JetBlue Calls Off Merger With Spirit Airlines Citing ‘Regulatory Hurdles’

JetBlue aircraft at JFK

JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines said Monday that the two are calling off their plans to merge.


In a written statement provided to Frequent Business Traveler and The Travelist, the two airlines said that they “continue to believe in the procompetitive benefits of the combination.”


“We believed this merger was worth pursuing because it would have unleashed a national low-fare, high-value competitor to the Big Four airlines,” said JetBlue’s CEO,  Joanna Geraghty, in a statement, adding that, “given the hurdles to closing that remain, we decided together that both airlines’ interests are better served by moving forward independently.”


By ending the agreement, JetBlue is invoking the termination clause and will pay Spirit $69 million as a result.


The merger was first announced in July 2022.


Since then, in March 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit that sought to block the fusion.  The DOJ contended that the deal would drive up fares for price-sensitive consumers by taking discount carrier Spirit out of the market.


To counter opposition to the deal, JetBlue said in June 2023 that it planned to sell Spirit Airlines’ operations at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport to rival carrier Frontier Airlines’ parent Frontier Group Holdings, and that news came on the heels of news of a move by a federal judge, Leo Sorokin, to block JetBlue’s so-called “Northeast Alliance” with American Airlines on the grounds that it “substantially diminishes competition in the domestic market for air travel.”


Meanwhile, in August, court documents that were accidentally made public revealed that JetBlue could increase the cost of flying on multiple routes if the deal is approved by the DOJ.


In January of this year, U.S. District Court Judge William Young blocked the merger, ruling on the March 2023 suit filed by the Justice Department.  Later in the month, JetBlue fueled talk that it might back out of its planned Spirit Airlines and not appeal the district court’s ruling.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)