[jpgvm]

Don't be. This merger being blocked means JetBlue now won't acquire Spirit at an inflated valuation. Instead when the company is liquidated they can buy the airport slots they so direly need without all the extra debt -and- they get to pick through anything else they want like airframes. So your favourite airline will likely get everything it wants (seems like they were willing to pay more than Frontier anyway) with nothing it doesn't. The only downside is they have to wait for bankruptcy proceedings which are about 4-6 quarters away looking at Spirits run-rate and revenue projections.

However you should be sad in general because this is a terrible judgement that dooms a business from taking the only way out that would have been a reasonable outcome for its employees, shareholders and users.

[sco1]

> Instead when the company is liquidated they can buy the airport slots they so direly need without all the extra debt -and- they get to pick through anything else they want like airframes

I'm not familiar with how the process works, would JetBlue now have to compete with larger airlines for these assets if Spirit goes under?

[jpgvm]

Yes but this is likely still better than acquiring Spirits considerable debt load etc. The most likely competitor will actually be Frontier who also made an offer on Spirit. The big players generally have the allocations they are after already, hence their position in the market being so solid.

There is a risk of the big 4 just buying the slots to tie them up though, this happens a lot in markets like Australia which have very strict arrival/departure windows but is a lesser problem in markets like the US which throttle throughput based on ATC capacity instead.