This is major — a judge has just ruled against JetBlue’s takeover of Spirit…
Continue reading: WOW: JetBlue & Spirit Merger Blocked, As DOJ Wins Trial
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Right or wrong, it is hard to see a meaningful airline merger (excluding Alaska/Hawaii, which is a bit idiosyncratic) being approved with the current DOJ/administration.
I do think Spirit, in terms of offering low fares, is better for low fare customers as an independent company than part of JetBlue.
The lesson of the recent DOJ/court actions (outside a big change in the political environment) is that airlines need to simply compete better, not rely on tie ups, alliances, mergers...
Hardly surprising, as it would've taken one of (if not "the") largest ULCC flying, and stuffed it with a hybrid carrier that has no clear/consistent idea what it actually wants to be.
F9+NK may have had a chance, as it just would've created a more powerfull ULCC to go against the Big3 and WN.
IMO, this never did.
B6 has been digging their grave for quite a while now...ranking dead last in OTP for the last 3-5 years, would make you think they would first get their house in order, but nope...$500M + whatever they had to give to Robin + likely a absolutely livid staff, yeah their days are numbered.
In every market where spirit operates, they are usually priced at least 40% less than other carriers. That’s why we needed them to survive as an independent airline. This is a great decision by the judge.
@ Jerry -- Sure, they're priced lower, but with nothing included. The bigger question is how Spirit is supposed to make money? The airline hasn't made money in a long time, so the business model isn't working. How do they change that?
Both of these airlines are going to be in Chapter 11 by 3Q. This isn’t a win for anyone. In fact the most laughable part of this is that it benefits competition for customers. It doesn’t. It just pushed one or both airlines into bankruptcy or likely liquidation and with it tens of thousands of jobs. Oh and those $99 fares to Florida, good luck.
The Southwest+AirTran merger left a very sour taste in regulators' mouths, as the former essentially just used it to get access to ATL gates and a few cheap 73Gs. Everything else was more or less discarded, and prices within the market are higher than ever, even relative to general inflation.
The idea of a corporate White Knight just doesn't have the luster that it once did, and the court's agreement on the Clayton Act violation really showcases that.
The Alaska/Virgin merger was also a disaster for service breadth, fares, etc.
I know people say the legacy mergers weren't challenged enough (Delta/Northwest, AA/US, United/Continental, etc), but these recent mergers have done little or nothing for consumers.
Now they worry about pricing and competition? They should have blocked American/USAir, Delta/Northwest, and United/Continental.
@ConcordeBoy, you're right that the creation of big 4 with their mergers (AA, DL, UA and WN) has been bad for customers. However, it has been far worse for their competitors. The smaller competitors are being punished for the mergers granted for the big 4. Currently, all smaller players after big 4 are suffering (specially the ones in recent news: Jetblue/Spirit/Alaska/Hawaiian).
To have a fair competition, either you should let there be additional bigger players (like big 6/7) or breakup the big 4 because in the current landscape only the big 4 will thrive.
To everyone whining about DOJ and Biden, I thought, US of A is a free market economy. So I am confused about the whining. Clearly, the market has said, in their current form, JetBlue and Spirit’s products do not have enough takers for them to survive let alone thrive. So, they should either reinvent or fold. Isn’t this how private companies in free market capitalism supposed to work?
SPIRIT has to significantly raise fares or ELSE!
Spirit lost $158 million in the 3rd quarter.
Lost $554 million in 2022.
Has debt of $6.68 Billion.
Trying to keep ait fares low by Judicial
rulings on small players in the business
is at best wishful ignorance!
you're right that the creation of big 4 with their mergers (AA, DL, UA and WN) has been bad for customers.
I did not say that.
In fact, you don't see equivalent fare disparity among the full-service carriers as they dropped from 7 to 3 within the 2000-2020 time frame.
Also, in fact three major full-service carriers within a general region is widely become the market's "sweet spot" spanning the globe. We see it with the USA3, the PRC3 (CA/MU/CZ), the ME3 (EK/QR/EY), the ASEAN3 (SQ/TG/PR) etc.
There's even argument that AC should be included with the USA3 for the region, TK with the ME3, and GA with the ASEAN3.
So, no. They're about where they should be. The lower cost players, on the other hand..........
Why?
You got three airlines that could compete to all corners, versus 7 regionals with no impact in large markets; and there's no evidence to suggest that fares rose relative to pre-2010s adjusted for inflation.
So while it's popular to repeat this line, it isn't really borne out.......
Right, because we've never seen an airline bankruptcy in the US prior to Joe Biden?
Anyway, back in the real world:
Chpt11, though painful, might be the best thing that could happen for B6.
Shed the remainder of their Embraer commitments, cut costs, regroup, and figure out what they actually want to be: a transatlantic/S.American-serving premium carrier, or a consistent low-cost-basic-service provider.
Trying to do both, ain't working.
Clinton was so corporation-friendly — helps to land yourself and your near and dear ones with plum seats on the BODs of companies post-Admin — that his DOJ and nominees to the federal judiciary were more or less corporate kiss-ups too. The previous and later Republican Administrations were in the pockets of the US Chamber of Commerce types and they too have been fully on board with corporation-friendly judges being appointed to the federal judiciary. The end result between a cowed bureaucracy and an intellectually-bought federal judiciary was that a lot of anti-competitive mergers and acquisitions were allowed despite the harm to be done to consumers.
As soon as Clinton stopped listening to Robert Reich in any meaningful way, the Clinton Admin was about as good as useless in protecting consumer interests. It’s the Clinton Admin that gave us banks “too big to fail” by pushing for the end of the division between investment banking, other broker-dealers and commercial banking.
Legacy Carriers didn't want more competition and probably helped influence this. These carriers are too small to compete with the bigger legacy carriers and combining the smaller ones would help, but of course this would never happen. Now were still stuck with just three that control almost all the routes across the U.S.
Neither airline is great financially at this point. They both have lots of debt. The merger would make that worse. The US needs airlines that can make money consistently. Combining 2 terrible balance sheets is not necessarily the best path forward. If they are both headed for bankruptcy, the best path is the least cost to taxpayers.
"and probably helped influence this."
How would they have done that?
This was a lawsuit in federal court. Are you saying they bought off a judge? Because that's a fairly lofty claim, to make without any kind of evidence.
If JetBlue and Spirit die, that’s almost 200 narrow body Airbus’ available for Alaska and United to buy to replace their cursed MAX fleets.
Is that actually the transcript from the court?! Sounds more like a news headline. Bizzare.
It's hard to argue that the big 4 are bad for consumers. Right now, the U.S. airline industry has better connectivity than anytime in history (save, perhaps for the time right before the pandemic), a remarkable safety record, more fare classes to choose from, and -- when adjusted for inflation -- cheaper fares, too. It's actually a very good time to be a traveler.
Consolidation is part of the airline industry, it has been for decades, and it is what made the big three.
Not all industry is the same nor do they function with the same structure. For a federal court not to realize that is unfortunate and will ultimately hurt consumers.
This was a poorly conceived Merger from the getgo.....like mixing Oil and Water and expecting Champagne. WTH were they kidding? SPIRIT and FRONTIER combining would be good for the consumer but never JetBlue with SPIRIT. Both carriers will struggle moving forward since both are in poor financial and operational shape. SPIRIT will more than likely fold completely and JetBlue will end up being broken up and sold in parts. This is a clear cut case where Management had visions of grandeur and thought they would pull off a fast one.
Jetblue tried the same as what AT&T tried and failed with Tmobile, taking out a close competitor off the market. And look where is Tmobile now.
The problem for Spirit is that their customer base is already being squeezed by higher living costs so there's less money for travel. The business model is built upon fully packed planes. Even a modest decline in load factors and they're toast. They make money on high volume/load factors. ancillary fees and keeping costs to a bare minimum. That's become harder to pull off.
I think you are confused. Free market means conducting business free from government intervention. Therefore, in a true free market economy, airlines would have the freedom to conduct their business as they wish, including merging if they so decide. The fact that the government blocked two private business' decision to unite their operations is proof we don't live in a free market economy.
What's that going to do against the number of unions who also wrote them, but in opposition.
Santos, a fitting name for someone pretending to have knowledge or credentials to talk about legal issues they don't understand. Amicus briefs are filed with appellate courts, not in trial courts. None was filed here. (And amicus briefs rarely have much effect on decisions even in those appeals where they are filed.)
This is a blessing in disguise. While Jetblue will be accountable for the breakup fee (less payments already made) this is likely less than the losses they would incur from taking on Spirit which is bleeding cash and from the very high integration costs. The breakup fee will likely be less than Spirit's loss for just Q4 2023 through Q1 2024.
Jetblue now must take control over their business by:
- restoring their customer's trust (developing an on-time arrival rate)
- modernizing the IT experience
- recapture market share through further deployment of a220's
Right now, Jetblue's two focus cities in Florida are Fort Lauderdale and Orlando which both face heavy competition. Southwest has just pulled out of international service that is very helpful. Jetblue needs to seriously reconsider deploying their assets and creating a new focus city in an growing market such as Nashville or Raleigh.
uh, how would absorbing another money-losing airline with a worse balance sheet slow down the timeline to a JB Ch11?
What you are referring to is an ideal world. We don’t live in one and I bet no one would want to. The practical definition is minimal government intervention (and this was minimal). Because when private enterprises are allowed to maximize profits without any oversight or regulation, we get anarchy (2008 was just a small example of what could go wrong).
If the whiners here were ok with government intervention in 2008, they better cut their whining about JB and Spirit.
Consumers are being hurt right now due to big 3. Consolidation is almost always bad for consumers (just look at US military’s defense procurement). Due to big 3, the prices have gone up, services has gone down and average consumer gets less for what they are paying for.
I disagree. The colidation of DL, UL, AA, and WN has allowed the companies to invest in wifi, better reliability, safety, and online transactions. The ability to make single digit profits also has helped the employees of these companies with having a stable job.
Prior to consolidation, all these companies (except WN) sold a product below cost and went bankrupt.
Alaska + jetblue merge makes more sense to me especially since Alaska holds virgin America which jetblue really wanted.
That example would work if it was delta trying to take out spirit but the example doesn’t work with B6 and NK. B6 was trying to scale quickly to be able to compete with the big 3 carriers
My guess is if Jet Blue really wants a merger of some kind, they will wait until after the 2024 elections before pursuing one. If Trump should win I doubt he would care about any airline merging with another. He’s probably never heard of Spirit Airlines.
This merger blockage by the DOJ has major implications for the airline industry coupled with the Boeing mess. 2024 seemed like it was going to be a good year but 2 weeks into the year it looks like it might be another bad year for most of the industry.
Not after Alaska got rid of Virgin America's fleet (which would have fit B6's) and dismantled the West Coast route network.
There is no 3 sweet spot!
There are 4 big carriers in USA.
China is not a free market. The state controls and restricts the airlines. It basically owns them. So nothing natural or sweet there.
ASEAN3??? Where did you pull this random group from? You could easily add MH and GA to this group to get ASEAN5! I think people would compare SQ to CX more than any other Asian airline. TG has been a disaster for decades so can hardly be called a sweet spot.
ME3 has really turned into ME2. Etihad has been suffering for quite a while and rumours of merger with Emirates have been persistent. It has survived with subsidies. What about Turkish and Saudia?!
IAG, AF/KLM and LH in Europe happen to be a 3. But then they operate multiple airlines so not sure this works.
Under this view then yeah there may be an argument they might not have got approval if they were to happen today. politics change and there is a more aggressive stance against mergers compared to 10 years ago.
It looks a little strange because in most markets, regulators get concerned when it results in a reduction in competitors from 4 to 3 players. But this would be creating a 5th large airline group.
I think they must be saying that DL, AA, and UA (and possibly WN) are not CLOSE competitors and therefore do not provide a strong constraint on pricing.
You would think that Breeze and Avelo entries and Allegiant and Frontier growth would demonstrate competition and constraint on pricing. But I guess they are not large enough to provide enough constraint.
And they have been losing a lot of money doing it. Hence the rationale to merge (either with Frontier or JetBlue) and grow scale to cut costs.
Now that looks out the window. I guess they could try to merger with Frontier again. But not sure they will want to go through another antitrust process with uncertain outcome.
So they need to quickly turn around losses. This will be to either increase prices or to cut the unprofitable routes. Or both.
WTF ? Who is the judge ? One must wonder if was bribed /lobbied over or flies once per two years …., very shameful for its institution!
OJ in airline world!
I think that’s right for the big guys. But I don’t think AA, DL, UA or WN expect to merge or buy anything.
Remember UA/US merger was blocked and it sent US into Chapter 11 and merged with America west. Arguably all the major consolidation was allowed because most of the airlines were in Chapter 11 and the industry was suffering and exits were likely to happen without merger consolidation.
I suspect B6/NK will feel really hard done by as they think they were creating a strong 5th player to compete against the merger. Clearly DoJ won the argument that it was actually eliminating low cost competition that the majors don’t constrain and there would be incentive to raise prices. It appears B6 started to run the potential of NK exiting the market without consolidation (or raising prices) but the courts haven’t bought it.
I think Alaska / Hawaiian will happen because many of the markets are different. (Eg HA doesn’t operate mainland to mainland flights). However I think they will have to address the Hawaii / West Coast overlap routes. Disposals to JetBlue or southwest?
Maybe. More likely is that B6 will just need to focus on a new strategy. Their energy for the last year will have been spent on thinking about the merger strategy rather than operating as a standalone airline.
Maybe start working with AA on the NEA appeal but wouldn’t hold your breath that will pass.
I think the judge was borrowing a turn of phrase from Daniel Webster, who argued successfully before the Supreme Court on behalf of Dartmouth College in 1819: “It’s a small college, and yet there are those who love it.” It was a landmark case that fundamentally limited the power of state legislatures to alter or dissolve private businesses and contracts.
Okay? They can sue anybody but that doesn’t mean they get what they want. They present a case and the other side presents a case and then the judge decides. If you’re mad at anybody be mad at the judge.
T Mobile merged with Sprint instead. So you're saying Spirit and Frontier should merge?
"Due to big 3, the prices have gone up"
Show us (because, there's actually not much actual data to suggest that at all).
"China is not a free market."
Nor is just about any other large aviation market, yet. Argentina, if it moves forward, will likely be the first. You aren't naive enough to think that the USA and Europe are though, are you?
I stand corrected! I always tell my kids not to talk out of their a** online if they don’t know the details, so I willfully take my own lesson on this one. My larger point was that there are many legal avenues to influence before bribery is involved. As for my name, I had it before the congressman of ill repute. What can ya do?
Add to the pain that many of its PAX have student loans that are now payable. Equivalent to a mortgage on your back as you start your career. Any discretionary spending is out the window.
Should NK file chapter 7 or 11, B6 could benefit.
Leasing agents would put their NEO airframes out to bid and pilots would jump ship. There would be a bidding war among the big three picking over the bones, but B6 could pick up a few experienced pilots and several compatible airframes along the way.
I hope the DOJ does the same for KAL-Asiana merger. It is now very likely that EU will approve this monopolistic plan...
Not really. jetBlue *did* want Virgin America -- you're absolutely correct, but (for some stupid reason), Alaska outbid them and merely enhanced itself, within limits, as a regional West Coast carrier. A B6/VX merger could have created a national carrier, but it was not to be.
And ORD is correct: AS decided to rid itself of VX's Airbus fleet, which makes sense (in the same way it makes sense for WN to only fly 737s) but stuck us with the MAX-9. Any advantage to a merger/takeover between AS and B6 means yet another purging of the fleet -- getting rid of Boeing or eliminating Airbus, depending upon who comes out on top...
Just read that ruling, was it being overseen by judge judy?
Presumably the right/wrong ppl have/havent been paid off considering its the us lol
Since the issue at hand was low cost pricing of Spirit, JetBlue should have offered voluntarily have their prices regulated for 10 years. i.e. to keep existing routes and frequencies of all Spirit flights at the date of the merger, and only adjust prices annually for inflation.
Why are you so gloomy Tim? Boeing having quality control problems is nothing new and motivates many airlines to diversify their orders for new aircraft. If Spirit and Jet Blue go into bankruptcy so what? Most airlines flying today have flown through bankruptcy and, in some form or another, come out of it. Bankruptcy can give them some breathing room while trying to figure out the best way to move forward. The sun will come out tomorrow Tim, in fact it’s out today.
Maybe one of the Judge's exes or in-laws have a stake in Spirit Airlines' stock...
The majority shareholders of both airlines are Vanguard and Blackrock. We act like we are preventing monopolies when Blackrock and Vanguard hold controlling shares of ALL the US airlines, not just these two. The idea that we are preventing a monopoly is about two decades too late. Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street already own it all. There is no such thing as small airline vs big airline when the owners are the same institutional holders. This is for show only. Vanguard and Blackrock don't just own the airlines, they own EVERYTHING. Apple and Microsoft, Coke and Pepsi, and 99 percent of the brands of every shelf on every store. To pretend that the US is preventing monopolies is ridiculous when the controlling shares of nearly everything on this planet belong to Blackrock, State Street, and Vanguard. They have won the game, Capitalism is over.
I’m very happy the merger is off - Spirit is a tacky airline and would have damaged Jet Blue and hurt its brand.