Looking back at what I said earlier, there clearly is something going on with UA/B9 in Florida with a lot of moving parts and things can fall apart quickly. Try to stick to the facts here and avoid speculation for the moment. WN has pulled back at FLL, leaving UA have all of Concourse C to itself. There are nine gates, several widebody capable and UA has a club, pretty decent one too. Plus, a FIS facility at T1 as well. Theoretically that is enough gate space and a club for a possible focus city which UA and predecessors have really avoided except for that random attempt two decades ago for a UA express hub at SAT. JetBlue has 15 gates at FLL with 5 more coming at T5 when it is completed 2026, the last real expansion that is possible at the moment at FLL as those five gates will fill out the final bit of space. There are 20 gates in total at the JetBlue terminal.

Now to speculation. A name everyone truly should dread in the airline business, Carl Icahn, purchase a nice share of JetBlue yesterday. We all now JetBlue's merger with Spirit failed and the NEA agreement with AA is over. Addition, there has been turnover at the top and JetBlue's finances are available for viewing. What if Icahn were to divest a chunk of the airline, say JetBlue's FLL hub? (Note, something like this has not happened in the US Airline business since the collapse of Pan Am, where Delta and United picked the airline apart and UA's Pacific operation and longstanding LHR operation, as opposed to Delta, is a result of that.) UA leaves Terminal 1 Concourse C and takes over the entire JetBlue Terminal plus those five new gates for Terminal 5. That is 25 gates right there. That's more than they have at LAX. That would be fully fledged hub. The JetBlue Terminal has widebody capable gates plus FIS. And I have not even mentioned that the struggle of the largest airline at FLL, Spirit. If UA swooped in at FLL, taking the entire JetBlue operation, think Spirit would have more problems as they can't afford to lose any more money while UA is in position of spending money to make money, where Delta has been all those years since they merged with NW? Don't think Kirby has a thought of getting hands on something like this considering AA is rather stagnant at MIA at the moment, partly because AA is in major debt reduction mode now and that is their primary concern. That would be the competition rather than a financially ailing Spirit. Two legacies having two South FL hubs? The combined statistical area of Gold and Treasure coasts has 7 million people.

Well anyway, things behind closed doors are aligning to an extent but as I have said, this could fall apart easily. AA nearly went into ATL after EA collapsed but Crandall pulled the plug on it. Thought Delta was too strong. Good call on this part.