A Frontier Airlines plane near a Spirit Airlines plane at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on May 16, 2022 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Frontier Airlines said Wednesday it has again proposed merging with struggling rival Spirit Airlines, which is in bankruptcy.
Frontier and Spirit first announced a deal to merge in 2022, but a JetBlue Airways offer derailed that plan. JetBlue’s proposed acquisition of Spirit was blocked by a federal judge last year, and Spirit filed for bankruptcy protection in November.
Frontier said in a release that it has met with Spirit’s board and executives since it made its proposal this month. Frontier executives said in a email to counterparts at Spirit this week that their plan is better than Spirit’s own plan to emerge from bankruptcy.
“We continue to believe that under the current standalone plan, Spirit will emerge highly levered, losing money at the operating level, and this would not be a transaction we would pursue,” wrote Frontier Chairman Bill Franke and CEO Barry Biffle in a Tuesday email to Spirit Chairman Mac Gardner and CEO Ted Christie. “As a result, time is of the essence.”
Christie and Gardner told their Frontier counterparts that they were rejecting the deal, calling the terms “inadequate and unactionable,” according to a letter shared in a securities filing on Wednesday.
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