January 17th, 2024
CNBC News recently published an article featuring Samuel Engel, Lecturer of Marketing, discussing the challenges Spirit Airlines is facing.
With JetBlue’s 3.8-billion-dollar acquisition of Spirit Airlines being blocked, the future of Spirit Airlines is uncertain. Before this deal, Spirit encountered issues including grounded planes, softening demand, and rising costs.
“I don’t see how it benefits consumers to entrench the oligopoly of the big four…organic [airline] growth in this country is painstaking and slow. If you bar mergers between the second-tier airlines you entrench the big four,” Engel explained when discussing the four airlines dominating the industry.
The acquisition would have likely been more attainable if Spirit partnered with a different airline, such as Frontier.