This is all much water under the bridge. Spirit had offers from Frontier after the failed JetBlue merger, which spirit leadership shot down. Heck, the offers were probably acceptable valuations but to an incompetent leadership team that has now driven the company into a ditch that couldn't withstand a shock that is known to appear in this industry, aka fuel price spikes, hubris or shock got the better of them. Now they should get nothing. I do think A4A, ALPA, AFA and the Airport lobby groups at least should go and both represent the interests of their stakeholders and tell the administration that if they get money, we should all get money. On the other hand, if they fail, we will endeavor to offer every single one of their employees interviews for positions that they are qualified for, and the routes that are lost will be quickly filled with at least some basic economy fares. That is all much better than saving a Company that has been sitting there digging it's own hole for years now.

You can claim that it was Biden’s fault, but yet again, here are some facts:

A Reagan appointed judge applied the law (The Clayton Act, if I remember correctly) and blocked the deal.

When asked on the stand if NK was in trouble (flailing firm), TC testified that it was not a flailing firm.

We were in financial trouble long before B6 made their offer and derailed the long planned F9 merger attempt.

You can blame the previous administration all day long, but facts are facts!

1. You have no idea what the offers were or how they were structured.
2. Its not the management team that calls those shots, its the bond holders.
3. The government allowed 3 supersized carriers to merge, then decided a super small carrier cant merge with a small carrier to create ...checks notes... the 7th in size carrier. ... THEN turned around and allowed the AK/HA merger, and now making statements about wishing for super sized mergers , UA/AA statements, blah blah blah.

Previous executive team company mis-management, different government administrations, etc etc. Sure.

Still. The government is what allowed the current noncompetitive landscape to exist, allowing 1000 airplane airlines. Then it turns around in its infinite wisdom and sues to block a savior from purchasing us saying that if a single customer is harmed it cannot be allowed. And now we are 1/3 the size.

Jetblue is having their own issues. I doubt the merger would have yielded a different result in the long run.

Of course it would’ve been different. Long term debt would have financed the merger and an 8,000-9,000 pilot group isn’t going anywhere quickly.

Is it better for JetBlue it didn’t happen, yeah probably. Would the company be in chapter 11 right now? Doubt it and even in a chapter 11 scenario, they’d be too big to fail.

A boomer judge from Elizabeth Warren territory is not a typical business friendly Republican judge. I’m also not so sure they played as much politics with judges back then and judge young was always a more moderate judge.

The previous admin should not have sued to block the merger. So it shouldn’t have gotten to the judge anyway. Just like they didn’t with Alaska/HA and now the Trump admin didn’t with Allegiant/Sun Country.

Too big to fail is one of the most incompetent arguments in this generation of aviation.

Those mergers were 15+ years ago. Total non-sequitur

your first 2 points would have been completely moot if Biden/Buttigieg had not sued to stop the merger. The blame may not rest solely with the previous administration, but they were the certainty the biggest factor in the merger getting shot down.

without a doubt the biggest blame is on Lina Kahn and the Biden admin. Really sucks for all involved.

look at G4/SY, the gov didn’t even look at it. They fast tracked this so fast that now management is gonna be caught with their pants down because the deal is gonna close 3-6 months earlier than management’s best case scenario.