We have some breaking news. JetBlue announcing a termination of
its merger agreement with Spirit Airlines.
The other Spirit, yes, we can't let you walk away.
Well, they called him a mutual agreement because Spirit is
also putting out a note saying we're terminating the proposed
merger with JetBlue.
Look, this is not a huge surprise.
I think this is what people ultimately thought was going
to happen that A,
it wasn't going to go through after being shot down
once by the DOJ and while they appealed it.
Very few people thought that that appeal was going to
work.
And so now. JetBlue pays Spirit $69 million.
That's the end of this courtship.
But you know what's interesting here?
Remember when JetBlue, Robin Hayes was man,
he was adamant. We need them.
We need them so much that we're going to give
a special dividend on a monthly basis to Spirit shareholders.
Remember, that's how much they paid since that started,
$425,000,000 because that's a nice chunk of change.
Nice chunk of change. If you were a Spirit shareholder,
basically, it's never, yeah, $500 million to go away.
That's what's going on. And now the question becomes for
Spirit.
OK, what do you do?
Because you're gonna be there burning through cash.
They're losing money. And Ted Christie,
who's sharp. He knows what he's doing,
but he's also in a tough market where they flooded
the market with capacity in the fourth quarter.
They have been more judicious in the first quarter,
but it's a tough market for them and there are
more than a few people who have said,
OK, if you don't make this merger go through,
how do you survive?
Could you imagine Ted Christie making some comments saying they
remain confident in our future as a successful independent airline?
We'll see the shares still halted for Spirit Airlines.
JetBlue shares are up. No,
the JetBlue shareholders once, once the DOJ said no,
they did not want this.
To continue the appeal and I think Joanna Garrity,
the CEO of JetBlue, yeah,
I think since you know,
once that decision was made,
she's like let's get back to blocking and tackling and
running in the airline the right way and quick this
focus on mergers and alliances,
et cetera, right.