It’s important to remember that the back half of just about every airliner other than the Mint birds or 321T’s are all pretty much basic economy.

Everyone is bleeding cash right now, wondering how they will make it past September without furloughs. Nearly all countries are still at very limited capacity and everyone is running out of money. You think we will really have the cash to continue what we were doing and rapidly expand to the South. We need cash and planes to do it. We definitely don’t have both.

Strategy and speculation aside (merger). Spirit did implement a shareholder rights agreement to prevent any purchases 10% and over.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sp...ing-2020-03-30

I see it as incredibly likely that every carrier (minus Southwest, maybe) will furlough. The extent and length of those furloughs is completely a WAG right now, but without a sharp rebound in passenger levels, or a vaccine, burning cash is not sustainable. Delta wants to be burn neutral by the end of the year. That either means raising their revenue side of the equation, or, cutting the cost side.....

Let's not kid ourselves, it would mainly be about removing a competitor. NK is the toughest competition on our Florida routes.

Additionally, JB needs to densify our A321s to something closer to yours. Instead of our 200 seaters running NE-Florida we should have a 220 seater doing it. Same with our 162-seat A320s moving to something around 168-174 seats. The combined carrier wouldn't be a ULCC, but we would adopt some of the characteristics and become a lower cost LCC.

And let's talk about FLL. We'd have an instant fortress hub, which has been a talking point of JB in recent years, with room to expand to S.America. While the higher cost legacies beat each other up down in MIA we could have some peace and quiet in FLL.

The very poisonous pill doesn't prevent purchases 10% and over. It just cost more if they buy 10% or more to drive up the stock price making me lots of money :)

Mergers cost money and JB does not have money to knock a competitor off in this dangerous market. They are in survival mode just like us. Merging with them wouldn't save us any money because we can consolidate more in mco and fll if we wanted. We dont need JB for a BOS or LBG base and to merge just for JFK doesn't make any sense. The DOT just loosened restrictions and will most likely continue to do so if things don't workout this summer. If we pull though this there will be lots of openings and maybe a change of guard in the big 3. There will also be huge openings flying south of boarder and hopefully we can get better slots than the red eye departures. Great opportunity in the stock market and great opportunity for the airlines. On the backside of this all we need to do is lock up dropped gates because demand will return and our most limiting factor is gates and planes. Planes are easy but gates are hard.

Many of these posts seem to be written by people who WANT a merger/buyout with X airline.
Can someone postulate a situation where such a thing would benefit this pilot group?
I've only seen one MAYBE two in the last 30 years that weren't a poopfest for all involved.
Unless survival is on the line (in which case grab the lube- think Morris) we're better off alone.

The flight you’re referring to was done by the LR which has 3 ACTs, not the XLR, also the simulated flight load was 162 pax with 16 crew.

https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/news...ng-flight.html

F9 because our seniority lists and airline are about as good a match as any. Any other airline (SWA) would be a nightmare. #Airtranned. And can you imagine if a legacy? Just look how bitter US Air guys were when America West saved them......