Make no mistake, Lina and Joseph wanted to block AS/HA, REAL bad, to satisfy their activist itch. Nevermind that HA would fail and the islands would be infested with SWA and local jobs displaced by mainland crews. They just got told to stand down due to pre-election political optics.

To their credit, AS managers played the timing exquisitely, and made all the right noises to leverage the political situation. Maybe they just stumbled into it, but given how many landmines they navigated I tend to give them the BOD.

Not wanting to turn this thread political, but it went much further than the DOJ. An entire side of the political aisle were publicly lobbying to stop the merger, celebrated when the government sued, and threw a party when it was blocked.

Employee sentiment had nothing to do with JetBlue. It was an unsolicited offer than had to go to a shareholder vote. A few pilots here and there with a collective insignificant amount of shares had zero influence. The .10 per share monthly dividend for fast money is what the hedgefunders and their millions of votes were after, and Robin Hayes knew it.

Better would have been the current administration's attempt to own 90% of an airline. That's some real Thomas Sowell conservative free market stuff.

Laughably drastic understatement for the amount of the NK seniority list, including some members of union leadership, pushing for the B6 merger over F9.

Ignorant post. Do better, or at least educate yourself before posting next time.

That was never going to happen, and didn't.

110 million shares 45% owned by institutions, roughly 55% was retail. Only 50% of available shares had a vote attached, and you can be sure most of those were from institutional investors. Sentiment of the pilots and union meant nothing. The institutions were going to get the outcome they wanted.

I remember being on a NK jump seat and they told me how happy they were they turned down our offer. I didn’t say anything but I was sad it didn’t go through. Lots of friends at NK and thought we’d do great things together. :(