rasheed

Except for a bit of divestiture in Denver as mentioned by others, I expect buying F9 would be no issue for Southwest.

https://www.flyfrontier.com/about-us...-configuration

People may or may not remember that it was the unions that made the previous attempt not move forward.

Southwest Airlines' Bid to Acquire Frontier Not Selected at Auction ? Southwest Airlines

I don't think labor relations have improve that much except there is likely some interest from the FA union to have non-Boeing planes.

LegalTender

Unless I'm mistaken, Frontier is built around the leisure traveler, while WN is lately chasing the business market. It's a very young fleet with industry-leading fuel efficiency. But I don't see regulators indulging that impulse. The argument that mergers offer a public benefit fails in an era of gushing profits.

beyondhere

I agree It would likely close a dozen or more stations again, but a number of those former AirTran stations like MDT that have Frontier but not Southwest also have Allegiant and Allegiant ihas much more service than Frontier in many of them. (Frontier's service in Harrisburg is quite light) It would be interesting how Southwest would handle TTN and if it would close EWR again.

In general, I could see WN reutilize aircraft elswhere. Southwest could use the aircraft to boost medium market stations like CLE, and large stations like BNA into bigger hubs. CLE could get boosted to the service levels that CMH and PIT have currently. Back when United closed the hub in CLE, Southwest was pre-occupied building up DAL. Then came a battle in California, Hawaii and MAX issues.

Buying up Spirit would seem more anti-competitive since Spirit is larger and I think it has more overlapped routes.

djp98374

I see Alaska and Jet Blue merging

It makes far better sense for a few reasons

1. JetBlue is primarily east coast with flights out west. AS is primarily west coast
2. they share common international partners

If they merge there would be 5 major US carriers which is good competition.