JetBlue Airways Founder: Spirit, Frontier ‘Need Each Other’

DALLAS—As Spirit Airlines marks a third month in its repeat restructuring, industry entrepreneur and airline founder David Neeleman is weighing in on Spirit’s chances of survival.

The ULCC continues shrinking, paring down its fleet through court-approved lease rejections, while pulling back from certain markets, and cutting costs. The airline won court approval for new financing and in November reached agreements with its crew unions to reduce flight attendant and pilot pay, while committing to comparable salary reductions for its own senior leadership.

“I think Spirit’s restructuring now is meaningful,” commented JetBlue founder and Breeze CEO Neeleman, at the Skift Aviation Forum in Dallas on Dec. 3. “They’ve been able to cut their pilot salaries; they’ve been able to get rid of a bunch of airplanes,” he said, pointing also to a deal with lessor AerCap that came with a cash infusion. Still, a merger may be the best path forward, Neeleman suggested.

In recent years, Frontier Airlines and JetBlue Airways have each attempted to acquire the struggling ULCC, overtures that preceded its first bankruptcy filing. An agreement with Frontier was announced in early 2022 before JetBlue under then-CEO Robin Hayes launched and won a bidding war. But a JetBlue-Spirit combination was blocked by a federal judge in early 2024 on antitrust grounds, and a third acquisition offer from Frontier was rejected by Spirit in early 2025, while the budget rival warned it could be “some time” before it would consider re-engaging, if at all. Today, Frontier is expanding aggressively into Spirit markets, reacting to drawdowns that present a rare opportunity in an oversupplied domestic market.

October bankruptcy court filings indicate that Spirit remains open to a potential merger or sale of the company, leaving the possibility of a continuing saga.

“I think Spirit and Frontier need each other,” Neeleman said. “They need the synergies, and they need to stop competing. There’s room for a ULCC in the U.S., but probably not two. If they get together, [through] cost synergies, revenue synergies, I think they’ll probably be okay.”