Is Jetblue Next?
- Thread starter tech2101
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Not for a while. B6 got a big cash infusion from LH recently plus B6 just announced that RASM was up in March by about 13% year over year:
http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/080404/139548.html
My guess is that Frontier is next.
http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/080404/139548.html
My guess is that Frontier is next.
Coffee_Tea_Or_Me
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My guesses are Frontier and Spirit. I also think that Midwest and Air Tran will both have to file for bankruptcy but will emerge as one carrier.
AdAstraPerAspera
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http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008...-good-march-nu/
Rumors of a premature death for Frontier are like shooting fish in a barrel.
Breath_of_Fresh_USAirways
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Frontier, before JetBlue. But Virgin America, before Frontier.
The Lufthansa investment in JetBlue makes the game interesting; however, does anyone remember when British Airways infused a lot of money into US Air in the 90's? (I think it was the early to mid-90's) And gee, that didn't really work out, did it???
Spirit -- hmm. Maybe, maybe not.
Didn't Northwest Airlines just finish purchasing Midwest? I thought the whole AirTran/Midwest hook-up fell through...
The Lufthansa investment in JetBlue makes the game interesting; however, does anyone remember when British Airways infused a lot of money into US Air in the 90's? (I think it was the early to mid-90's) And gee, that didn't really work out, did it???
Spirit -- hmm. Maybe, maybe not.
Didn't Northwest Airlines just finish purchasing Midwest? I thought the whole AirTran/Midwest hook-up fell through...
NewHampshire Black Bears
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IMHO,.....Spirit goes before Frontier.
FRNT is actually a decent carrier, unlike Spirit
Another mystery.....Allegiant. A close look at their stock shows it rising since the latest OIL "BS"
Midwest Exp. is in good hands with BIG RED.
FRNT is actually a decent carrier, unlike Spirit
Another mystery.....Allegiant. A close look at their stock shows it rising since the latest OIL "BS"
Midwest Exp. is in good hands with BIG RED.
It is all about the cash. While FRNT may be a decent carrier the life and death of a carrier is not decided upon by a full airplane or "decent" service. FRNT has some cost issues, much like the other carriers. Spirit may be a tad better off financially than FRNT but being private really keeps most of the Spirit information hidden.
There was an article somewhere that Allegiant was able to survive the gas price and I can not find the link to it. But it painted them in a fairly positive light.
As for B6, could be the 64K question. The quarterly reports will be sniffed by everyone. I would not discount a major pullback by ALL carriers in the fall. The difference to the pullback now versus the post 9/11 reductions that gave flight to B6 the cost for B6 are much much higher now as the playing field is leveled with fuel. They nor any other carrier can afford to throw capacity at a market in hopes of hurting another carrier. It would seem everyone is going to be playing defense soon.
I would envision that yes, AirTran and Midwest will merge, but that is after Delta gets Northwest by hook or by crook. I would guess that DL does a pre-package BK with NW to get just what they want promising to support them on domestic side, ala PanAm II. Then, with NW gone, AirTran gets Midwest by default as the private investors without Northwest's support will dump Midwest to cut the losses. So, then the fun begins. AirTran plays hardball with Delta in Atlanta and pulls down fares up and down the east cost. In desperation, LH not wanting to throw more good money after bad approaches UA about letting them put enough money into JetBlue to buy up Frontier. UA agrees, but only with the agreement that UA gets money for agreeing to divest themsleves of TED to JetBlue and Denver turns out to be mostly a transcon connection point and all TED flying goes to JetBlue along with Frontier thus allowing pressure to be put on Virgin America. United becomes just an international carrier feeding on others traffic.
Wall Street seems to think that Mesa is in dire straights - their stock has plunged by double digit percentages for several days in a row. I haven't looked at their financials, but as a capacity purchase carrier, they should be insulated from most fuel cost increases as the contracting mainline carrier usually pays those. But, like XJT, Mesa's branded flying is probably killing it (where it's paying for the fuel).
And to think they sent AQ packing with Go!. Maybe Go! will Go! Away!
I don't think B6 has the potential to shut down at a moment's notice like AQ/TZ/SX just did, however I wouldn't be shocked if they had to file for Ch11 later this year. The RASM gains are definitely encouraging though. F9 and FL are in the same boat. Lots of nice, new, fuel efficient planes that cost an awful lot of money to park if necessary, so contracting can only be done through Ch11. They all have some value but have way too much capacity to generate the required fares needed to make any money at $120 oil this fall. NK is in a similar position but a lot smaller and has a higher % of their revenue coming out of the Caribbean so they may be slightly better off.
YX can't be doing well with 88 seat 717s but they could park their MD80s without too much pain, unless NW decides that they would rather remove capacity by shutting down YX instead of parking their own planes.
VX shutting down wouldn't shock me and YV and XE may have to shut down their branded flying by filing Ch11. I am also wondering how ZK is doing, since EAS payments don't increase until they are up for renewal AFAIK.
AA, UA, DL, NW, US, CO, AS, WN I think are ok for now but will probably be parking some planes this fall unless the nation decides to spend their tax refunds on plane tickets or oil falls significantly.
Oh yeah, and an LH-orchestrated merger of UA and B6, with UA parking a bunch of 733s and 735s is something I can envision.
YX can't be doing well with 88 seat 717s but they could park their MD80s without too much pain, unless NW decides that they would rather remove capacity by shutting down YX instead of parking their own planes.
VX shutting down wouldn't shock me and YV and XE may have to shut down their branded flying by filing Ch11. I am also wondering how ZK is doing, since EAS payments don't increase until they are up for renewal AFAIK.
AA, UA, DL, NW, US, CO, AS, WN I think are ok for now but will probably be parking some planes this fall unless the nation decides to spend their tax refunds on plane tickets or oil falls significantly.
Oh yeah, and an LH-orchestrated merger of UA and B6, with UA parking a bunch of 733s and 735s is something I can envision.
eolesen
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I don't think JBLU is in trouble yet, either. They're potentially sick, but they furniture to burn, so to speak. There just aren't enough E190's on the market to satisfy demand, so they could sell or sublease a few of those if absolutely necessary. They're also looking to spin off LiveTv and that's bound to raise a few bucks as well. The merger with UAL isn't too far fetched. Neither is a merger with US Airways. All depends on how irritated LH is with UA at the moment. Star doesn't need two large domestic US carriers as members. If UA keeps looking for a merger partner, they might find themselves voted off the Star island...
I'd be surprised to see Virgin America last thru 3Q08. Branson can't put any more money into it, but he could influence some of the US investors. Given their 40% and under load factors being reported by people who fly them a lot, the investors might just give up. Note that V-Australia's first codeshare partner is NWA, not Virgin America...
Frontier? Lots of new aircraft, and they're in much the same position Aloha was in -- being squeezed between two other carriers (UA and WN), and they've got the highest cost structure.of the three (both WN and UA are able to balance things out across their larger networks).
Spirit is harder to figure out. They're privately held, so their financials are held a lot closer to the vest. It's possible that they're enough of a niche carrier to escape the bloodbath.
Midwest will be closed down if DL and NW merge. TPG will be made whole, I'm sure, and Midwest's employees will be sacrificial lambs for the larger DL/NW marriage. Airtran will then be screwed because if you combine NW's ruthlessness as far as scheduling goes with DL's ATL hub, it's gonna get ugly really quickly....
Mesa is the most likely of the regionals to go belly up. In addition to the potential loss of 20% of their monthly revenue should Delta be successful, they've got a much bigger problem brewing.... There's a proxy vote coming up in May to get approval to issue stock in order to pay down a convertible debt offering issued in 2003. Conventional wisdom has the note holders cashing in a fair portion of the $37.8M that's able to be called. Mesa as a Nasdaq listed stock can only issue up to 20% of their current outstanding shares (approx 33M) to raise cash. That's about 5M shares, which is nowhere near enough to meet the obligation.
If shareholders vote in favor of the convertible, they're allowing Mesa to dilute their stock even further.
If they pay out the remaining $30M+ in cash, they're going to probably be in violation of loan covenants.
So, my guess is Mesa will be in deep doodoo by June 10th.
I'd be surprised to see Virgin America last thru 3Q08. Branson can't put any more money into it, but he could influence some of the US investors. Given their 40% and under load factors being reported by people who fly them a lot, the investors might just give up. Note that V-Australia's first codeshare partner is NWA, not Virgin America...
Frontier? Lots of new aircraft, and they're in much the same position Aloha was in -- being squeezed between two other carriers (UA and WN), and they've got the highest cost structure.of the three (both WN and UA are able to balance things out across their larger networks).
Spirit is harder to figure out. They're privately held, so their financials are held a lot closer to the vest. It's possible that they're enough of a niche carrier to escape the bloodbath.
Midwest will be closed down if DL and NW merge. TPG will be made whole, I'm sure, and Midwest's employees will be sacrificial lambs for the larger DL/NW marriage. Airtran will then be screwed because if you combine NW's ruthlessness as far as scheduling goes with DL's ATL hub, it's gonna get ugly really quickly....
Mesa is the most likely of the regionals to go belly up. In addition to the potential loss of 20% of their monthly revenue should Delta be successful, they've got a much bigger problem brewing.... There's a proxy vote coming up in May to get approval to issue stock in order to pay down a convertible debt offering issued in 2003. Conventional wisdom has the note holders cashing in a fair portion of the $37.8M that's able to be called. Mesa as a Nasdaq listed stock can only issue up to 20% of their current outstanding shares (approx 33M) to raise cash. That's about 5M shares, which is nowhere near enough to meet the obligation.
If shareholders vote in favor of the convertible, they're allowing Mesa to dilute their stock even further.
If they pay out the remaining $30M+ in cash, they're going to probably be in violation of loan covenants.
So, my guess is Mesa will be in deep doodoo by June 10th.
So, now that Frontier has filed BK CH11, what is the possibility of UA keeping the 737-500's around long enough to seal the coffin and send them packing into CH7? Shooting fish in a barrel...I think not! Of course there is always the option that Glenn Tilton will get his way and dump TED with a hefty payout from LH to B6 so B6 can merge with F9 and keep them going awhile.
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midnightmech
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well, I think A6 will merge with F7 creating a B11, allowing the D2 to intigrate with the FNG allowing expansion into the west and near east, which will create for opportunities into the upper level, so ,hopefully the K19 will move into the VVS.....and making the whole sky turn blue at once!!!!
