Spirit Airlines CEO Ted Christie spoke candidly in regards to the airline trade, likening it to a rigged sport and saying U.S. customers are “the long-term losers.”
“As we speak, almost all of the earnings of your entire U.S. airline industry are concentrated in simply two firms, whereas the smaller non-legacy carriers scrambled to revive profitability in what appears ever extra like a rigged sport,” Christie stated in an earnings name with analysts.
He added that “The Massive 4 are the beneficiaries of this new regular, American customers are the long-term losers.”
Christie defined that till not too long ago, the provider thought “the branding of the brand new facility may be blue.”
He was referring to the failed $3.8 billion merger with JetBlue Airways earlier this 12 months. Christie had argued that the deal to mix the carriers, initially introduced in 2022, “would save lots of of thousands and thousands for customers and create an actual challenger to the dominant ‘Massive 4’ U.S. airways,” however it confronted important regulatory pushback.
In January, a federal decide blocked JetBlue’s acquisition of Spirit after agreeing with the Justice Division that the deal would harm the provision of low-cost air journey tickets.
“Trying again a few months, we nonetheless really feel strongly, it was a critical misreading of each the proof and the regulation for the Federal Courtroom to enjoin our merger with JetBlue,” Christie instructed analysts.
He stated that “the truth that the DOJ even introduced a case to dam a merger between two carriers with lower than 8% mixed market share, simply exhibits how uninformed the federal government is about our dynamic airline enterprise, notably within the post-COVID period.”
