Excargodog

Lot’s of maybe’s and coulda, shoulda, woulda’s. What if the government hadn’t totally over reacted to the COVID situation? None of that really matters now, those are all the road’s not taken. Nobody will EVER know for sure how that might have come out. The point is how to go on from here. While airlines have gone bankrupt in the past and subsequently gone away, the aircraft and personnel don’t. But which of the potential future possibilities are really viable?

If the DOJ won’t allow NK to be bought by JB, who WILL they allow them to be bought by?

F9? Because that would be a consolidation of the two biggest ULCCs under the same roof. And what would F9 really get besides the aircraft? And what would it do to F9 if they did? NK has stopped hiring but they haven’t stopped attrition. The junior people are bailing. I can’t imagine the F9 pilots being overjoyed with a SLI of only the top half of the NK seniority list. And although F9 might want the aircraft, I can’t imagine they want a cadre of predominately senior pilots being hired that will start at the top pay scales either - depressing their own upgrades for years and driving their junior FOs away.

Allegiant, Breeze, or another smaller ULCC? Be kinda like a minnow swallowing a whale. Difficult to see that working out.

One of the Big Four? H€|| no there. If the DOJ won’t allow a buyout with JB because, you know, consolidation and monopoly, they sure as H€|| can’t allow a buyout by anyone LARGER than JB.

Somebidy in the government needs to think this through. Look at the polls. The government has already lost enough confidence in EVERYTHING the government does that they can’t afford another very public screwup.

Noisecanceller

Bankrupt and going out of business sometimes are the same and sometimes are different. I can almost guarantee Spirit will file for bankruptcy next year if the merger is not approved. The ULCC sweet spot with the current players barring any new entrants is between 100-150 planes. More than that and the bare bones infrastructure can’t support it and their aren’t enough Americans willing to fly on it. If spirit restructures and keeps the model my guess is they sell most of the order book slowly and shrink back to about 150 planes from the the current 200+

Sniper66

merger will be approved I think

Born2FlyAv8R

I feel much better about it after todays testimony

Andy

I am more watching comments that the Judge makes. Given what he's asked, it sounds like he'll approve it. He's going to be looking at past precedent and B6's divestitures should have sealed the deal and DOJ should never have taken this to court.

JackpotAir

Meanwhile Mayor Buttigieg is really gonna try something never done before by the looks of it

https://thepointsguy.com/news/dot-pe...spirit-merger/

CincoDeMayo

From the tweets from the two people live tweeting, it seems like the defense is bringing hard numbers on legacy control of the markets and the JBLU effect when they enter these markets. The fact they used the DOJs own words against them today, it was laughable.

meanwhile the DOJ seems stuck trying to establish that some people travel solely based on price and not service, which is hardly a nuanced argument.

Noisecanceller

Ya know during the 2020 primary debates he seemed like the only one fit for the job. I will guarantee I will never vote for him for anything if he continues with this intent to put 10,000 union workers out of a job.

N6279P

This is pretty funny just in itself.

Excargodog

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What job? He certainly hasn’t exactly covered himself with glory even being in charge of the DOT..God knows what he might have screwed up as POTUS.