I am also hearing this is happening.

AK hands their hands full with the buyout of HA.
Seems like wishful thinking to put JB in the mix within the next five years.

Stock price has had a few spikes this month without any positive news. Unless the market is reacting to our displacements.

Spirit stock had a big spike the week before they announced bankruptcy; the market is not always a reliable indicator. But displacements will save money so technically it could be bullish for the stock.

from sources other than the recurrent text floating around?

While it's a fairly obvious and potentially logical business move, some things have to happen first...

AS finishes up the HA meger, that's probably 3-5 years before they have bandwidth to go back to the M&A buffet.

HA merger needs to wind up being profitable, if they're losing money it's in their DNA to fix that, not double down and spend more money that they don't have on new toys.

Political/Judicial climate might need to be permissive. HA may have been a special case in that regard, with strong local political support from the proper side of the aisle. I'm pretty certain that both Kanter and Kan wanted and fully intended to kill the AS/HA deal, but got shot down by the Party at the 11th hour due to election dynamics.

Also history and culture leads one to conclude that AS is interested only in acquisition, not sale or even a merger of equals. So that might be a factor depending on B6 managers.

And you don’t think they have the capability to amend the agreement and add a third company into the mix if the numbers work? The Trump administration may be the best opportunity they have for a long time.

The Alaska CEO says the merger is going exceedingly well and that they know how to do acquisitions.

The Air Show: Ben Minicucci

They could, either amend to a three-way (complicated and risky), or tack on B6 as soon as SOC is achieved. SOC is kind of the hump, after which they have the freedom of action to get everything structured per their vision, and eliminate duplicate overhead.

But their DNA is very risk-averse. The current leaders are objectively more aggressive and innovative than in the past but that doesn't quite put them in the Doug Parker league, at least by my estimate.

That's true enough. Essentially a slam dunk.

So maybe SOC in two-ish years, and then seize the opportunity?

that’s my thinking. Give it 2yrs and AS/B6 hopefully happens