35 Burst results for "Jetblue"
Bloomberg Radio New York
"jetblue" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"First time in more than two decades, the U.S. is suing to stop the merger of two airlines. Attorney general Merrick Garland announced this week that the Justice Department is filing an antitrust lawsuit to block JetBlue Airways from purchasing spirit airlines for $3.8 billion. If allowed to proceed this merger will limit choices and drive up ticket prices for passengers across the country. And we further allege that the impact of this merger will be particularly harmful for travelers who rely on what are known as ultra low cost carriers in order to fly. This is the second lawsuit against JetBlue by the Biden Justice Department, which is also seeking to unwind its alliance in the northeast with American Airlines, and the AG had a warning for other companies. Companies in every industry should understand by now that this Justice Department will not hesitate to enforce and I trust laws and protect American consumers. Joining me is Bloomberg intelligence senior litigation analyst Jennifer ree. So Jen explain why JetBlue wants this deal. It says it needs to do this deal to better compete with the legacy carriers like Delta and United and even southwest. Those air carriers combined have about an 80% share, including American in there. And JetBlue wants to be able to better compete. That's one of their main arguments for the deal. JetBlue says the combination would create quote the most compelling national low fare challenger to the dominant U.S. carriers, yet the Justice Department is challenging because they're afraid to merger will drive up the cost of airline tickets for low cost carriers. You know, the thing about it is they're both right, really, at the end of the day because they're kind of three tiers, right affairs. You have, like I said, the legacy carriers that tend to have the highest fares. And then you have an airline like JetBlue that's considered a low cost carrier. The fares are a little bit lower, but then you have spirit which is considered an ultra low cost carrier, so the fares are a little bit lower. Now, JetBlue does exert a competitive pressure on the legacy airlines. There's no doubt that when JetBlue enters a route, the fares all tend to go down, but spirit does the same thing, so spirit is now pulling down the fares of all of those legacy carriers in addition to JetBlue, and with the Department of Justice's concern is that when JetBlue takes over all the routes that spirit flies and transforms it into sort of the JetBlue model, it turns from an ultra low cost carrier to a low cost carrier, and it means the fares do go up. So you are losing a choice for people who want that rock bottom fare and don't necessarily care about quality or amenities or even space, they lose that choice. Is the cost of the ticket the only reason why the Justice Department is challenging this merger. Well, it's really the main reason why. I mean, you know, mergers get challenged because they can reduce output and they can increase price and they can reduce quality. Now a reduction in quality isn't really an issue here because JetBlue would probably increase the quality of the spirit flights. But it would decrease output because JetBlue would take those spirit planes and put fewer seats that are bigger, and a reduction in output ends up increasing price, but JetBlue would also likely increase price because it would increase the amenities and the quality. So it would do those two things, and those are both concerns of the Department of Justice. So tell me what the legal argument is, the antitrust argument that the Department of Justice is going to make. So they're making a couple arguments here, and they're honestly very traditional antitrust arguments. I think we've been hearing about other challenges that the FTC and the DoJ have waged that have been kind of a unique and novel and may not have such a chance in court. But this is really traditional. They say first they overlap on certain routes. And for the rocks they overlap, you're going to lose that competition and we already have a consolidated industry. The concentration is too high and it's presumptively harmful in those routes where they overlap. Now, second, they say that both airlines have plans that they've seen to expand. And so there's this potential competition in the future in these routes where they might expand and compete that will be lost. And then the last part of it is what I talked about, that for those routes where they don't overlap, JetBlue would effectively be taking out this really ultra low cost carrier. Tell us what the decision making process is like for the judge in a case like this. So in these cases, what the judge is tasked with is asking whether there's harm, and then balancing that harm if there is harm. And I think there is here against any kind of pro competitive aspects of the deal. And here what JetBlue will argue is that there's this JetBlue effect that when it enters a route that it does exert competitive pressure on all the other airlines and that fares across the board generally go down for the route. Now, that's been shown to be true actually. So what did judge is going to have to do is weigh those against each other. And to me, at the end of the day, the Department of Justice is evidence is strong in this regard. What you think of as a pro competitive efficiency, this is this JetBlue effect, rarely wins out when there's actually harm from a deal. And the JetBlue effect doesn't help the companies again in those routes that Jeff Lew is going to take over from spirit. JetBlue and spirit offered to divest overlapping routes to try to address the Justice Department's antitrust concerns. And that's a remedy that the Justice Department apparently has accepted in previous airline mergers. But it denied it here. Well, do you think that would be held against the Justice Department? You did it before, you know, why are you now changing the way you're approaching these? I don't think it'll be held against the Justice Department because each merger stands on its own facts. They're all different. And they all have a different competitive impact. So what might have fixed a deal before if divestitures may not necessarily fix this one because the facts and the competitive dynamics are different. Now, no doubt, this is a more aggressive DoJ. And this DoJ has said, when we have a problematic deal, we no longer want to accept a remedy like divestitures to clear the deal. And the judge could think about that and
AP News Radio
JetBlue pilot landing in Boston averts potential collision
"Federal authorities are investigating a near collision of two aircraft in Boston. I Norman hall. The federal aviation administration says a JetBlue pilot had to take evasive action while landing at Boston's Logan international airport with another aircraft crossed an intersecting runway. The FAA says an air traffic controller instructed the pilot of a learjet to line up in weight on one runway while the JetBlue flight landed on another. Instead, the lure jet pilot took off without clearance, flight data tracking service light trader 24 says that a preliminary analysis put the aircraft at approximately 530 feet apart. The close call is the latest of four near misses involving commercial aircraft since December. At Norman hall
WTOP
"jetblue" Discussed on WTOP
"Sunday only. A truly epic earring event at diamond's direct. This is WTO news. Four 23 American Airlines and JetBlue Airways are pushing ahead with an expansion of their partnership in the northeast U.S. even as a federal judge is considering the government's attempt to stop the deal. The airline said Friday that American will add 6 new routes from New York City. It plans to drop one. JetBlue is planning several new routes from New York and Boston. The Justice Department in several states have sued to kill the partnership saying the deal will reduce competition and lead to higher fares costing consumers about $700 million a year. But American and JetBlue have argued that the combination will actually help consumers by making them a stronger competitor in the very, very profitable northeastern United States. The price develop a tank is dropping and that's encouraging news coming amid other concerns about the economy. Paul brandis is a columnist with Dow Jones market watch and the Washington bureau chief for evergreen podcasting. Gas typically falls during cooler weather because refiners shift to these so called winter blends that are made of cheaper ingredients than summer blends also a few oil refineries that weren't running at full capacity earlier in the year while they are back online now. So more supply is hitting the market as a result. That is helping to push prices down. Triple-A says gasoline prices are down 50 cents in just the past month and could fall even further. Oil industry analyst Tom closes says it's possible gasoline and diesel prices could keep falling well into the spring. Money news in 25 and 55, here's Gina survey. This is a Bloomberg money minute, cord cutting continues at a frenzied pace as millions drop traditional pay
Pilot to Pilot - Aviation Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Pilot to Pilot - Aviation Podcast
"That was breeze airlines. For those of you that don't know about breeze airlines, that is a company that was started by needleman, who was the original founder of JetBlue. And he also prior to that was at Morris air and sold his company to Southwest. By all indications, a massively successful airline executive who's been very, very successful in almost every single airline endeavor he's undertaken. I have no doubt and I would never count them out that breeze is also going to be successful. But this past week, it was announced that the national mediation board has certified that alpha will be the union at breeze. And this was something and the omen was on record at JetBlue before they went union as well, and they went years after he left. But that he also didn't want a union at JetBlue either. And he was successful for many years and holding off the union, not him personally, but the company was successful. And we can talk about union avoidance. There's a law firms that specialize in that, how to keep unions off your property. But in this particular case, it happened almost right away. Breeze, it was a close vote. I think it was 26 to 21. You just need 50% plus one. It's a supervised election by the NMB. And what caught my attention was the reaction by breeze management. They immediately said they intend to go to court and get this overturned. And you know, I happen to teach labor law as one of the aspects in our graduate school at the university of North Dakota. And I am familiar with some of these motions. But it's pretty unusual by my recollection for a company to try to overturn that. And in most cases, it's usually the union when they don't get the required 50% plus one that will come back and they'll say all kinds of things.
Pilot to Pilot - Aviation Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Pilot to Pilot - Aviation Podcast
"Came in with a much stronger proposal, at least from the perspective of the virgin board. And so they went with Alaska. So that experience was fresh in the mind of JetBlue. And when it looked like their merger and acquisition of spirit, it's not an acquisition. I'm sorry. This one's a merger. When their merger was possibly not going to happen, they went on a campaign and some of you on social media may have noticed a big increase in the amount of advertisements and in the amount of just reach out PR, lobbying, all kinds of things came out and about and JetBlue made no question about it. They very much wanted to acquire spirit. Again, it makes a lot of sense in one sense, spirit has a common type, the a three 20s, which of course JetBlue has a lot of those. JetBlue also has the Embraer products. The rare family. So it makes a lot of sense from, you know, there's a lot of synergies that way. Where it may not make as much sense, but still it sure helps with growth is the basing, you know, spirit is all over the place. Jeff blue's got bases all over the place. Spirit does have a heavy east coast presence. So it will be interesting to see how that plays out with the route structures. With JetBlue being the surviving carrier, let's just talk really briefly about what that looks like to the employees. Generally speaking in a merger like this, the group that ends up losing jobs are going to be the middle management people and even up into the senior management. The line employees, both, you know, for instance, pilots and flight attendants and ramp workers and passenger service agents. They generally are untouched, right? Because they're the ones that have to execute the plan where there's duplicating efforts. And inefficiencies is often in the middle management.
Airplane Geeks Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Airplane Geeks Podcast
"And of course, in a perfect world at fits perfectly, like you are strong, but something that they're weak at. And that happens maybe 60% with 60% of things. And then another 20% will fight it out, who's better and there will be 20% whether both not good. And then we say, let's all put our heads together and see can we find what the collective learnings in the room can we find the better way to do both. Because you never get this chance where you're actually looking under the rugs and behind the cushions and all of that of a company, then you do it during an integration. So it's an opportunity to actually optimize as you go along. And that's why when we say we do M and a integration and enterprise optimization, because as we integrate, we also optimize along the way. So we'll have subject matter experts in each area who leads those who would lead those teams who actually work with the teams from the client. So we don't just do it ourselves and tell them here is the plan. We actually create the team from both companies and my team would be an expert in that space who asks the right questions, as you said, and who shows them how to do the analysis, we bring in the subject matter expertise, we bring in the best practices, we bring in the latest know how and skill set of how to analyze and how to reach a decision. But we also help the teams figure out how to work together better and how to be able to reach decisions on their own. So that by the end of the merger, they actually are one company that knows how to work together. As opposed to, if I give them the plan and leave, they still can't figure out what to do with it as a team. And again, that's why most mergers fail. It's not because they have a bad business plan, and it's not because they have bad integration plan. It's because they actually can't get it to work. First of all, feel free to say no to this question, okay? And nobody's going to be offended. But could you give us an example of a situation without giving anything away that if you're the proudest of something that you've done that was you're just so happy about that it worked out or the way that it happened. Again, without giving anything away. And again, say no if you don't want to. No, I'm happy to do it actually. It's an interesting one. It's my first big client on my own. So I used to be a principal at booze and company. And I left and started my own practice. And usually when you start your own practice, you assume you're going to get a few medium sized clients who worked with you before who really like your going to come with you. But you assume that even the big clients will stay with the big company name, they're not going to come with you as you move. And the first big client I had, and this is like, I mean, when I say big, I mean huge clients like 40 50 clients where they had actually hired one of the top three consulting firms. If I asked you to name three, you would name it. You wouldn't miss that name. And they had paid the millions of dollars to work with them for a couple of years to help integrate the latest acquisition. And a year and a half later, they had had no progress. They tried to do it in house for 6 months, and so now it's two years after they had made no progress. And they were trying to find a different way to do it. And one of their senior leaders had worked with me before and they said, well, I think she has a different approach to how to do this and we've tried all the traditional ways and they didn't work. How bad can she mess up? They've messed it up. We've messed it up already. Like how bad can this be? So they decided to take a risk on me and it was my first big client. I couldn't even prove to them that my approach of saying let me work with both teams and I'll help you build the plan. I'm not going to give it to you and all of that wasn't tested. It was just my theory of this is the right way to do consulting as opposed to what the bit consulting firms do. And they let me do it. And then 8 months, we were fully integrated. They had fully integrated people were operating working together. We actually had one company that was working on. I can't say they were best of Friends because they were two years of animosity there. But they were actually working and functional and able to have the basis that they could build some future trust and relationship on. And that's again my first client, so a very long time ago. But I'm particularly proud of that one. And what sort of timeline do you think that JetBlue and spirit should be considering to put this together? After approval, how long? I mean, I'm sure it's difficult to predict and a lot of things can happen or not happen, but what kind of time horizon do you think these airlines should be looking at to integrate? So I think in this case, there is going to be a lot of external factors, not just what they do internally. So if I was doing the merger, I would say, and if you had no external challenges, I would say two years, if you worked on it for two years, you can get it done up and running. But that's never going to happen, because there's so many external challenges there. One of them being, especially in the airlines, that it's not like an office, your retrofitting planes, which is more time consuming, it's difficult to do. And it's also takes a lot more money to do. So they have to do that. The loyalty programs for airlines are very, very complicated. And so even if they did the merger of their assets in two or three years, I would assume their loyalty program would take longer. As we've seen with other airlines, it takes them a longer time before they actually fully integrate their loyalty programs. And not to say that that's how long it takes. I think it should not take that long, but often that does seem to be how long they were taken. And in this case, again, because they're not particularly huge airlines. So I'm sure they're not sitting on tons of cash that they just can't figure out how to spend, especially after spending that on this merger. I don't know how quickly they'll be able to move with the higher cost ones. Interesting. All right, well, you want to thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with us talking about this topic. Tell us where we can learn more about your company. The company website or any social media presence, perhaps? Yes, you can find this our website is emea and co dot com.
Airplane Geeks Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Airplane Geeks Podcast
"I mean, unfortunately, they usually don't deal with that early enough or proactively enough, unfortunately, the people who work on the deal, that's what that's the kind of stuff I get stuck with after they sign the deal. People who work on the deal have a deal sheet. They have their synergies. They have their cost saving. They have the bonuses. They all get when you sign on the dotted line. And then all these operational mess up that you're talking about gets left to here. Here is your new baby. Take it. Good luck. And then you end up with all issues. So I would love to say that I think they're working on that now and talking to the unions and figuring out how to do this. But my guess is if they are like most other mergers, they will deal with this after the deal assigned after the shareholders approve it the regulations. After it's a done deal, they then start those negotiations. And in this case, I think we're already hearing from the flight attendant union as well, not just the not just the pilot union, saying they need to see benefits for them as well. The benefits can just be for the shareholders. They need to see benefits as well. And I bet you anything that deal sheet that calculates the synergies doesn't take into account sharing any of the gains with the pilots or the flight attendants. Right. The area where you find benefits when you have a merger is when the company buying the assets actually has better benefits and a better deal that becomes a really good deal for the unions because they can just say, okay, we want the benefits these guys get. We're now you're now one company we then transfer our people under that umbrella. And then in most cases, if it's an acquisition, not a merger, when it's not equal, and one company is larger. If the larger company has better terms, more often than not, they'll just offer it. It will not be a big fight. The issue becomes when you're emerging to equalize companies and they each have benefits. And then the unions will usually want both of the benefits on both sides, right? And usually you get one thing and you give one thing so the number is balance, but then they'll say we want the benefits that both companies get and we don't want to give up anything and then you end up getting stuck a little bit in the middle. Or you have the other way around is usually the painful one is when you have a smaller in this case it doesn't apply, but when you have a big company buying a smaller one and if the smaller company actually offers better benefits and has a better culture and usually that's more often than not, that's the case. The smaller companies are more fun. They have lots of perks and more benefits, et cetera and the more you corporatized and I'm a specialist in tourism and hospitality. So hotels are the same as airlines in that case. Usually the larger ones are stricter on cost and they cut costs in the corners and they have less perks, et cetera. Usually that becomes the issue with the union of the smaller firms saying, you're not going to take away my perks, you're all making tons of money out of this. We can't be the only people losing out of this deal as we transfer to the larger corporation and that usually takes a very long time to deal with. Well, and the other thing that comes into play with airlines that I think is rather unique to them is the seniority list because pilots and flight attendants all work and all our employed and get all their benefits based on seniority and you have two different lists of seniority and how the merge those two, I think, becomes a big argument. Especially in this case, it might be less of an issue because they're keeping the roots and keeping the flights, they're not you're not competing for the same spots at least if you believe the story that we're hearing from Jet Li that they're keeping an expanding, et cetera. But you're absolutely right, that's usually happens when they're merging and then consolidating flight plans and cutting down a number of flights in a day, like what the U.S. and American merger, for example. If they didn't keep all the same number of flights, they didn't consolidate both or adventure each other. There was a lot of cutting out of those. So then you had people competing for the same flights and the same routes and the same on the job benefits as well as financial benefits. And if the company actually is going to be growing, if they're actually doing that because they have a demand, they have the kept up demand. That will allow them to keep or to utilize all of the assets and grow them, then that will be less of an issue. But I don't know if that's true as well. I think that's the best that JetBlue is making. They're saying we have demand that we can fill. Even at our prices, because they're not saying we're going to keep they're saying we're going to rear retrofit the plane, then we're going to do all of that. And they can't possibly say we're going to retrofit the planes and offer better service. But then keep the prices just as low. You can't do that and have a synergy numbers are quoted. So they're quoting synergy numbers. They're saying they're upgrading the planes that has to mean that they're going to take up the prices for that deal to make financial sense. And they're offering so much for it. So they have to recruit that somehow they must be planning to recoup that somehow. So they have to be banking on the fact that there's enough unmet demand that they have, not from the spirit customers, but from their own customers who are going to be willing to fly those planes at higher prices. Are there any other aspects of this deal that we haven't touched on that you think are relevant to this particular deal? I think this one is going to hinge on culture. And it's going to hinge on, as you said, the team that they get to actually manage that integration. And I think if they decide to do that in house, that is going to be not a very good decision. Is that what most companies try? Do they try to do it all in-house with current resources or do they go outside for others? So I think for really big deals, they go outside. But for smaller deals or companies that are not financially flush, if you will, they will try to do it in-house. And you'd be amazed at how many times I'm hired to clean up after they've tried for a year and just messed it up completely. And then they say, can you come fix this? And then you come and you see what they've done with the culture. And it's really hard to build trust that somebody actively lost. As opposed to from the beginning, you don't know each other. You don't have trust. I can help you build it from scratch. But if you've spent a year
Airplane Geeks Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Airplane Geeks Podcast
"Sometimes it's as simple as how do you make decisions? What's the process for making decisions? How do you communicate with each other? I had to deal that was, I think, of $4.6 billion deal. That's almost fell apart. And it's not the only reason, of course, I'm exaggerating. But one of the reasons one of the main reasons is this the company's communicated very differently. One company communicated by email. Everything was written down. You copied everyone. And if you didn't copy everyone, they would be offended, and they would think you're missing me off the email. And the other company thinks if you copied my boss, you're escalating. Like, why are you writing on me? And they would prefer, they would say, why did you write an email? Why are you making escalating? Why didn't you just pick up the phone and call me? And that was just purely a culture from a cultural perspective. How do you employees behave? I think in that perspective, that would be a major issue for JetBlue and spirit is how employees, even if people want to behave differently in spirit, the processes they have and the systems, how the company behaves and how the employees behave has been built in for such a long time. You have to really change that from scratch to get them to behave the way you want them to behave. And the challenge here is that most companies completely underestimate that, if not, ignore it at all when they work on due diligence when they work on driving together the deal. When they work on calculating synergies, they forget to calculate the cost of making those cultural changes. So the 607 100 million they're saying in synergies, I'm sure that completely doesn't take I'm not sure, but I would guess that that would completely does not take into account any cost that is spent on actually changing the behavior of employees and on every single process in the company to get that to get them to merge properly to integrate properly. So for a large merger or acquisition, something of this scale, I have to believe that the companies would form some kind of a team in order to manage the transition. And I would think that they would need to be intimately involved in this issue of understanding the importance of the culture differences in building the plan to accommodate those differences, which that's got to be a difficult task for sure. What about impacts on others? Well, on the shareholders, it seems like everybody believes or assumes that it's a valuable deal for the for the shareholders. What about the flying public? What does this deal mean for them? I think that's also really interesting question because you're going to have the or you already have the jet blue team and saying that this is a really good deal for customers because it increases competition. It gives them scale, allows them to compete with the big four. And as they compete with the big four, they raise their ways quality because they have better customer service and better quality. And they push down price. Unfortunately, every merger says it's going to do that and very few actually have. And you have on the other side, those that are arguing or the regulators for sure and the Biden administration will continue to do that is arguing that taking out the lowest cost provider there is regardless of how loved or unloved they are. People are still in business. So people are buying them. People aren't making the choice every day to choose price over quality. Because at this point, nobody can argue that I didn't know they were going to be like this. Maybe a few years ago. But now everybody knows, and people are choosing every day to say, but for me, either this is all I can afford, or the tradeoff makes sense for me. So taking out that lowest cost provider will actually have been more likely than not push up prices or allow the bigger airlines to actually take their prices up. And I was just reading about somebody who did some research comparative research about the prices for American Delta and United in markets that spirit is acted in. And they're saying that statistically speaking, the prices, the markets that spirit as active in our strong and those three airlines have lower prices. Now, I haven't looked at the methodology and the research, so I can't vouch that that's actually accurate. But if they actually did that, I would not be surprised if that was actually the case. So once that happens, I know JetBlue is saying that's not going to happen. But every merger says that's not going to happen and more often than not, that does result in increasing prices. The only upside might be a frontier and allegiant, et cetera, step in and if they have the capacity and they have the assets to fill up that space and take up the space of spirit and keep those prices low, then maybe they can hedge a little bit from that price that's going up. But again, we talked about this earlier assets aren't available, aren't easily available staff isn't available. So I don't know if they would be able to fill in that space, even if they wanted to. What you're saying seems to make sense because there used to be a lot of the discussion about the Southwest effect, which was exactly that, wherever southwest would set up service all the other airline fares went down. So it would make sense at the same thing what happened spirit. Even without a study, it would just be logical to say, well, if it worked here, it would work there.
Airplane Geeks Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Airplane Geeks Podcast
"And I think primarily the biggest challenge for this is going to be culture. So as you mentioned in the beginning, max, my company specializes in mergers and acquisitions, but we don't just work on the deals where we focus on is post deal. It's after you sign on the dotted line, how do you make these two companies one? And how do you get them to work successfully? And how do you achieve that elusive 20% of mergers that actually succeed? Because the other 80% failed. And in this one, I think the biggest challenge is going to be culture. Because it's not just that they're known for one of them has good customer service and one of them has bad customer service because you can sometimes have that just because they're not efficient or because they haven't been trained well, et cetera. So it can sometimes be an easy fix. But I think the issue with spirit and JetBlue is primarily actually the culture. So I think spirit actually does not care about customer service. I don't say that drug to me. I think it's a strategy. Their CEO thinks that's not his issue and not his purpose and not his cause in life. So he doesn't mean we've all seen some of the leaked emails. The customer is not always right. The customer does not come first. And they've made that very clear, whereas JetBlue is always on top of customer service lists, et cetera. So this is not just an issue of are they understaffed or do they not have the right infrastructure to serve well or do they not have the right scripts? It's actually been a culture that's come from the top down saying that's not your job. We don't care, whereas blue obviously do. So this is going to be the biggest challenge, especially since they want to keep the staff. One of the things they're buying spirit for is the staff. So how do you actually integrate those staff and change that culture? And I think what they're betting on is retraining and they're betting on that this is a top down thing. And if the top down instruction changes or if they are immersed in a different culture that most people would prefer to offer a good customer service, I don't know if I buy that argument, but that has to be what they believe. You have to go and believing that you can change or that not every employee in spirit believes that because otherwise you're fighting a losing battle, you can't change every employee's nature. Right. And I think it's important to sort of reinforce the notion that culture is a big driver in things like this. And I mean, I came out of a corporate environment. I worked for a fortune 50 company for many years. And when you're in that environment, you get to see different corporations and the culture that sort of the essence, the DNA of two companies in the same industry can be completely different. One thing that comes to mind is a company that sort of driven by the engineering viewpoint versus another company in the same business that's more driven by a marketing or a product kind of viewpoint. And they can both be selling the same things. But in very different ways and on the basis of very different cultures. You can say it out loud, max, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas is what you're talking about, and actually I was going to ask you, I'm wondering if you can talk about that at all in terms of comparison because it turned into a completely different thing in terms of a merger and acquisition situation. So I'll tell you just to what you were saying earlier. I always tell my clients that culture will eat your deal for breakfast. It will literally have the devour your strategy if you have the wrong culture. You can have the best strategic plans. You can have the best deal in place, the best financials, the best business case, and then culture will absolutely eat that up. And in that 80% of mergers that fail, I would argue that the majority of them is driven by culture. And one interesting thing that you mentioned because I was actually going to say, let me define culture first because there's also a lot of misconception about what that is. But I think you have it exactly right. Because people, when they think your culture, when I do mergers, we have multiple work streams when we do integrations. And I force my clients for one of them to be culture. And the pushback I always get in the beginning when I say one of the key work streams has to be culture, is that they think I mean the culture of the 90s and the 80s where you have off sites and trust falls and everybody holds hands and things come by and goes to drinks after the office and all of that. And I say, look, I don't care about that at all. I actually don't think even employees care. I think we all have friends outside of work. Nobody wants their best friends to be there. They're colleagues to be their best friends. We all have our lives. We all want to leave the office and go back to our lives. So this idea that people that culture means people have to get along and be friends. That's not it. So culture. When I talk about culture in the context of a merger and acquisition, it's actually corporate behavior. It's exactly what you said. What drives your behavior is it driven, as you said by engineering versus marketing. And sometimes it's not even that.
Airplane Geeks Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Airplane Geeks Podcast
"Airplane geeks, podcast. This is episode 717 of the show where we talk aviation. I'm max flight. I'm coming to you from the Ozarks in Arkansas. There's no cell coverage here. Just the sounds of the creek next to my campsite. Maybe you can hear it. So again, we have a pre recorded interview. This time our main man Micah and I spoke with Amira ela dawi about the JetBlue spirit merger. Amira is an expert merger consultant and she's more than qualified to speak to this topic. So here's the interview. Micah and I are here with Amira el adawe, who is an expert merger consultant. She's worked with fortune 100 companies, government entities, as well as international organizations on mergers and acquisitions. She was formerly a senior principal at booze and company and an external adviser to bane and company and in 2013 she founded Amira and company boutique global management consulting firm. Emir is also passionate about teaching. In fact, she regularly coaches an immersive business boot camp on strategy and financial management and she founded a microfinance NGO for single mothers in Egypt, which sounds pretty fascinating. She's fluent in English and Arabic holds a double major BA in economics and international relations. An MBA from Harvard Business school and a master's certificate in hospitality management from Cornell University, my old Alma mater. Emir, welcome to the airplane geeks podcast. Thank you, max. Thanks for having me. Another Cornell. Well, I did undergraduate at Cornell, my MBA is not from Harvard, but from another school in the Boston area. So I think probably the timelines were different for the two of us, but we have that slight cut. Probably not as different as you think. I'm not sure if that's complimentary to me or to you. One or the other, but thank you for that. So Amira is here to help us understand the proposed JetBlue spirit merger. And we've got just the right person to help us look at that merger with the impact is what some of the issues might be Amira. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the details of the merger. What exactly is this deal? What are the important aspects of it? So there's a few things here. So as you probably have spoken about this before, spirit was originally talking about merging with frontier. And that didn't go through. And mainly the reason it didn't go through is because JetBlue offered about a million dollars more to acquire spirit. So there's a difference there. One would have been a merger because they're relatively close in size relatively speaking. But JetBlue is now a proposing to acquire spirit. They're offering I think right now it's at 33 and a half dollars a share. And they have a max set out to that to 34 point something. It changes. So I'm not sure it was 34.15 the last I heard as a maximum per share price for that. And they're offering to pay that in two separate ways. They're offering to pay an upfront amount. And I think that's two and a half dollars a share. And then they're saying they will pay ten cents a share every month from, I think, January until the day they close. And the reason they're doing it like that is because initially the spirit board and shareholders were worried about not getting regulatory approval for the deal and that this will basically cost them to lose the frontier deal and drag on for a long time and then not be approved. So I think part of the reason they structured it that way is they say, even if it takes longer, you guys make more money. We're going to pay you for the delays because we're taking on the responsibility of selling this to the regulators and getting it approved. And what's in it for each airline? What are the advantages of entering into this kind of changed relationship? So that's an interesting one, because for spirit, it's clearly a financial deal. We've been having financial trouble for a while. They've had a couple of losing quarters or more than a couple. So they've been struggling financially for a bit. In addition to we all know everybody loves to hate spirit. And hate on spirit. So for them, I think it's primarily a financial proposal financial year. Deal. For JetBlue, it's a bit different. I think for them, which also has implications for the type of merger and for customers as well. I think for JetBlue, they just want the assets, and they want the flight plans. So I think they just want the planes. They want the staff. Everybody is trying to grow back in the airline space right now and they just can't find either assets because the supply chain, there aren't the planes, everything is on the lane. And also staff. They just aren't enough people to hire, like many other industries. This is not unique to the airline industry. But like many industries now, they can't hire the right people. So it's easier to acquire someone that's existing. So I think that's what JetBlue is looking for. You know, the questions it always come up in the aviation forms when this first started is how these two very dissimilar airlines could possibly look at getting together where JetBlue has always been known for high quality service at a reasonable cost and originally they were a low cost airline with high quality service. Now they're a regular cost airline, but it's really known for the really great service where spirit is very well known for miserable, terrible service being an ultra low cost or an ultra low quality carrier is sometimes described. How do the two cultures get together and how could it possibly work and which direction will it go? There is so much concern that just is going to ruin JetBlue, whereas from my perspective, I think this is going to raise spirit into a better giving JetBlue more quality. So you're exactly right, Micah. This is the $3.8 billion question right there. That's what they're paying for for spirit. And if they get that wrong, that's what they lose.
AP News Radio
JetBlue buys Spirit for $3.8 billion
"JetBlue has agreed to buy spirit airlines A day after a merger proposal between spirit and frontier airlines fell apart JetBlue has agreed to buy spirit in a $3.8 billion deal The union would create the nation's 5th largest airline based in New York with a fleet of over 450 planes JetBlue would acquire spirit for $33 and 50 cents per share in cash assuming spirit stockholders approved the transaction Spirit had originally recommended shareholders approved frontiers much lower $2.6 billion offer saying that regulators were less likely to reject frontiers bid JetBlue alarmed at the prospect of competing with the combined budget airlines started a bidding war in April The merger is not a given the Justice Department is already suing
AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"Training as possible. For the pilots moving from the NG to the max. Yeah, well, definitely have to wait to see what else is revealed in the saw suit to see. Not only the characterization, but to see what facts are true and untrue in this once the documents become a little more unsealed, but that is interesting to say the least that Southwest possibly had a much bigger hand in the max developments than we previously knew yeah, so definitely something we're going to be keeping an eye on. I don't like that we've had to pay such close attention to lawsuits lately. I would much prefer to talk about aircraft. And so I'm going to completely change the subject now and move on to some good news about actual aircraft and Jason, I would love for you to tell me about ATR's new proposed next step. Okay, so you've heard of the max before, obviously we just talked about. You've heard of the neo, I have. You've heard of that. Have you heard of the Evo before? Go on. And it's not a Mitsubishi, you know, sports car. It's the APR Evo family. Which is ATR's response to embryos next generation. Turboprops. This is not the, I guess, enhanced version of the engine that will end up on the ATR 72 next year. This is a totally new step up a new generation of the ATR, which will be available by 2030. It's not a ton of details for this for one thing. There is no engine yet. So they're making a lot of claims that saying, overall, the ATR Evo family will have 20% overall fuel improvement and 100% sustainable aviation fuel compatibility, and when there's 100% saf use, it's a mission to be cost to zero, but they don't actually have an engine selected yet. I think they've put out proposals to the engine manufacturers to come back to ATR to spec out an engine and deliver that at some point in the near future to ATR. But yeah, we have the max. We have the neo. Now we have the Evo. And they are claiming, again, 20% lower fuel burn, 20% overall maintenance cost reduction, which I'm pretty sure is a big deal, but a claims the air claiming it means that airlines using this ATR Evo can serve thinner routes more profitably, communities can benefit with more connectivity, more essential services, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. At the very end, it says in the coming months ATR will work with airlines and engine manufacturer system providers with the aim to officially launch the program by 2023. So I guess this isn't really an aircraft to launch. It's a T after Embraer announced its future plans, especially interesting that they don't actually have an engine selected for this thing yet, but they do have 8 years to figure that out. It's an interesting concept. If they can deliver on the numbers, I think it's even more interesting. But writ large, the changes in, I feel like this is maybe something that we haven't talked about enough. The changes in the aerospace industry at the moment manufacturers can say whatever they want at this point, all of these things are really going to be driven whether or not engine manufacturers can deliver on all of these proposed improvements. Or subjective improvements. Especially here when they say new power plant with hybrid capability, but then they don't actually really get into the detail of what hybrid capability that would be because saf doesn't count. So you can put in a current day aircraft. You could put that in an NG, you can put that in a three 20 CO. So what exactly do they mean by hybrid capabilities at electric power? Is that hydrogen powered? Is it something else we haven't heard of? We don't know at this point, but like you said, it's a lot of efficiency boosts are going to rely on what the engine manufacturers can deliver. And we saw that there was a fair bit of teething issues. I would say with the geared turbofan engines of the last generation of new aircraft, the next couple years, or maybe the next decade are going to be very interesting to see what engine manufacturers are going to be able to reliably deliver. Yeah, absolutely. It looks nice though. There he is. There's that. There is that. Let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll talk with Leslie. Joseph's about what is going on between JetBlue and spirit and learn a little bit more about what a hostile takeover looks like these days in the airline. Oh,.
Airline Pilot Guy - Aviation Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Airline Pilot Guy - Aviation Podcast
"Dollars very impressive. So I wonder what JetBlue is up to here, really, you know? I don't know. They seem to have an awful lot of cash available. This is a cash offer for heaven's sake. I mean, how many airlines couldn't do that? I don't know. And recently I've been reading a lot of things regarding JetBlue in its operations and how they're kind of slipping in a lot of ways, especially maintaining their schedules and passenger or consumer relations. And that sort of thing. And just kind of, it's kind of curious to me if they really want to merge with spirit or if they're just trying to throw a wrench into the whole deal. I don't know. Interesting. Spirit renowned for good customer operations and communication. Well, they're one of the quote unquote low cost carriers, both frontier and spirit, allegiant, a couple others out there that are kind of take pride in the fact that they are the cheapest way to go if you want to fly. And spirit because of that and frontier also, their reputation for customer service and customer relations is not. Up at the top end of the list. Let me just put it kind of makes sense to say that, you know, that's one thing they're going to benefit from. But interesting. Yeah, I don't know. Well, either way, you're going to have a very big carrier. If frontier or JetBlue managed to merge. Okay. Let's continue on with the next. The wheels on the bus go round and round round and round. Round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round round and I thought it was all day long or something like that. That's what I thought, yeah..
Airplane Geeks Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Airplane Geeks Podcast
"Max T in Boston for this one particular crash pad apparently. Inspection services didn't really appreciate what was happening. Yeah, to me, this is kind of the ugly underbelly of airline business that we don't think much about. We talk a lot about the flight crews, some of whom were poorly paid, but for those who are not living somewhere close to the domicile where they're whether flight starts, they unfortunately have to commute and they often have to show up, it crazy hours. And so they need some place where they can grab a few hours of rest before they have to show up on duty. And if they're poorly paid, as many of them are, they certainly can't afford to go to a hotel room. The airline doesn't provide that for them either. And so they end up having to pay in this case, it was $300 a month for part of a communal building with 20 bunk beds in it. And if you look at the photos, it looks worse than a dorm room. I mean, it's just basically a bed bed, bed, bed, bed, all bunk beds. There is just enough room to kind of, I don't know, walk between the rows of beds here. It's pretty bad. But then to find out that it's the building is not meant for this. It's a garage. It has basically, it's an illegal garage unit that somebody has constructed illegally in which they were also storing hazardous materials. There's a picture of a gas container, great, what better thing to store in a place where 20 people may be sleeping. It was missing, smoke detectors, and maybe worst of all, no second means of egress, which means if the one entrance gets blocked by fire, these people aren't going to be getting out. Well, at least one flight attendant who stayed at the pad did complain to the Boston fire department about a broken smoke to tech, it wasn't just the smoke detector that they thought was a problem. They thought that this was literally a death trap and so they shut it down. But it just kind of goes to kind of an ugly side of the airline industry that I feel badly for these folks because jeez. I mean, this is not a pleasant way to have to conduct the beginning of your trip. Or end a trip because sometimes you end up back at your base and if that's not where you live, you can't get home. You go to the crash pad for the night. And I visited a few crash pads down at midway years ago. And sometimes it would be somebody has a couch and extra couch in the living room and they go, hey, you can have that, you know, and I always wondered, well, so what are you doing if the guy that owns this or lives here wants to watch TV? And the guy's just gonna let you just put earplugs in or something and I thought, oh my God, what I've done with work, I can not think of anything I value more than my privacy. The last thing I want to do is spend an evening with a dozen people and you know some are just going to be partying. Some are just going to be gabbing away till all hours of the day and night and oh, that's really restful. I don't know, but I was lucky enough not to have to do it. So I wouldn't have liked it if I had, but. I'm curious to see if this remains just a one off kind of incident or if this spurs some kind of follow on action, some something to address the safety of these kinds of crash pads or if it's just buyer beware. It's up to the individual to make an assessment of where they're going to spend the night is safe or not. Well, you would have thought that people that are grown up enough to handle the cabinet in the back of an airplane would have been aware enough to walk into a garage and say, oh, this is it. Wow. Well, wait a minute. There are gas cans out in front here, and you know, this stuff could catch fire. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's the pilot in me max that is always looking at the stuff going. This is not a good idea. But maybe there are, I guess a lot of people just don't think like that. Or don't care. Or don't have the choice. I mean, I think a lot of this is driven by economics. Yeah, I mean, I'm lucky enough that when I was working for a corporation, hey, they paid for me to have a place to stay. And the airline is just not really set up economically to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Rob's making a face, but well, I mean, yes, you're right. It's always, it's always economics to some point, but nobody forced, you know, well, how many people, 20 people? I mean, they wouldn't all be there at the same time. That's the way those places are planned is that when max is out flying, David can have his bed because there's nobody there anyway. And I mean, they clean the sheets. At least once a quarter, I think. So whether they need it or not, but no, I'm kidding. No, but I don't know. Yeah. I think you have to be young to do this too because I can't imagine anybody with a house or a family or anything else. Someplace else sleeping in one of these places knowing it's a death trap. But I could be wrong. Well, you look at the high cost of living of Boston, if that's your domicile, I totally understand why people choose to live in a rural area where they can.
Airplane Geeks Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on Airplane Geeks Podcast
"Story comes from, well, cranky flyer. JetBlue twists it off and not trying to create a rationale for buying spirit. Rob, this was kind of a sudden thing that appeared. We had, of course, been looking at frontier and spirit doing a deal, but something has happened since that announcement. Sure, JetBlue offered the spirit shareholders almost half a $1 billion extra money. And the spirit shareholders being good stewards are the board of directors being good stewards of the shareholders money said, we might want to take a look at this. Of course, Brent's and for those that don't know him, Brent is kind of since Dan is gone, Brent is kind of my go to guy about what the Sam Hill is going on in the airline world. And he can not for the life of himself make out why JetBlue wants to make this deal. Because if it's a way to get extra airplanes because everybody's short of airplanes and pilots, it's quite an expensive way because the two carriers, I don't know, I can't think of any carriers that are more dissimilar than spirit and JetBlue. JetBlue is kind of known for, you know, pretty nice service comfy seats. Extra goodies and spirit is known for putting you on a bucket with a seat belt. And the bucket doesn't even move. So nobody's really quite sure why they're trying to do this. I thought it was a great article. I kind of wondered in the past, well, what is the reason for this? And he just did a great job of going through all the different reasons why it makes no sense whatsoever. And I thought he had some keen insight there when JetBlue said that they would essentially merge spirit into their organization and kind of make them part of the jet blue brand and also the JetBlue cost structure, which means that spirit would lose its low cost advantage, which means that a lot of the people who are currently flying on spirit are going to probably go to frontier or maybe allegiant. What is it that JetBlue is going to gain? It really wasn't clear at all. What's in it for JetBlue? No, and I think there have been so many maybes because, again, nobody knows this came out of the blue. It was an unsolicited, do they just want the airplanes? Do they want the crews? Do they want any of the destinations? I somehow, I don't know the spirit structure very well, but I'm kind of doubting that spirit and JetBlue overlap on a whole lot of destinations. Do they want well, actually, what do they think? Do they want the garish markings of yellow and black? Or do they want to keep their subtle jet blue more? I have to agree from an outsider's perspective. It's sort of like, huh? You know, if somebody had said frontier wanted to buy spirit, you'd go, okay. That makes sort of sense. But I mean, JetBlue, JetBlue came out at the same time that virgin virgin U.S. came out. And they were both in this sort of universe of their own. You were a not a low cost carrier, not a mainline character. But you were, you were getting offered a class, a kind of genesis that these two airlines were offering that weren't nobody else was, you know? And here we've got, I mean, does anybody ever really like spirit? Now, mind you, you don't hear as many complaints about spirit as you do about united, but because, you know, in the case of spirit, you get what you pay for, you know? Expectations are. To be satisfied on spirit, you don't really have to, you arrived, you arrive to your destination in one piece. I mean, but JetBlue, unless, again, I mean, there's got to be there has to be something somewhere that some accountant said, you know, this would be a good idea. And then was a really good salesman to the rest of the company. I was just thinking accountant. The obvious thing is, wow, now they've got the 5th largest market share. They become the 5th largest airline in America. Temporarily, because I've seen mergers in the past where people have said, hey, yeah, you add a plus B and wow, suddenly we're the 5th largest. But if you lose a whole bunch of that business because that 8 plus B combination is not very effective, well then you're just kind of it's all been for nothing because you've lost a lot of the business of the company you acquired and it kind of looks like they're set up to do that. Maybe it's a offensive move as opposed to an offensive move, maybe JetBlue is more concerned about what would happen if a frontier in spirit could buy them. Well, no, no, but if the two of them is sort of the original proposal, if that went through, does that represent a stronger competitive threat to JetBlue. And so it's in their interests to make a bid for the airline themselves. Sure, just a mess, everybody up. Just to miss everybody up. And well, I mean, let's face it. I mean, Alaska bought virgin, I don't know how many years ago, expecting something from what I've read, they didn't get a whole lot out of the deal. And so if this spirit jet blue thing turns up, that'll make them the 5th largest I think somebody said. So that would make Alaska the 6th, I guess. And that means that right in there somewhere is a sweet spot between JetBlue and spirit and Alaska and we don't quite know. I agree with you though. I still think my gut tells me this is more about spoiling it for somebody else than and I don't think Brett mentioned that, but again, that's just me. I think that could be part of the part of the strategy. But that's a lot of money to pay. We've left out one factor, and I remember from business school, many years ago, when took a class on acquisitions..
AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"At this point. Yeah, I don't think that'll happen. Let us close the show by wishing United Airlines a happy 96th birthday. Hey, happy birthday, united. We don't have any cake for you, but Ian mentioned earlier that in four years, we better be seeing one very special livery. I certainly certainly hope that they do a very, very special delivery. Yes, I would very much like to see a retro jet united widebody aircraft. They have several narrow body aircraft, but on the 7 8 ten that would be very nice to see. Thank you. I could not agree more. Yes, the united is not an airline afraid to roll out a special delivery aircraft, unlike a certain competitor in Atlanta. I won't name names, but yeah, a special livery celebrating a hundredth birthday coming up in a couple years out very nice. There's precedent among other airlines. I think KLM painted the hundred, I think, on the entire fleet, but they also have the 7 8 7 with the special hundredth anniversary livery. Qantas did the same thing. Did the same thing. So there is precedence here that when you turn a hundred, you have to do a special delivery. And I expect nothing less from united. And there are united folks I know listening to this podcast. So I'm not saying there's any pressure or anything like that. But you have four years. Four years, get it right. So happy birthday united. And you don't look a day over 95. This has been episode 158 of avt talk I am Ian pechenik here as always with. It's thanks for listening..
AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"Three 21. That's going to be brutal. Well, look how complicated it is with the NEA and the American jet blue tie up and even booking your seats. We're just talking about technology online, like booking your seats, you think you're on American, but you're actually on JetBlue metal. They're still rolling out some reciprocal benefits for frequent flyers and things like that. And that's not a merger. The thing that gets me about the kind of putting the spirit fleet into JetBlue fying the spirit fleet. That's a 176 aircraft at the moment. And spirit has a bunch of aircraft on order. So as they continue to take new aircraft, they're going to continue to take new aircraft in their configuration, which is much more dense than JetBlue and without any of the frills. So then Seth Miller on arrowhead, an interesting breakdown where he talked about the a three 21 on spirit flies with 228 seats. In between a 174 and a 182 180 20s, 200 on the a three 21 ent JetBlue, a 150 to a 162 on the a three 20 for JetBlue. I mean, removing all those, there's two things. One, physically removing that many seats from the aircraft, and then installing that changes one aspect of it. And then there's the fact that removing all those seats increases your costs and sends you up from, you know, the spirit passengers to think. So the argument of why this doesn't quite make sense. Doing a list of pros and cons, I feel like the cons or at least as far as the flying public are concerned. The cons way up pretty fast. They do. And it's something that spirits board is going to have to evaluate. It's more money. They have a fiduciary duty. They have to think about their shareholders. But what does it mean? What are the added costs down the line? So it's very complicated. It would be very complicated for JetBlue to organize this execution at a time when they're trying to fix their operation. They're on time numbers last year, not good. There are some arguments that JetBlue has made or made on their call. This could possibly help customers when things go wrong, like they did recently with bad weather in Florida and hundreds of flights were canceled. And combined airline will give you more options to rebook. We'll see how that works this summer. Just in general. But I don't know. I think it's extremely, this is probably one of the most difficult mergers I've seen. I mean, look how difficult virgin America and Alaska was. And how customers were pretty tied to the product. I don't know if they have the warm and fuzzies for 28 inch legroom and spirits interiors than if it were going the other way around and JetBlue was turning into spirit in some way. But.
AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"Cash in stock that frontier airlines had offered and so they came to an agreement. This was back in February and here we are dealing with the aftermath. The initial offer from frontier to buy spirit. That was, well, it was technically frontier buying spirit. It was going to be more of a merger and that both airlines wanted this to happen. And they both presented the acquisition as something that was going to be good for everybody. It was going to be in everyone's best interest consumers best interest airlines best interest, all of these things. This is a much different scenario, isn't it? This is a much different scenario when spirit and frontier announced, even for years before, it was not an if it was a when. They are the same in many ways. Ultra low cost, airlines, low fare, you pay for everything else, and they have such a similar model, but they don't overlap a ton in a lot of geographies, spirit obviously much more stronger in Florida. And it made sense. Everyone said, oh, okay. And this could even pass muster with this Biden DoJ. So there was a lot less head scratching that was going on than after JetBlue announced. And actually, head scratching is a head scratcher. That's how UBS described the JetBlue bid for spirit. So it is pretty incredible. So even the financial firms are thinking, what are they doing? Yeah, Raymond James called it an indecent proposal in their note. One partner's title. I think was just, wait, what? Literally that. So people are confused and the stock price is Jeff was down 8% to after this was announced. So it wasn't received very well. On the other hand, when the news broke, rose 22% was eventually halted. So they had to disclose. We're good for them. But it is very confusing. And JetBlue obviously has a very different product than what spirit has. I mean, JetBlue is some different markets, but also the onboard product. I mean, Jeff blue even when they started, everyone else had a follow with their IFE seat back screens and things like that, a higher touch service, JetBlue of course, has mint, their business class, and their expanding like they announced hours before the merger to Europe. And they want to expand even deeper into Europe in the coming years. So it doesn't totally make sense with what spirits business model is. Yeah, when frontier and spirit announced that merger, it just seemed like, oh yeah, that makes sense, both these airlines are pretty much the same, except for the branding, but JetBlue and spirit could not be any more different, branding wise, experience wise, target customer wise, probably. It just seems so I'm still confused by it. What is jet blues argument for proposing this? Why do they think this is a good idea? Well, a JetBlue thinks that it's going to help them grow. And I think they used the word turbocharge cringe when they announced it. And it was investors in the media. So one thing that they both have in common is Airbus three 20 family, which is hard to come by for the next decade, let's say. So that will help them if it is approved if it is if spirit okays the offer and going with JetBlue, those planes, we're talking hundreds of planes that they already have, and then the ones that they have on order over a hundred will go to JetBlue. And CEO of JetBlue Robin Hayes had said, you know, we know that the market for planes is tight, especially for narrow bodies, especially for the a three 20 family in the coming years and this will allow us to grow as much as we want. The way that's much faster than growing organically. The Jeff was also saying that people that they want to compete against the airlines that they want to compete against. So the big four Delta United and Southwest and American Airlines curious thing about that, the big bad four is that a JetBlue has a partnership with one of the big four. And that's American Airlines in that northeast alliance. So it's a really big question about how the DoJ receives this. Last year, they sued to block that partnership that allows American and JetBlue to coordinate routes on the northeast Boston New York, which they argued together that that would allow them to compete better against United and Delta in the region. And I think JetBlue in its press release that it eventually put out stated that they think that both the northeast alliance and the spirit merger will go through without really any major hurdle. I just can't see that happening. And we try to press them on that and say, what if you could only have one? You pick one. And it's not totally clear because the trial hasn't happened yet. The debugging suit against the NEA, how that pans out. But I don't know. It's a really tall order, especially for this administration. I understand it would take a really long time, the order via offers and even accepted by spirit at this point, but getting it through regulators is a tough one. And then you have a whole other risk of executing this thing. I mean, have you been on a spirit plane? I mean, you are going to have to rip out seats, retrofit, dozens of aircraft to fit the IFE, you know, I think it's like 10% of seats that they have to take out and make them JetBlue planes. And.
AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"jetblue" Discussed on AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
"Actually mean. And so you end up with less understanding than you would have without that. So be cautious when you listen to those, we're not going to link to any of those because I don't want to feed into that. But what happened looking at the data and looking at what the French BEA reported in their issue of notification that they are investigating this incident. The aircraft was on final approach to the southernmost runway at CDG. And began drifting left and the autopilot was not responding. And as the aircraft continued to drift left and drift left, the pilots were working on getting the aircraft to correct course and could not, they disengaged the autopilot, performed to go around, and were able to safely land the aircraft about 25 minutes later. So the audio recording is beside the trend, the mistranslations, what's interesting is that for one thing, they accidentally keyed the chat, not the chat button, but the transmit button on their headsets and a lot of behind the scenes noises and alarms were sent over the ATC radio. And there was a lot of things going on. They seem to be physically fighting with the aircraft. At some point, I believe you could hear the master of warning of the aircraft go off, the autopilot disconnect alarm went off. So there was a lot going on in a very short period of time. And we'll just have to wait for the BEA to do their investigation. They tweeted this morning a serious incident to the Air France 777, registered FGS QJ, noted instability of flight controls on final go around hard controls, fight path oscillations, and they have opened a safety investigation, also noting that the CVR and FDR data had already been retrieved and is being currently analyzed. So they are taking this very seriously already. Yeah, I mean, thankfully, the.
Mike Gallagher Podcast
JetBlue Removes Passenger From Flight for Wearing LGB Mask
"But you know, if you're turning on the radio and you're hearing this incident, hearing about a guy on a jet blue flight kicked off a plane for wearing a let's go Brandon mask. And then wanted the demand by the aggrieved flight attendant Michael from JetBlue. To take it off and change it, this is about freedom. And people don't care. This does matter. We are a free people. We are not and for two years, we've been told what to do, how to live our life, what we can put on our face, where we can eat, how many things we can buy, what we've got to do to our 7 year old children, and enough is enough.
Mike Gallagher Podcast
Mike Gallagher Reads Emails From Angeline in Tierra Verde, FL
"Here's the guy in JetBlue that I'm sure triggers people like angeline from am I saying to right is a tiara Verde, right? To get out her email. 'cause I do. I wish he'd call. She never has it the guts to call in. She never has even the guts to respond 'cause like we're talking about her all the time now. Yeah, it's angeline from tiara verdi, Florida. When I said yesterday, oh wow, more mass mandates going away, but the media not saying much about it. It looks like COVID is ending with a whimper rather than a bang. She says, are you crazy? Went out with a whimper, not a bang, 6 million people have died. Over 900,000 in the U.S. alone actually Angelina, that's over a million, get your facts straight. And countless number 6, you are an old man with archaic views. She loves calling me old. I think she's attracted to older men. Who got a little bit of money. I think that's what it is. She's tired of the cats. And she just focuses on. I think I look like a I'm a pretty youthful looking guy, I think. She says, please stop and think of the harm you are doing by putting out on the airwaves such hatred and false statements just for ratings. Yes, I believe so. I listen for the couple minutes so I can understand just how thoughtless the far right is today. Oh, honey, you're listening to every minute. Who are you kidding? You're listening to every word and we know it. She says, I am thrilled that there is a feeling that perhaps the worst is behind us and science will find a way to keep it that way. Stop with the nonsense and hatred. Now that's one of her milder emails.
AP News Radio
Thousands of flights canceled, delayed at start of workweek
"A a winter winter storm storm that that hit hit Monday Monday added added to to covert covert related related airline airline staff staff shortages shortages to to push push flight flight cancellations cancellations to to our our holiday holiday season season high high creating creating more more frustration frustration for for travelers travelers trying trying to to get get home home and and already already early early this this morning morning there there were were more more than than nine nine hundred hundred U. U. S. S. flight flight cancellations cancellations and and more more than than three three hundred hundred delays delays according according to to the the tracking tracking website website FlightAware FlightAware JetBlue JetBlue canceling canceling ten ten percent percent of of its its flights flights southwest southwest five five percent percent Reagan Reagan national national Newark Newark liberty liberty in in Seattle Seattle Tacoma Tacoma lead lead the the way way for for airports airports with with the the most most cancellations cancellations this this morning morning yesterday yesterday there there were were more more than than three three thousand thousand U. U. S. S. flight flight cancellations cancellations and and eight eight thousand thousand delays delays as as a a winter winter storm storm dumped dumped several several inches inches of of snow snow in in the the DC DC area area I'm I'm Julie Julie Walker Walker
AP News Radio
Flight cancellations continue due to bad weather, sick crews
"Flight flight cancellations cancellations that that disrupted disrupted holiday holiday travel travel stretched stretched into into Monday Monday with with major major U. U. S. S. airlines airlines each each canceling canceling dozens dozens of of flights flights staffers staffers calling calling out out sick sick due due to to cover cover nineteen nineteen have have lived lived airline airline short short in in recent recent days days according according to to flight flight aware aware which which tracks tracks flight flight cancellations cancellations airlines airlines have have canceled canceled roughly roughly four four thousand thousand flights flights to to from from or or inside inside the the U. U. S. S. since since Friday Friday delta delta United United JetBlue JetBlue and and American American of of all all said said that that the the Omicron Omicron variant variant was was causing causing staffing staffing problems problems United United said said it it canceled canceled one one hundred hundred and and fifteen fifteen flights flights today today out out of of more more than than four four thousand thousand scheduled scheduled due due to to crews crews out out with with covered covered nineteen nineteen I'm I'm surely surely after after
AP News Radio
Hundreds more flights canceled because of staff shortages
"Staffing staffing shortages shortages blamed blamed on on covert covert nineteen nineteen continue continue to to make make a a mess mess of of air air travel travel I'm I'm Ben Ben Thomas Thomas with with the the latest latest airlines airlines canceled canceled more more than than seven seven hundred hundred additional additional flights flights either either leaving leaving or or flying flying within within the the US US Sunday Sunday that's that's according according to to flight flight aware aware it's it's actually actually an an improvement improvement over over the the thousand thousand flights flights canceled canceled Saturday Saturday the the flight flight tracking tracking websites websites as as airlines airlines had had scrap scrap some some twenty twenty two two hundred hundred flights flights globally globally as as of of Sunday Sunday morning morning and and Monday Monday schedules schedules have have already already been been cut cut by by more more than than fifty fifty flights flights delta delta United United and and JetBlue JetBlue say say covert covert nineteen nineteen infections infections from from the the Omicron Omicron variant variant have have hit hit many many employees employees creating creating the the staff staff shortages shortages there's there's no no clear clear indication indication when when flight flight schedules schedules might might get get back back to to normal normal I'm I'm Ben Ben Thomas Thomas
AP News Radio
US sues to stop deal between American Airlines and JetBlue
"Hi Mike Rossi a reporting the US sues to stop a deal between American Airlines and JetBlue the justice department and six states have filed a lawsuit to block a partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue in a statement Attorney General Merrick garland said the alliance would result in higher fares fewer choices and lower quality service if allowed to continue attorneys general of California Massachusetts Florida Pennsylvania Virginia Arizona and the district of Columbia join the lawsuit American and JetBlue said they will continue their alliance unless ordered by a court to stop the deal between the airlines was approved by the transportation department in the final days of the trump administration Mike Rossi out Washington
WBZ Midday News
As Tempers Flare in the Air, Flight Crews Learn Self-Defense
"Growing trend in the airline industry. Self defense training for airline crews. JetBlue flight attendant Katie under Dunk, never thought she'd need to deliver a knockout punch on the job being crazy out there lately, So it's better to know what to do to defend ourselves. Federal air marshals in this training session, teaching flight crews how to disarm unruly passengers got to get your turn. It's been a record setting year with nearly 3900 incidents in the air. One Southwest flight attendant was struck in the face of Frontier Airlines crew had to strap this man to his seat after allegedly groping two of them. That's CBS's Jim Axelrod reporting. It's
Aviation Week's Check 6 Podcast
A New Player in the Transatlantic Market
"So it's an exciting day today for one of america's most liked airlines jetblue flight w seven and airbus a-3 three twenty one l. Narrow body landed at london heathrow this morning after departing from jet blues new york. Jfk base last night that flight launched jet blue's entry into the transatlantic market beginning with daily service from jfk to heathrow and then adding daily service to london gatwick ultimately following with Boston to london. Ceo robin hayes. A former executive at british airways has promised to create a permanent and disruptive effect in the transatlantic market. So joining me today to discuss. What that could mean are two of my aviation week network colleagues north american air transport editor but ben goldstein and kepler senior analyst for the americas laurie ransom. Hey ben laurie great to have you on this. Thank you so to start off by just looking at that whole history that we know all too well of Long haul low cost carriers Starting up especially in the transatlantic market and more often than not failing What do you think might make this a different prospect with a jet blue and will this like jetblue like robin says be transatlantic disruptor. What are your thoughts laurie. Well i think as you said. Jetblue is one of america's most light brands and they have strongholds in new york and boston so they have strong point of sale here in the us. And i think that's a little bit different than some of the point to point carriers that had tried to do this in the past where if by bodies
Mac OS Ken
JetBlue Pilots to Receive M1 iPad Pro for Flights
"Apple's most lux pad is headed to the cockpit. Macrumors says jetblue has announced plans to get its pilots with 'em one ipad pro units airlines actually been using ipad in the cockpit since two thousand thirteen macrumors says that enabled pilots to use ipad for operational tracking apps hosting system maintenance checks checking real time weather patterns to avoid turbulence accessing procedures and manuals and more. Now they're upgrading and a blurb that could have been written by cupertino. Jet blue says ipad pro is the right fit for the cockpit with its thin. Light design and large bright liquid retina display the new ipad pro features the industry m one chip which offers next level performance when pilots are running more than a dozen apps throughout the duration of the
AP News Radio
Startup Breeze Airways Says It Will Begin Flying in Late May
"A new U. S. airline will be taking to the skies late next week Brees Airways says it plans to offer low base fares to attract leisure travelers returning from the pandemic locked down faster than business travelers the airline which will debut may twenty seventh is planning limited routes in the southeast and central U. S. expanding to sixteen cities by July breeze was created by JetBlue founder David Neeleman he's targeting secondary cities largely overlooked by bigger carriers like Hartford Connecticut Charleston South Carolina and Tampa Florida another start up the velo airlines began flying in late April on the west coast hi Jackie Quinn
AP News Radio
Check-in Problems Causes Delays at Airports
"The check in delays that were affecting passengers of three airlines earlier this morning have been resolved the system that provides check in services for several airlines had some computer issues that cause delays and long check in lines across the country Sabor a company that books flights says the problem has been taken care of and measures have been taken to prevent it from happening again however there were reports of long lines at some airlines hours later the problem impacting American Airlines JetBlue and Alaska Airlines I'm I. Kempen
San Diego's Morning News with Ted and LaDona
End of a Covid era: Delta to stop blocking middle seats on May 1
"Its covered 19 policy of blocking middle seats on all flights beginning May 1st. They extended the policy several times during the pandemic, most recently in February, Delta's CEO at Bastion says Airlines decision is based on the increasing number of covert vaccinations. It's the final U. S airlines still blocking those middle seats in regular economy. United briefly blocked seats and very briefly at that American airlines abandoned at last summer, Southwest and JetBlue ended the practice in December. Well, if you
WTOP 24 Hour News
News Corp to Buy Investor's Business Daily for $275 Million
"Business daily. For $275 Million. News Corp also owns Dow Jones News Market Watch in Barron's JetBlue is getting into the travel booking business, launching a site called the
Airplane Geeks Podcast
A look at the startup airlines entering the market in 2021
"How to launch an airline during a global pandemic. Well we have a number of who airlines coming in twenty twenty one. This year we have norwegian. Low cost startup flyer we have a uk startup. Fly pop. Andy you may recall breeze airways we've talked about them in the past that comes from david. Newman who founded jetblue and zoll and and west jet norwegian startup flyer which is f. l. y. Are they intend to focus on norwegian family and leisure market and they plan to start service in june with two seven. Three seven dash eight hundred airplanes. Maybe be ramp up to eight in the fall or autumn is our uk. Friends would say the startup in the uk fly pop. They're going to offer low cost long haul flights which is interesting. And they're using the airbus a three thirty and of course breeze airways That's targeting the us leisure market. They have sixty eight to twenty three hundreds on order and their deliveries are supposed to start next month. April twenty twenty one also have some embraer e one ninety s e one nine thousand five which i believe are all least but here. We are in this kind of commercial aviation crisis precipitated by the pandemic and we're seeing some people who think they might have here
CNBC's Fast Money
Airline Shares Take Off, But Should You Buy In?
"We start off with an all clear for airline stocks. United american jetblue taken off to the tune of five percent or more day with united seeing its best day since november the rally coming on the heels of this milestone daily air passenger traffic crossing the one point three million mark over the weekend. That's the highest level in a year. So is this the all board with these stocks. Tam you've been in these dr awhile sticking by them. Yeah well. I think until we get into memorial day and another. The traffic is going to continue to increase as the as the vaccines are also brought through. And i just think with airlines the multiples unattractive especially on a relative. Excuse me on an enterprise value basis because a lot of them are have a lot more debt on their balance sheets but I think they're going to overshoot. And i think the pent-up dynamic especially for the traders out there says the valuations aren't going to be terribly interesting on a relative basis to where they were pre covid But just you heard this week that digital bookings out sixty days or within three percent of where they were in two thousand nineteen and when you look at some of the other numbers. If they're getting in terms of digital bookings overall. This week was a very exciting week for airlines to see that kind of demand can stay in the trade. We'll look united's up fifty five percent since since feb one of america's well delta thirty five percent. I think you've had a great great run. But i think you can time this into again. I think you sell airlines. When they get back to peak capacity and they'll probably be sometime after memorial day carrington mentioned enterprise value. And that's something that has really concern you. You were one time. One time investor in these airline stocks right so the enterprise value is now greater than it was. I don't know delta over several of them greater than it was december of two thousand and nineteen. So that just seems ridiculous to me an evaluation because when you think about it as tim mentioned the debts much higher so even if everything goes back to the exactly the way it was they still have a boatload of debt that they need to service right to those interest payments aren't free so the businesses hampered their you know flying on fumes but i've said that for a while i just feel like it's you know this is the room before the news of. Oh wow these these businesses can take for them to be really really profitable again. So i missed the run but i'm absolutely not going to jump in right here. I think that I think there are over valued even if you think about a return even if you think about a them approaching break even getting to break even still
Marketplace Minute
U.S. airline bookings improve
"S cohen. Vaccinations accelerate more people are booking airline tickets. Southwest jetblue and delta. Said today that bookings are up not among business travelers but among everyone else which the airlines call leisure travelers del tone. Jet blue are expecting first-quarter revenue fall less than earlier forecasts west also expects revenue to improve this month and next oil prices have also taken a beating during the pandemic with planes and cars idled there on the rice to reaching seventy dollars. A barrel helped along with early signs of economic recovery in china. Combine that with supply cuts from oil producing nations and analysts. Expect oil prices to continue to