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Let's Buy Spirit Air

letsbuyspiritair.com

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Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#171

Post by rogerrogerr »

jhgorrell wrote: post #170
rogerrogerr wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who really doesn't care what kind of service I get on a plane? I don't drink alcohol, so I don't care about that. I bring my own water bottle, so I'm good on that. The little bags of pretzels are nice, but if they stood at the front and launched them out of a t-shirt cannon, I'd be good with that. As long as the required crew of flight attendants doesn't assault me, I've never really got off a plane…

When your flights are delayed/resechduled there is a world of difference. "Get in line" vs "you are already rebooked". (my Air Canada experince.)

Fair enough, I've been in those situations where the service on the ground side of the gate matters.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#172

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

jmalicki wrote: post #138
mysecretaccount wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with your uncharitable framing I agree with both quotes.

Can you educate the rest of us by explaining your reasoning?

Breaking down complex topics into binary black and white doesnt have to be wrong. The more important part is, how much wealth they extracted and how exactly. Was it market dominance with a superior product or amoral cost externalization.

The angle of treating transportation as regulated utility shifts the business focus away from profit onto providing services, which sometimes can cost more than your income. Similarly, would you close schools, because they didnt make enough money? Airlines are highly subsidized anyway, treating them as regulated utilities falls short of taking public ownership as public institutions, where services just cost money/subsidies.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#174

Post by sephamorr »

lefrenchy wrote: post #93

Can someone help me understand the argument that the FTC blocking the merger was bad? The argument I have seen is that blocking it resulted in Spirit dying and people losing their jobs and there being less competition. Wouldn’t the same exact thing have happened regardless? Am i supposed to believe that Jet Blue would have kept all of those employees? There would be one less competitor anyway, and in the merger case…

JetBlue is a small rival (JetBlue at ~5% of US traffic, Spirit at ~3%) to the big 4 United/American/Southwest/Delta (each with ~17%). At least on the surface, a larger JetBlue might be more competitive rather than forcing them into the unequal partnerships like they have with United at the moment. Certainly, some jobs would be lost, but I do think that Spirit dying is a worse outcome than joining another small airline.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#175

Post by gizmo686 »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #166
filoleg wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spirit wasn't asking for a government subsidy to get saved from bakruptcy. They were asking to be allowed to get merged with JetBlue (which could've saved them from bankruptcy) and got denied by the government. Those two things aren't the same.

My understanding is that the Spirit/JetBlue merger was blocked by the Biden DOJ. Were they asking for that again, or was it a different thing that failed in negotiations with the feds recently?

The negotiations that were occuring directly prior to Spirit's shutdown were not merger related; but a direct government bailout.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#176

Post by dghlsakjg »

gorgoiler wrote: post #158
gruez wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company makes too much money: "they're extracting monopolist rents! They need to be a regulated utility!" Company makes too little money: "there's no money in this industry! They need to be a regulated utility!"

A more fair assessment would be: company runs a utility => they need to be a regulated utility! The core part of air travel doesn’t really feel any different to a bus or metro or train. Off the tarmac then yes it absolutely feels like a Verizon store, as does some of the in-flight service, but there’s always been this weird feeling as a traveler that every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decals…

Have you ever flown spirit or any of the other ultra low cost carriers?

It very much is a different experience than flying a legacy domestic mainline carrier. I’m not alone amongst people i know who will happily fly the cheap seats on United/Delta/AA but won’t even look at a ticket from Spirit or Frontier even at a significant discount.

Compare it to a flag carrier like Singapore air and it is a shockingly different product.

All that’s an aside: we know what regulated airlines look like since we already tried it, much more expensive, with airlines competing not on price but on amenities.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#177

Post by roxolotl »

jmalicki wrote: post #138
mysecretaccount wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with your uncharitable framing I agree with both quotes.

Can you educate the rest of us by explaining your reasoning?

Not op but I also agree with the framing assuming you add “and they provide a vital service” to both. If a vital service is being used to extract profits it should be regulated so that equal access to the vital service can be provided. If a vital service is being provided but cannot make money it should be regulated so that it can be sustained since it is vital.

Now what is vital? Is Spirit vital? That’s the hard to define part.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#178

Post by JackFr »

nerdsniper wrote: post #37
paulddraper wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The only thing missing is ownership that answers to the people — not to shareholders.” Like, all people in the world? Customers? Employees? What does this mean? EDIT: It’s shareholders, but each person has one vote regardless of share count.

IMHO this should have been written “to the customers and employees”. To me, those are the people who compose a business enterprise.

But the customers and employees don’t actually put up the money for the enterprise.

If you assume there is an airplane — great, run the airline for the customers and employees. But the cost of the airplane can’t be handwaved away.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#179

Post by JumpCrisscross »

throw0101c wrote: post #50
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never seen that work. There is a fundamental tension between those groups. Hence, member-owned co-ops and employee-owned co-ops.

> I’ve never seen that work. There is a fundamental tension between those groups. Hence, member-owned co-ops and employee-owned co-ops. Focusing strictly on shareholders (value) has been en vogue since the 1970s: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine Before that the general thinking was along the lines of: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_theory Somehow companies managed to survive and grow bef…

> Focusing strictly on shareholders (value) has been en vogue since the 1970s

It's been in vogue, in circles, since the 17th century. We're not talking about for-profit structures here.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#180

Post by Animats »

rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

> They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago

They used to be. Read up on "Civil Aeronautics Board".

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