Republic to spin off Frontier

[signals]

Unfortunately for the little people at F9, the pilots ruined a career and a chance at a well run company in SWA, I would be more than shocked if SWA would pull the trigger on this deal before the dust settles on the FL deal,,, may be too little too late for the rest of the F9 employees who lost out because of Pilot arrogance...curious to know what the F9 pilots think now of those few arrogant Pilots that snubbed SWA...

Don't know what F9 pilots had to do with it. I read the judge awarded F9 to Republic, even though WN outbid them. The only threat I could see from the pilots would be because WN announced it would replace all their Airbus with American-made Boeing!

 

[xUT]

Where is Mr. Fish when he's needed most?

 

[BoeingBoy]

Don't know what F9 pilots had to do with it.

Here's an article that goes into it:

Article

Note that WN's bid was contingent on the two pilot groups working out seniority integration before the auction.

Jim

 

[swamt]

Here's an article that goes into it:

Article

Note that WN's bid was contingent on the two pilot groups working out seniority integration before the auction.

Jim

Trust me, it had nothing to do with the pilots not comming to an agreement. That was used as an excuse to walk away from it, with Republic throwing way more money at it than they could afford to. SWA purposely raised the bidding to get Republic to over bid SWA. I was told in 2009 that SWA will wait until Republic could not afford to hold onto Fronteir any more, and SWA will pick them up much cheaper than their original bid. Well, here we are, 2 years later and Republic wants to sell or spin off. When I was told this in 09, the current AirTran deal was not on the minds. So this may in fact stop an offer comming from SWA. However, I still believe SWA will get involved. Rather it be just for the slots and routes, or other assests. This was planned long ago, but the AirTran deal now may put a hold on a Fronteir purchase by SWA. As I have posted before, SWA more than likely will purchase another airline prior to or by 2016, with the following airlines in order of preference: Fronteir, JetBlue, Ryan Air, and Alaska. Allgient is also a way out contender.
Again the pilot issues were only used as a pawn to walk away. Think about it, look how quickly the pilots have come to an agreement in the current merger of SWA and AT. Never once has anyone heard that the SWA pilots wanted to put the AT pilots at the bottom of the list, as they "say" is what happened with the Fronteir pilots. Just keep watching, SWA will make a move, just don't know exacally what it might be now that the AirTran deal is still in the works...

 

[PullUp]

If southwest wanted to throw a monkey wrench into its entire legacy competition, they'd just buy up Republic at 4 bucks/share and shut'er down.
Cheers.

 

[signals]

Trust me, it had nothing to do with the pilots not comming to an agreement. That was used as an excuse to walk away from it, with Republic throwing way more money at it than they could afford to. SWA purposely raised the bidding to get Republic to over bid SWA. I was told in 2009 that SWA will wait until Republic could not afford to hold onto Fronteir any more, and SWA will pick them up much cheaper than their original bid. Well, here we are, 2 years later and Republic wants to sell or spin off. When I was told this in 09, the current AirTran deal was not on the minds. So this may in fact stop an offer comming from SWA. However, I still believe SWA will get involved. Rather it be just for the slots and routes, or other assests. This was planned long ago, but the AirTran deal now may put a hold on a Fronteir purchase by SWA. As I have posted before, SWA more than likely will purchase another airline prior to or by 2016, with the following airlines in order of preference: Fronteir, JetBlue, Ryan Air, and Alaska. Allgient is also a way out contender.
Again the pilot issues were only used as a pawn to walk away. Think about it, look how quickly the pilots have come to an agreement in the current merger of SWA and AT. Never once has anyone heard that the SWA pilots wanted to put the AT pilots at the bottom of the list, as they "say" is what happened with the Fronteir pilots. Just keep watching, SWA will make a move, just don't know exacally what it might be now that the AirTran deal is still in the works...
[/quote/]
Thanks! It proves that LUV doesn't run on rumors or here say and rumors that run rampant on your industry! Bravo!

 

[signals]

If southwest wanted to throw a monkey wrench into its entire legacy competition, they'd just buy up Republic at 4 bucks/share and shut'er down.
Cheers. w
[/quote ]
He-hee. Thanx! B)

 

[signals]

Where is Mr. Fish when he's needed most?

Probably serving sushi B)

 

[Whipmaster]

i have never read anywhere of a scenario where delta purchases frontier. any thoughts from anyone?

 

[swamt]

i have never read anywhere of a scenario where delta purchases frontier. any thoughts from anyone?

Then why are you asking? And where did you read that Delta was to purchase Frontier? Although maybe I am not understanding your post.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Trust me, it had nothing to do with the pilots not comming to an agreement. That was used as an excuse to walk away from it, with Republic throwing way more money at it than they could afford to.

That could well be. All I know is what was widely reported in the media, including Aviation Week (not exactly a neophyte at airline reporting), at the time.

However, I still believe SWA will get involved. Rather it be just for the slots and routes, or other assests.

I would think the only assets WN would be interested in is the few slots that F9 has and possibly the gates at DIA. I don't think F9 flies any routes that anyone can't fly.

As I have posted before, SWA more than likely will purchase another airline prior to or by 2016, with the following airlines in order of preference: Fronteir, JetBlue, Ryan Air, and Alaska. Allgient is also a way out contender.

I see a couple of potential problems with your list of possible acquisitions. First, Ryan Air (if you do mean the Irish carrier) can't be acquired by WN unless the ownership requirements change. While possible, I'm not sure it's likely anytime in the next 5-10 years. Second, F9 & B6 bring more different fleet types which gets pretty expensive pretty quickly. (likewise for Allegient but you say they're an unlikely possibility). That leaves AS, who is pretty adament that they are fine being an independent airline. Plus they have a much higher market cap than the other U.S. carriers you listed. Plus, as I've said about rumors of US buying AS, they have a unique operation as the only big intra-Alaska carrier that I'm not sure any other U.S. carrier would know what to do with. So it would be easy for any other U.S. carrier to ruin AS by acquiring it as "just another carrier" and end up paying a lot of money for the carcass that was left.

Jim

 

[swamt]

SWA doesn't want the aircraft. SWA doesn't want the employees. SWA just wants assets, gates and /or routes. The only aircraft SWA will keep in any merger is the 37's. Even with the current buy out of AirTran, all the 717's will go away prior to lease dates that AT had with Boeing. The only reason SWA kept all the employees is that AT wouldn't look at any deal, what so ever, unless the employees were staying on board. When need be SWA will be very ruthless. It's just business. Shoot you may even see SWA get involved with the bidding on AA. They may in fact do the same thing to AA/US as they did to Republic bidding for Frontier; force US to bid alot higher in order to guarentee a winning bid, then just watch them slowly wither away, just like Frontier is currently doing.
I really just wanted to answer your last paragraph. SWA don't care about Aircraft, employees, and even other assets, but it won't stop them from purchasing another airline. These are all items that can and will be depleated over time...

 

[gizmo_sc]

Perhaps the poster was thinking of Ryan International the charter company. I do believe they no longer have any 737's just 757-200 and 767-300. If my memory is correct Ryan did some wet leases for AirTran back in the day. I know Miami Air did for a short time. I flew ATL to FLL back in 2000 and it was operated by Miami Air 737-800 I think being over 11 years ago I just remember it was a 737 and after being on Airtran 717 it seems like a very large aircraft.

 

[signals]

Southwest wants F9. When Republic got Frontier from BK, I BELIEVE, WN relentlesly punished F9 to make it a liability to Republic. Now Republic trys to spin Frontier as a great investment. Hmmmm...me thinks Frontier is going home to Mama LUV h34r:

Someone said that an airline relies on the number of gates in key airports. Well F9 seems to add gates and increase international status to Southwest.
Pudding Proof!

Not to mention the domination of Denver and an extra push in Datlanta!

B)

 

[BoeingBoy]

Anything could happen, but buying F9 would add a third and maybe 4th fleet type for WN with the potential 4th being Express-type feed by Republic with planes up to the E190. That's a big change to WN's business model and would drive up WN's costs when it's advantage over the network carriers is already shrinking. It would really add significantly to gates at one airport - DEN - where WN has enough gates for it's operation to expand and UA already has a much bigger operation than such a merger would create. F9 is reducing MKE to a spoke airport due at least partially to WN/FL, retreating to it's "home" airport as it's only real hub. F9, 2-3 years after exiting bankruptcy, is still struggling to be profitable (which is why Republic agreed to spin them off in the first place). Then there's the integration mess - Republic has single seniority lists for at least pilots. Would WN employees be happy integrating express employees into the WN lists?

Then there's that route map. Lay a WN/AT route map on top of it and see how many of the same cities are already served by WN/FL. The most successful mergers are when the sum of the two parts is much greater than either individual part. DL/NW combined DL's strong trans-Atlantic network with NW's strong trans-Pacific network. UA/CO did the same. Even US/HP combined a mostly western U.S. carrier with a mostly eastern U.S. and the combined company has been decently successful despite the integration issues.

Jim