebranding them, and using them to serve the new combined network? Cause that was the plan.

 

pilfer - you know when you buy something and then pilfer from it once you own it (from yourself?).

 

SouthWest would be an unmitigated disaster. The others would be okay.

 

I'd say from a culture perspective SW and JB are worlds apart. They hustle to say the least.

Otherwise I think we probably compliment them the best. Saying it would be a disaster...nah....A disaster to those secretly dreaming of being a legacy pilot. Even though those SW guys make great $, it still doesn't have the cache of the Legacy.

 

careful don't want to hurt thier feelings.

Very different business models and beliefs at the managemnt level. JetBlue doesnt mind paying big bucks for gate space, landing rights, and all other high upfront costs...........think JFK, LAX, SFO, EWR, DCA, LHR, AMS. (They just seek opportunites to take money from work groups and save on labor)
Where as Southwest has completely left EWR and possibly other high cost airports and usually if serving a large market is more concentrated in the smaller/cheaper place ........HOB not IAH, MDW not ORD, LGB not LAX, BWI not IAD, DAL not DFW.......if they had the opportunity to fly to London......it sure would be LGW...I dont see them paying for LHR.

 

This has certainly been true in the past, but the next 18-24mo will be interesting to see how the SWA model evolves now that the BOD has been revamped.