JetBlue places surprise bid on Spirit Airlines

On 5 April 2022, Spirit Airlines has announced that JetBlue has placed an unsollicitated bid for the airline. This surprise bid can potentially spoil the announced merger between Spirit and Frontier Airlines as the bid of JetBlue is significantly higher than that of Frontier. JetBlue's bid is around 33 USD per Spirit share, while the one of Frontier is at 25 USD per share.

Industry analists are quite surprised about JetBlue's move as they don't see the natural fit of the airline with Spirit. Both companies have quite an overlap in the network and are not as complementary as a Spirit-Frontier link-up. JetBlue, however, said that a potential acquisition of Spirit would enable the airline to grow and position itself as a bigger competitive force against the largest four US-airlines and increase competition in the domestic market.

Spirit's board will now study the received bid from JetBlue and has said it will "respond in due time".

Photo by Anton Homma.