News Spirit Airlines cessation of operations

[mkt]

I don't think they have the cash to do that. Would have to get major injection of cash from a PE firm, and that takes time since they would need to have a shareholder vote on it as it would dilute the value of the shares.

That would be true if they had to buy the planes. They don’t. Most of Spirit’s fleet is leased. And while Jetblue's fleet is the opposite, they have leased aircraft and actively lease aircraft.

Lessors would rather have JetBlue Airways operating those aircraft than a distressed carrier, so it’s largely a lease assumption and renegotiation exercise.

There are costs, but not "raise a pile of equity first" level costs. More of a "pick the best frames, assume/renegotiate the leases, replace the interior, align maintenance, and paint them" deal. Which is far FAR cheaper than new planes.

How much cheaper? If done properly, as a best case scenario hey could easily refit more than 20 Spirit planes to Jetblue's standard for the cost of one new plane.

Finally, this is a bit of futureproofing. There’s effectively a 10 year backlog on new A320 family aircraft. This is one of the few ways JetBlue Airways could add capacity without waiting until the 2030s.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Regardless of which side of the aisle you may be on, Spirit’s failure was of their own doing…I don’t care where a CEO might have earned their MBA from, you don’t overextend your company…and that’s exactly what they did.

A business just starts to turn the corner and make a small profit and right away, let’s expand…we’ll make twice as much money, twice as fast…one crisis and it’s more often like we’ve lost twice as much money twice as fast…I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count…

Airlines are a crappy business that would be better nationalized but can’t figure it out on their own. Not that nationalization is a good idea at all.

If airlines need $1000 a seat on every passenger and can’t hedge against operational disruptions at all…they can’t effectively exist in the free market. Not at all realistic

 

[mkt]

Airlines are a crappy business that would be better nationalized but can’t figure it out on their own. Not that nationalization is a good idea at all.

If airlines need $1000 a seat on every passenger and can’t hedge against operational disruptions at all…they can’t effectively exist in the free market. Not at all realistic

State owned airlines are hit or miss, but the best ones are amazing (looking at you Singapore Air and Emirates).

Here's an interesting video that popped up on my feed this morning

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

State owned airlines are hit or miss, but the best ones are amazing (looking at you Singapore Air and Emirates).

Here's an interesting video that popped up on my feed this morning

Is don’t advocate for that…but somethings need a government behind them to even be relatively stable.

It’s a late 20th century myth that private cures everything.

Never did and never will. Especially when you want a society to have things and there’s never a profit to be made

 

[Smiley/OCD]

I don’t now (or never did) have a problem with “budget” airlines that are “no-frills” and charge for everything…last year my DD was working in South Dakota for the summer and I flew from Newark to DesMoines, IA, met her at the airport and drove home with her to NJ…just a small bag with a few changes of clothes. I flew on Alligiant for the first time (only because they were the only airline to fly non stop…the flight was 59.00 + a few extras which brought it up close to 100.00, but the customer service and flight crew was absolutely phenomenal. If Spirit had 10% of Alligiant’s CS, they might’ve had more fans and still been in business…

It WAS a shame to see all those shiny Spirit jets parked at Newark when the United flight hit the bread truck & light pole on the NJ Turnpike yesterday…

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

So the financial analysis after the dust settled is that spirit would have sunk jet blue…

Jet blue isn’t in real great shape anyway now…

And they and frontier are gonna be screaming for bucks if there’s any kind of crash.

Not really surprising at all

 

[parksandtravel]