FNGFO

The point, that you are willfully missing, is that it was clearly a BS projection. You cannot sit here and tell anyone with a straight face that you believe Spirit management honestly “projected” zero increase in labor costs for the next 5 years including their pilot group. Sorry. Not buying it. B6 didn’t buy it. They’re confident that the shareholders wont buy it either.

Really what this comes down to is you have a nice thing going in Florida and fear a B6 merger will end your occasional day turn schedule. Fair enough. I don’t want to get displaced to Florida and commute for much of the remainder of my career either. That’s more likely with B6. We all have our personal motivations. I think an F9 merger could be a good thing once they get past the next 5-7 years where an inability to attract crews en masse will prevent the growth you think is a given. So I prefer the best option for me now with a product that might have national appeal if it’s allowed to gain the size, bases and gates to attract customers who otherwise don’t have a chance at the product.

Round Luggage

I was wondering if they really wanted spirit or if they were offering to expose the situation when Spirit turned down an obvious better deal for an obvious reason.

DEM1933

Yes it really is that simple.

BeatNavy

Except it’s not. To ignore the offensive side of the acquisition is just silly. Jetblue isn’t paying over $4bn (when you factor in the cash cost of the transaction plus the cost of integration) to almost double their Airbus fleet and associated crews, add bases and expand west, just to eliminate a competitor? That’s 1) illegal and 2) not what is happening. It isn’t that hard. It’s an opportunity to rapidly scale outside of their existing networks in a time where airplanes and pilots are constrained and a finite resource. Is there a defensive component in there? Yes. In FLL, clearly. But I guarantee you no airline will borrow cash, the amount of which is greater in size than their entire market cap, to eliminate a competitor in essentially one city.

I’m against the B6/NK merger from a personal desire standpoint, and some other reasons, but the emotional drivel I see mostly from F9 guys, and some NK guys who are emotionally tied to becoming a world dominating ULCC, is getting tiresome.

FNGFO

The idea that B6 is doing this solely as a defensive measure is refuted by the fact that they’ve approached NK numerous times over the last number of years about this.

They were trying to do this for a long time before the merger announcement.

DEM1933

You complain about emotional drivel, but my comment was actually intended to remove the emotional drivel. I guess I didn’t get that across, but I’m no CEO, just a simple heavy equipment operator.

DEM1933

I agree with this completely. The Frontier deal just moved it from the back burner to the front.

BeatNavy

It wasn’t directed at you, more at the guy(s) (like the one you quoted) who claim the sole purpose of spending probably over $5bn is to eliminate a competitor/future competitor (especially when the words “out of desperation” and the like are used).

I maintain that it’s simply a business decision that the suits in Long Island city feel makes sense for a multitude of reasons. Although it appears both management teams are using feigned emotions to further their case with the shareholders/Wall Street, and the pilots seem to be echoing those feigned emotions and getting actually emotional about it (to be expected as this will change the trajectory of career expectations in many ways for all 3 pilot groups). But, I just try to stay unemotional about it, as there’s zero any pilot at any of these 3 carriers can do to change the course of this.

DEM1933

Completely agree

FlyGuy2002

You keep swinging and keep missing. It’s not emotional as you put it. Although robins musings certainly appear so. Business decision as you put is and to rapidly scale ? Out west ? There’s plenty of other airlines You can purchase for airplanes and pilots. Hell you even failed once at at trying that. As I suspect this will fail. The west has been open since Lewis and Clark . You coulda bought planes, scaled, focused on middle America, and grown wherever you wanted and whenever you wanted. This misguided notion that you Want us to supplement your growth plans or expand or do whatever it is you wanna do, woulda seemed more plausible had you made ANY of these moves Prior to our merger announcement. It’s really obvious to many it’s a play to box out a future competitor. You have the legacies on one side, now a potential low cost disruptor on the other, all while the Omni present powerhouse that is southwest is everywhere. There’s plenty of other carriers you can marry or acquire. Hell go buy frontier .. but knocking on our door un solicited and offering a purchase is a door you coulda knocked on anytime. And since you keep saying it’s all business falls flat as well. Pursuing a company that you admit will cause a lawsuit by Uncle Sam, and facing a protracted court battle and divestitures seems shrewd business to you? Spending what you say is your weight in market cap to buy one airline to scale up and move out ‘west’ Seem wise use is resources? Maybe you do.. But the very nature of the Timing, aggressiveness, and propaganda clearly shows to many this is a move that certainly appears defensive in nature. And JetBlue BOD keeps trying to win the hearts and minds campaign of the spirit shareholders. News flash they don’t care one iota about the spirit shareholders. They wanna dangle a carrot big enough to bite then be rid of them , and rid yourself of a competitor in one swoop.