Originally Posted by
3Cforme
Virgin America isn't profitable. 2010 FY operating loss. 1Q2011 operating loss. 2Q2011 operating loss announced <60 days ago. Virgin America hasn't demonstrated it knows how to run a profitable airline with ~40 aircraft, let alone 100.
Directly from the 2Q11 results press release: •Cash: The airline ended the quarter with $26 million in unrestricted cash and $53 million in total liquidity
Virgin is a unique situation because of the structure of the company.
I would not rule out Virgin just yet since even if it has finite cash on the books, it could easily get more for expansion plus Frontier likely has cash on hand as well. Virgin is privately owned and as such any publicly released figures are to be taken with a grain of salt.
Stay tuned. There is always activity in the markets today but airlines in general overall are much healthier today sans a few carriers.
I know USAirways also has Airbus A320 fleet. But I don't know if the Frontier matchup would work for them nor be possible nor plausible.
Possible contenders:
Spirit
USAirways
Virgin America
JetBlue
Don't know who else does the A320s. But it is unlikely Frontier can transistion without merging.