JetBlue’s founder thinks another airline was a better match for Spirit

The founder of JetBlue Airways (JBLU+8.64%) added insult to injury following the airline’s ill-fated merger attempt with Spirit Airlines (SAVE-3.95%). David Neeleman, who left the company in 2007 and now runs Breeze Airways, told the Washington Post that Spirit should have merged with Frontier Airlines (ULCC+10.24%) instead, a bitter irony all around.

For one, that had been Spirit’s plan at first. In 2022, it announced a merger with Frontier that would have put two of America’s biggest low-fare flyers together. But then JetBlue swooped in with a spendier offer to become Spirit’s dancing partner instead. But after a judge blocked the JetBlue-Spirit merger on anti-trust grounds in January, the two companies abandoned the effort in March.

The next irony is about what came after. After “three years of distractions,” as current JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty put it earlier this year, JetBlue is forging a solo path forward and Spirit is struggling to survive. It’s a task made more difficult by larger airlines introducing lower-cost tickets to compete with the likes of Spirit on price.

Where it used to make up for lost ticket revenue by up-charging for everything else, Spirit is now trying to become more like a typical airline by offering things like assigned seats and something resembling a first-class option.

“Nobody would ever fly Spirit if they could fly United or Delta,” Neeleman told the Post. “So now Spirit and Frontier are trying to move more in that direction.”