They just displaced from it but I don't think any base closures are coming before the merger is complete, unless they get the "ok" from Robin.

I see some concessions the govt is going to want to see if they let this through, most prominently in FLL. We will be giving up gates there, I’d bet on that. There is no way the govt is going to let us fortress hub FLL by combining both our sizes as we are.

which is ridiculous because even the combined % of flights at the FLL “fortress hub” wouldn’t even crack the top 10 fortress hubs in the US.

Honestly I think JB management is perfectly happy taking this to a full trial because they know the governments argument is ridiculous. That way they can keep everything.

NK+JB in FLL really isn't even a fortress hub. And FLL isn't even the primary airport in south Florida. NK+JB in FLL would be far less concentrated than MIA, ATL, MSP, DTW, SLC, IAH, DFW, DAL, HOU, PHL, DCA, CLT, MDW, EWR...

I really don't see the combined market share as "fortress".

I know its probably best to play nice for now but is there a way just to go straight to trial? No reasonable person looking at past practice could look at this and say this is more harmful to the general public than Delta/Northwest, Amr/Usair, UAL/CAL or even SWA/airtran. SWA basically taking over the entire MDW airport after ATA was more harmful to competition than this purposed merger. I'm sure the got away with it because they included ORD in the analysis as MIA should be included in the FLL analysis. FLL-MIA is 21 miles apart, ORD-MDW is 16.

While the term fortress hub doesn’t really apply, and I disagree with the other guy about the “govt” forcing forfeiture of gates, your assertion of how concentrated both airlines are in FLL is way, way off. I don’t know how you define “concentrated” but Jet Blue could cancel every existing FLL route they run, keep only the current Spirit routes, and FLL would still have more daily flights than about half that list combined with the merged company.

Isn’t he referring to the concentration of other airlines, not NK+B6 in those bases?

Maybe, but no other airlines have been mentioned. I don’t even know how “concentrated” is defined as a metric when referring to a specific airport.

yea we are talking about all the other legacy fortress hubs.

fll won’t even crack the top 10 fortress hubs in the us.

The latest DOT joint application filing made a pretty compelling case for how FLL would greatly benefit from the merger. As it is we practically fly formation with each other on a number of routes, as well as compete for the limited international arrival gates at the same times. Combined we could offer both more connections and more international destinations while still freeing up gate space for other carriers. What wasn’t mentioned is spreading out the flights and connections would likely smooth out the high demand on infrastructure (security,customs,baggage handling) during the peak pushes, where as now Terminal 3/4 has two modes, frenzied chaos and post apocalyptic vacant.