Don’t forget to thank Robin Hayes
 

Not only did he leave JetBlue in a far worse position, he managed to engineer the failure of Spirit as well. He may be responsible for taking down two airlines.

When every arm of the government that has influence over mergers is telling you “NO”, you listen. This is especially true when you’re already being sued by the DOJ for the last dumb idea you tried to pull off (NE alliance) under the wrong administration.

Instead Hayes torpedos a merger agreement with Frontier that was widely believed to have promise. He only needs to appeal to the greedy Spirit shareholders and start a proxy war.

The results are half in. Spirit is gone and JetBlue is considered next-up for chapter 11 as they burn through $3.5M daily.

Let Airbus know they’re North American CEO is a turd.

I agree with the idea that so many synergies were likely to be gained with Bill Franki's merger with Spirit. I remember at the time this looked like a formidable ULCC entity that would have had scale that the US market had never seen. Then comes along Robin Hayes, interjecting a largely unwanted offer that the Spirit leadership had largely no interest in; in fact, one of the most powerful pieces of evidence in the antistrust trial were the Spirit board members communimcations that they were against a Jetblue Merger because it was not likely to be approved by the DOJ Antitrust division so it wasn't even a viable option. But he went to the Shareholders and who knows maybe their greed got the better of them. Well, now Spirit is gone, JetBlue is in a spiral as well and paid a substantial price for the failure of the merger attempt, and Frontier may be ironically enough the healthiest one left. This should be an MBA case study at any quality school for decades.....

JB’s decision to put up an astronomically high, unsolicited offer while F9/NK were working through what would have likely been a successful merger, and NK’s decision to chase those mythical dollars will be remembered as one of the most destructive unforced errors in the history of this industry, in my opinion.

Not enough attention is being given to that disastrous series of decisions.

NK’s management wanted the F9 deal. Shareholders wanted the mythical B6 cash and didn’t listen.

I’m a B6 guy. And this is the best take yet. I flew with a captain couple months ago and she said her son was in business class and they are using JetBlue & Hayes as a case study on what NOT to do. It’s astonishing how he destroyed 2 airlines so quickly. It’s like he almost tried to do do this unlike Ichan or Lorenzo, no one made a penny. I’m embarrassed to wear this uniform. We’ve managed to **** off Frontier & AA, destroy Spirit, and then feed the wolf by letting United back in JFK. I’ll see you guys at the job fairs. Good luck

NK pilots & other work groups were also extremely vocal in favoring the JB deal. I’m not sure how much that internal pressure influenced the final decision, but NK employees were loud about it, and ultimately very wrong.

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

Honorable mention to the bankers who kept lending Robin Hayes the money he needed to keep raising $1,000 at a 5 dollar table, when it was clear that there was no plan, just a panic attack.

emphasis on this point. Many were absolutely in favor of the JB offer. Many owned stock hoping it would materialize

This is a bad take. Hayes made the move for the same reason Alaska overpaid for VA. Self preservation. A bigger, strong Frontier would have infiltrated JB's hubs in MCO and FLL, making it much more difficult to exist with significantly lower rates in many of JB's routes.

Yes JB made a larger offer than what NK was worth; as did Alaska for VA. That's not what killed this all. Had Biden's DOJ and DOT stayed out of it, the merger would have gone through.

Now, you couldn't see the engine issues that ultimately would have had JB filing for CH 11 as well, but the product would have been much more sustainable than Spirit. The ULCC model only works at a small scale. Once you grow to levels where costs rise exponentially, the margins and profitability become unsustainable.

While this is certainly true, they made the offer knowing who was in charge, knowing the political agendas of those individuals, and almost assuredly knowing the outcome.

That is remarkably poor decision making from the brass of both companies, in my opinion.