Spirit Now Sure As It Emerges From Bankruptcy
08-12-2025 | 08:46 AM
#1011
Line Holder
Joined: Feb 2019
Posts: 1,226
Likes: 29
From: baller, shot caller
Accident of history... runup to a crazy election and the local dems in HI advocated in favor of the merger (alternative being potential HAL BK and SWA takeover). Also the regime was on the electoral ropes and IMO didn't want to make any high profile anti-business / anti-economy moves on short final to the election.
Nobody knows what would've happened, but I don't think it would have been the slam dunk that many on here seem to speculate over. It could have easily been blocked just like with B6.
What we do know to be true is that TC lied under oath that NK would be fine continuing on its own and that there was a "plan" to make money again.
Ted gets zero sympathy in my book.
08-12-2025 | 08:47 AM
#1012
On Reserve
Joined: Nov 2022
Posts: 100
Likes: 36
Accident of history... runup to a crazy election and the local dems in HI advocated in favor of the merger (alternative being potential HAL BK and SWA takeover). Also the regime was on the electoral ropes and IMO didn't want to make any high profile anti-business / anti-economy moves on short final to the election.
Wall Street priced it as a long shot the entire time, and for good reason. Sure, the administration could have gone easier but even if the politics were different, the legal case for blocking it wasn’t a surprise. JetBlue and Spirit had to know that. When you can’t even get a Reagan appointee to sign off on your merger, you know it’s a stinker.
My whole point is the people who sit around and blame the Biden Administration, The judge or TC are pointing the finger at the wrong place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKWJ4TIzE1o
08-12-2025 | 08:49 AM
#1013
Line Holder
Joined: Feb 2019
Posts: 1,226
Likes: 29
From: baller, shot caller
Judge Young was just the tool they used to get it done, and I will continue to poke fun at his stupid @$$ quotes in his decision.
08-12-2025 | 09:00 AM
#1014
On Reserve
Joined: Nov 2022
Posts: 100
Likes: 36
Exactly. I don't think it is fair to compare AK/HI to F9 trying to buy NK.
Nobody knows what would've happened, but I don't think it would have been the slam dunk that many on here seem to speculate over. It could have easily been blocked just like with B6.
What we do know to be true is that TC lied under oath that NK would be fine continuing on its own and that there was a "plan" to make money again.
Ted gets zero sympathy in my book.
Nobody knows what would've happened, but I don't think it would have been the slam dunk that many on here seem to speculate over. It could have easily been blocked just like with B6.
What we do know to be true is that TC lied under oath that NK would be fine continuing on its own and that there was a "plan" to make money again.
Ted gets zero sympathy in my book.
08-12-2025 | 09:52 AM
#1015
On Reserve
Joined: Feb 2022
Posts: 112
Likes: 8
From: U.S. 121 CA
In hindsight a look at JetBlue and Spirit's business situation is not promising. JetBlue said last quarter they do not expect to be profitable this year, which would mean year 6 going into 7 of straight losses. How viable would this combined business have been, really? Beyond the elimination of competition, it's hard to see how these two failing businesses, combined, with all the money spent to reconfigured hundreds of Spirit planes and rebrand its assets, could have done much better. Maybe the demise of the Spirit business would have been slowed down, at best.
08-12-2025 | 09:54 AM
#1016
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Joined: Sep 2020
Posts: 1,564
Likes: 345
Yeah, the administration owns part of this mess, but let’s not pretend they’re the only ones at fault. Shareholders and JetBlue shoulder most of it. TC, for all his faults, went on multiple news shows saying the JetBlue deal probably wouldn’t make it past regulators and that Frontier was the smarter play. The market agreed, Spirit stock never got anywhere near JetBlue’s offer price because Wall Street knew the risk was high. Shareholders still chased the bigger number and ignored the odds. That’s greed, plain and simple. Would Sprontier be killing it today? Maybe, maybe not but they’d sure as hell be putting up more of a fight than they are flying solo.
Look at Alaska and Hawaiian. Totally different route structures and overlaps compared to Spirit JetBlue, but they got their deal approved under the exact same administration. If the DOJ was just “block everything,” they’d have killed that one too.
Not only that, the merger guidelines used to block Spirit JetBlue weren’t some new anti business invention. In fact the merger guidelines are one of the few things the current administration rolled over from the last administration, and most of it is just restating antitrust law that’s been around for over a century. That’s one big reason we’re not seeing the M&A boom everyone was calling for.
This is straight from the current DOJ:
"Ms. Slater elaborated on her rationale for continued use of the guidelines in her answer: [FTC] Chairman [Andrew] Ferguson has explained that the Merger Guidelines work best when there is stability across administrations... He further explained that much of what is in the current merger guidelines simply restates longstanding law"
https://www.justice.gov/atr/media/1389861/dl?inline
Look at Alaska and Hawaiian. Totally different route structures and overlaps compared to Spirit JetBlue, but they got their deal approved under the exact same administration. If the DOJ was just “block everything,” they’d have killed that one too.
Not only that, the merger guidelines used to block Spirit JetBlue weren’t some new anti business invention. In fact the merger guidelines are one of the few things the current administration rolled over from the last administration, and most of it is just restating antitrust law that’s been around for over a century. That’s one big reason we’re not seeing the M&A boom everyone was calling for.
This is straight from the current DOJ:
"Ms. Slater elaborated on her rationale for continued use of the guidelines in her answer: [FTC] Chairman [Andrew] Ferguson has explained that the Merger Guidelines work best when there is stability across administrations... He further explained that much of what is in the current merger guidelines simply restates longstanding law"
https://www.justice.gov/atr/media/1389861/dl?inline
The only real similarities between the two mergers were they were both horizontal mergers instead of vertical mergers, and they were both in the same industry. But other than that they were much different animals.
08-12-2025 | 10:02 AM
#1018
Line holder
Joined: Nov 2013
Posts: 4,167
Likes: 226
From: Aircraft & Seat: old & hard
In hindsight a look at JetBlue and Spirit's business situation is not promising. JetBlue said last quarter they do not expect to be profitable this year, which would mean year 6 going into 7 of straight losses. How viable would this combined business have been, really? Beyond the elimination of competition, it's hard to see how these two failing businesses, combined, with all the money spent to reconfigured hundreds of Spirit planes and rebrand its assets, could have done much better. Maybe the demise of the Spirit business would have been slowed down, at best.
08-12-2025 | 10:04 AM
#1019
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 2,014
Likes: 1
From: Retired NJA & AA
https://apnews.com/article/spirit-ai...5f05967b5293d2
Article from AP news updated today. Those of us here who went thru the "lost decade of the 90's" feel for you folks.
Article from AP news updated today. Those of us here who went thru the "lost decade of the 90's" feel for you folks.
08-12-2025 | 10:06 AM
#1020
Line Holder
Joined: Sep 2020
Posts: 1,564
Likes: 345
Truth. Most believe the Frontier Spirt Deal would have been approved and made sense. Am I mistaken but didn’t Frontier make an offer to buy/merge with Spirt again around the end of the Chapter 11 process? Wouldn’t it be better to merge with Frontier vs Chapter 7 which appears to me eminent? Hoping all the pilots have a soft landing somewhere. Hang in there.
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