Originally Posted by
redheadtempe33
I agree it won't be Alaska. Their CASM is actually a fair bit higher than Frontier's (though they make up for it). A purchase by Alaska would make Frontier even less profitable.
Virgin is out. They just don't have the cash (and they would be fools to go borrow it).
JetBlue ... meh. The CASM is about the same. Similar fleet (including IFE, which is a major expense to install), fills a large hole in their route network. The downside is JetBlue has never used regionals to feed their operations, and Frontier does, and that brings in a new level of complexity (that JB might not want. Why fix what isn't broken?). Then there is, of course SWA. Costs aren't Frontier's problem, yields are, so why would B6 want to toss a lot of money into a yield sinkhole? If F9 can't get better yields than SWA (when I believe F9 has the better product) in Denver, I doubt B6 can.
UA, DL, and AA are out. Already too big, already too big, and broke.
US ... another meh. More for the planes than anything else. Unless UA draws down DEN and US "replaces" them, since US can better compete with SWA on a strictly CASM basis (as they have in PHX for years, and recently "won" a rare victory in PHL against SWA).
Spirit? I could see it. While you may not fly Spirit (and I probably wouldn't either) many people do. $9 fares are hard to resist, even with all the add-ons.
I disagree on JetBlue and Virgin America. While I don't know Virgin America's cash on hand since it is a private company and won't IPO till later on, Virgin America and Jetblue both could use the Airbus NEO orders.
Regional routes are going to continued to be served by Republic Airlines which is a Regional carrier that big airlines use.
The only routes that is up for grabs now is the Frontier routes. Quite frankly some slots may be sold off to other airlines if they aren't needed. But Virgin America and JetBlue are both excellent candidates for taking over the fleet with both carriers getting part or one carrier getting a lot of the Frontier routes.
Virgin probably has a lot of cash on hand actually, more than you or I think. And for Virgin, this would allow them to expand on the cheap and just need to reconfigure the airplanes to meet their standards. JetBlue would also make sense and be an excellent fit here to expand.
So I can't say which of JetBlue or Virgin or some combination thereof fits best, but Spirit really doesn't fit here.
Either that or the slots go back to Southwest or other existing carriers and other airlines acquire the fleet of planes like Virgin or JetBlue for expansion since they both need the planes on order.
Frontier reaffirmed the order for 60 A320Neo and 20 A319Neo so it seems as though they likely have a suitor in mind for those planes if I had to guess.
Virgin could use those 20 A319Neo and Jetblue could use those A320Neo or some combination thereof. Frontiers problem is it needs to be part of a larger carrier like JetBlue or Virgin America for it to be more of a success as those carriers are profitable already and have more agreements in place with other carriers and the like.
Without Frontier, Republic can go at it alone or merge with other regional carriers.
And Frontier without regional can be made part of a larger group like JetBlue or Virgin America.
Airlines are going through consolidation right now. We already saw all the other airline mergers like AirTran with Southwest, AmericaWest with USAir, United with Continental, Delta with NorthWest and so on and so forth. So that seems to be the next step for Frontier as well.
When Southwest merged with AirTran it added more routes and expanded its hubs.
Same will happen with Frontier after it is all done. Both Southwest and AirTran were using Boeing while Frontier uses Airbus like JetBlue and Virgin America and yes Spirit however Spirit makes the least sense.
A potential suitor will probably emerge in 2012 sometime.
The Frontier route to Denver is very nice from LGA for instance.