Lets be honest, a corrupt DOJ dictated spirit. In what decision that you have read did a judge state for the record(im paraphrasing) "to the loyal spirit customers this ones for you". As far as pursuing anyone its hard to say we are or are not. In my 20+ years at B6 I have been told by Barger he spoke with AA. Ive heard UAL offered and Jetblue said NO. We heard about the proposed Virgin merger at the end. We heard about UAL/Continental and DAL/NW because they made it public. SWA and AT was 9 months in the making before we heard anything.

I would guess we are regularly in talks with other carriers. My fear is the arrogance and greed of Jetblue management. Their desire to remain in charge will supersede any salient decision to merge with another carrier. Jetblue can't make it on its own unless it resigns itself to a regional carrier style airline flying Airbuses. Their market mismanagement is well documented.

What do I know but Jetblue has 2 years where the stars are aligned(Pres,House,Senate) where something can/should be accomplished. Fingers crossed.

I think this is a good point. I feel like JB wants to be the pursuer, but the reality is that we're not. We're the ones who will get acquired vs acquiring someone.

I can almost assure you that AS BOD/management will not sell the airline or subjugate themselves to another... they've had an oportunity or two to do that in recent history and declined, they turned down DL FFS and may have also turned down UA. The new (seemingly competent) management team is young, and rooted in SEA. BOD members also tend to have relevant local geographic roots (PNW, Alaska, and now HI).

For B6 to acquire AS as things stand today would necessitate B6 coming from a position of amazing strength, ie a hostile takeover.

I dont doubt that for a second.I believe that is where the impass will be. Sadly, Jetblue suffers because AK is a much better run airline and there are potential synergies would Jetblue management lose their egos. Hopefully the BOD will force the issue. Time will tell.

Hindsight says that might not have been a bad thing…

I think that was the case with the board and why we were the hunter not the hunted…..however Carl and that other guy have now entered the conversation with a lot of cash and experience. That’s what I believe changes things.

(I posted in a different thread about the recently proposed and again negated Spirit/Frontier tie up. But this seems an appropriate place to plant food for thought...)

Maybe JetBlue and Frontier should be the ones getting together!

Both are moving to premium seeats and facing greater legacy competition against any lower cost model. Both are in less of a crisis mode than Spirit financially, but both NEED the cost synergies. Dump their expensive NY/Denver HQs and go to FLL or MCO...

Better with F9 to give more feed for the XLRs routes from BOS/JFK. Just a 2 fleet type A220/A320 operation. A220s fit in many of the smaller F9 markets too. B6/F9 together would compete more effectively against the legacies in places like BOS/LAX/RDU/DEN/PHX/NYC/MCO/TPA/LAS and more. Bag fees, seat assignments, and such in pricing model will work itself out...

(I say this aware of some individuals' future speculated Alaska/JetBlue tie up in miind, which I believe to be without merit. That merger would be too vast and too complex...Pacific rim to eurpoe spread and 5 fleet types (A220/A320/B737/A330/B787) is just too much complexity for a newly merged company...to say nothing of merging more workgroups (and labor agreements) into the fold without a not-yet-finalized (Alaska/Hawaii) merger.)

Eh, I'm not sure we actually wanted to there at the end.

Rick,

Do you recall the year DL approached us?