Spirit rejects bid from JetBlue

After receiving a surprise bid from JetBlue last month, Spirit Airlines has announced it has rejected the offer and that it's recommending its shareholders to move forward with the proposed take-over by Frontier Airlines.

Although the bid placed by JetBlue was significantly higher than that of Frontier Airlines, Spirit thinks the deal would not get approvals from US antitrust authorities. Especially the fact that a higher-cost/higher fare airline would take-over a lower-cost/lower-fare airline would probably gain a lot of resistance from the Department of Justice.

JetBlue will now weigh its options to see if it wants to continue, which means a hostile take-over of Spirit, or withdraw from the process.

Photo by Anton Homma.