And not exactly sure why they would go after JB with a market cap of 2 bill vs Spirits 274 million (over 7 times cheaper, not including the debt obviously). And Spirit at this point would be wayyy more likely to pass regualtory hurdles giving the looming ch11 and pilot furloughs via "failing firm defense".

Once America gets back on track after the election, it’s going to be a free-for-all. I believe legacies may have opportunities to grab up some airlines. Consolidation equates to stability and safety in this industry. Streamlining is key.

I think AS would be more likely to go for B6. Complimentary (east coast heavy) network, similar product culture, and less baggage.

But I'd give them five years to get HAL sorted first.

You just don't pay whatever the going market cap is and you get the planes. Its not like buying a car. If you buy Spirit you also get to take on $3B in debt and very few assets since they are all leveraged or sold and then have to carry the ongoing losses (almost $1B a year) until you can get everything integrated to get the efficiencies. Trying to do that while also figuring out how to put HA/AS together would be a mess.

Virgin/Alaska was 6 years ago and that was a much easier pill to swallow than Hawaiian will be.

The Airbus phase out is not the pill swallowing timeline. Wouldn’t it just be SOC? Synergies realized and single platform seems like the end point from a business standpoint. The measure of this merger won’t be everything Hawaiian swallowed and pooped out 737s.

I don’t think the legacies want to touch spirit. Maybe the airplanes, but not a merger, specially since they might be replacement for older airplanes. The only one that I could see trying might be AA, since that’s the way they want to stay ahead (same as when UsAir/AA merged).

I was estimating when they might have the bandwidth to even entertain another M&A. I could not see that happening in less than five years, could be even longer or never.

HAL will never be fully "digested" like a VX was, obviously too complicated.

Read the part where I said (not including debt) if you include total debt. JB has 6 billion and Spirit has 7 billion. So with market cap and debt, a 3 billion dollar difference. Just because aircraft are leased does not mean the aquiring party doesn't get them so not exactly sure why they wouldnt be considered assets? No they aren't fully paid for but a bunch of fully paid off old airbus's from 2002 in JB's cases aint exactly very valuable either. You aren't wrong abou the ongoing HA/AS stuff. Just simply pointing out spirit is a much cheaper option/value.

I don't see how legacies get even a single aircraft. If we sold off a bunch more via sale or even ch7 there are no guarantees those aircraft will stay here. They will get outbid by government subsidised carriers overseas in a heart beat.