B6 Merger Poll
 

Now post election which merger is most likely ?

Southwest Buying Jetblue ?
American Buying Jetblue ?
Alaska Buying Jetblue ?
Jetblue merging with Frontier & NK

If I were a legacy CEO I would want to nip these mergers before they start to snowball into another big competitor. NK/F9 and AS/B6 today, then those two combine in a few years, and thats a serious threat.

Instead, I wonder if we see the legacies kick off this consolidation round with something like UA/NK, DL/F9, AA/B6, WN/AS

Interesting observation ! I feel like it will be hard for us to go against all these big boys alone.

E) None of the above

We’ll hear about it in 10 years how they dropped the ball on deciding who will take over and the surviving of the brand. While everyone finds their match we will focus on acquiring Cape Air and Silver to further demonstrate our commitment to our NE and FL cities.

Not really a threat for the Big 3. Combining smaller airlines might be good for them, but its doesn't change the total number of seats or flights. Southwest is massive compare to any of those small airlines and they aren't even really competitors to the Big 3 since they have no International footprint and they serve mostly point-to-point markets.

B6/NK was supported by AA and UA CEOs, mostly because it removed a competitor from the market. One less airline to deal with. No legacy airlines will see a "serious threat" from any merger of ULCCs.

"Refreshed pass riding perks" coming soon = One World Alliance?

OR

RTP = Charging for Mint seats again.

The larger companies have enough money and space to wait us out while we slowly lose market share into oblivion.

If I were a betting man I would say either Pan Am or Eastern!!! Mark my words

F. United (well... not "F-United", but you know what I mean)

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.

I don't know about all of these, and the concept might be somewhat accurate...but they do fly to ORD, and have you been to LAX?

wtf is HOB

Houston Hobby I’m assuming.

This is a moot discussion. The real airlines have JetBlue’s number. A la Spirit, just let B6 die or shrink to irrelevance. In 10 years if JetBlue is still around it will be a strictly niche vacation airline, 2000 pilots total.

A lot of A220s and some A321 NEOs.....

“Just let”

What does that even mean? Who would just let JetBlue do that? That doesn’t make any sense. Most of your posts are pessimistic which seems to have clouded your judgement.

As an eternal optimist myself, I must ask you, has the company realistically given us much reason to be anything other than pessimistic? We're about to see a huge displacement bid, LAX is 200% overstaffed which is going to roil east coast seniority lists, they've given up on the west coast market in the hopes that Puerto Rico and Islip can save us, we've deferred deliveries, taken out a sizeable loan to "keep the lights on", through no fault of our own we can't get ahead of the engine issue, we have an activist investor whose own company losses will almost certainly push them to prove to their investors that they still exhibit control over their portfolio and would be smart to follow a similar path as Elliott -- after all, they are here to turn a profit on their investment. Need I continue?

Perhaps your golden handcuffs cloud your own judgement.

There’s a happy in-between, and predicting JetBlue will be a 2000 pilot mini airline in 10 years is not a neutral-sentiment prediction. That’s all. Being pessimistic is bad for one’s health. The right place to be in right in the middle. That’s how things usually work out.

I don't disagree with you, I'm a follower of The Middle Path, but...I also have a mortgage.

It'll probably be more of a 4000 pilot group. There doesn't seem to be much of a vision beyond a leisure east coast airline. For all of Robin's failings, at least he had a larger vision of what he wanted the airline to become. Joanna just wants to roll back to 2012. Shrink and cut costs. Great....and then what?

Yeah thats it. Because growing while taking on additional debt all while losing money is the way to go! smh.

Then what? Right now there is zero chance for growth for at least a year to 18 months and it would be unwise to grow in this environment by taking on more debt. If the engine issues clear faster than anticipated then that's a bonus. So show me any press release from an American carrier that spells out growth that far in the future? Doesn't happen and it would be insane to do that. Just because you don't know the growth plan well into the future doesn't mean there isn't one. I have no idea if there is a plan but I also know that growth plan announcements to employees and the public don't happen until usually 3-6 months prior. It has been stated numerous times by Joanna that growth can't return until about 4th quarter 2025. I'm far from a juicer and through the numerous poorly run airlines I've cycled through I virtually never agree with management but currently I'm fully behind what they are trying to do. Now when Labor day is approaching in 2025 and there hasn't already been a good deal of new flying announced we will know that the plan is a prop job for a sale.

Did I say anthjbig about growth right now?? I said there doesn't seem to be any vision beyond shrinking to profitability. JetForward! Smh 🤦🏼‍♂️

What you're missing here, and what I believe Roy is pointing to, is that she promised to brief us on "Plan B" at the May Investor Day. That got pushed to fall. I'm not sure if it's fall yet because there are no seasons here, but the lack of any long-term vision is deafening. Of course we understand they don't want to reveal their cards too early, but they could paint it with a broad brush for us, and I'm sure the investors would appreciate it too. The stock price is a reflection of investor attitude toward our future, and clearly they're not quite sure what the plan is, either. The difference between management and leadership is providing a vision and getting your people all working in the same direction toward it. We have great management.

Good post, so I'll respond to this. Joanna is doing exactly what she needs to do right now and doing it well. I never mentioned immediate growth. Again, I wanna hear what the long term vision is. Where does she see this airline in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. She was supposed to share this vision with the board last spring, then it was postponed to the Fall. Now all we here is JetForward week after week. While I applaud her communication, her emails are becoming redundant. We get it, cost costs, get back to profitably etc etc. Then what? She's an attorney with an HR background, so yea, I'd like to know how she plans to run this airline long term. I think a lot of us do. We're not asking for detailed plans, just a glimpse into her vision for the airline. And yes, other American carrier CEO's do share their intent with shareholders and BOD.
And speaking to other pilots on the line, I'm not alone in wondering what the actual plan is. When we're cancelling supplemental bids, completely fuqing pilots over during vacation bids (myself included), I think we're well within the right to ask where we're headed. We're supposed to be back in the black a year from now (4th quarter 2025), then what? I don't think that's asking too much.

Bingo. That abrupt shift is what has me convinced that the plan is a merger.

Maybe the plan was something different, but when presented to the BOD they shot it down and said it’s time to cash out.

I think you're probably right...I hope you're right. The election at least gave us a plan B. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief to see this change in administration.

Election, Spirit Ch11, P&W saga. All things that could push change

Jet forward and Spirit Go Forward... Coincidence??? 🤨🤔
Actually, I give it precisely 0.001% chance B6 tries again.

I don't think JetBlue is in a position to acquire anyone. Geraghty's email this afternoon said the usual very little. Promises to communicate more are a waste of time and money if you're simply paraphrasing and repeating the same information. "We need to be profitable" with the hilarious almost veiled threat-like line, "for those who plan to have careers at JetBlue for years to come." Thanks for the update doll, now where do you see us in 5, 10 etc years as somebody succinctly wrote above?

Agreed but these events could trigger industry shifts that change JetBlues long term plans and a shift in strategy.