{"id":14454,"date":"2025-01-30T02:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T02:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/30\/frontier-airlines-proposes-merging-with-fellow-budget-carrier-spirit-again\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T02:00:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T02:00:30","slug":"frontier-airlines-proposes-merging-with-fellow-budget-carrier-spirit-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/30\/frontier-airlines-proposes-merging-with-fellow-budget-carrier-spirit-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Frontier Airlines proposes merging with fellow budget carrier Spirit \u2014 again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-graf\">Frontier Airlines\u00a0said Wednesday it has again proposed merging with struggling rival\u00a0Spirit Airlines, which is in\u00a0bankruptcy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-graf\">Frontier and Spirit first announced a deal to\u00a0merge\u00a0in 2022, but a\u00a0JetBlue Airways\u00a0offer derailed that plan. JetBlue\u2019s proposed acquisition of Spirit was\u00a0blocked\u00a0by a federal judge last year, and Spirit filed for\u00a0bankruptcy protection\u00a0in November.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p class=\"body-graf\">Frontier said in a release that it has met with Spirit\u2019s board and executives since it made its proposal\u00a0this month. Frontier executives said in a email to counterparts at Spirit this week that their plan is better than Spirit\u2019s own plan to emerge from bankruptcy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-graf\">\u201cWe continue to believe that under the current standalone plan, Spirit will emerge highly levered, losing money at the operating level, and this would not be a transaction we would pursue,\u201d wrote Frontier Chairman Bill Franke and CEO Barry Biffle in a Tuesday email to Spirit Chairman Mac Gardner and CEO Ted Christie. \u201cAs\u00a0a result, time is of the essence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-graf\">Christie and Gardner told their Frontier counterparts that they were rejecting the deal, calling the terms \u201cinadequate and unactionable,\u201d according to a letter shared in a securities filing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-graf\">Spirit said it expects to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy this quarter. It has cut costs recently, including by slashing some 200 jobs and selling some of its Airbus planes. The airline had also been particularly challenged by a Pratt &amp; Whitney engine recall that grounded dozens of its jets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-graf\">Budget carriers like Frontier and Spirit have\u00a0struggled\u00a0post-pandemic, as costs like salaries have risen and consumers have opted for trips abroad on carriers with options for roomier and\u00a0more expensive seats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-graf\">Both Frontier and Spirit have been working to upend their business models that were marked by low fares and fees for add-ons from seat assignments to cabin baggage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"endmark body-graf\">The airlines last year did away with cancellation and\u00a0change fees\u00a0for some of their tickets and started bundling perks along with tickets. Frontier last year said it would start offering a premium section at the front of the plane.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div>This post appeared first on NBC NEWS<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frontier Airlines\u00a0said Wednesday it has again proposed merging with struggling rival\u00a0Spirit Airlines, which is in\u00a0bankruptcy. Frontier and Spirit first announced a deal to\u00a0merge\u00a0in 2022, but a\u00a0JetBlue Airways\u00a0offer derailed that plan. JetBlue\u2019s proposed acquisition of Spirit was\u00a0blocked\u00a0by a federal judge last year, and Spirit filed for\u00a0bankruptcy protection\u00a0in November. Frontier said in a release that it has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}