The Spirit-Frontier merger

The “why” is, as always, multifaceted. On paper, the route networks should be complementary, since Frontier Airlines is a bigger presence out West, and Spirit Airlines has the larger footprint in the East. Both carriers have struggled to put together reputable operations, and their schedules tend to fall apart quickly. Spirit was especially notorious for falling behind early in the day and struggling to catch up after about noon. While they’ve made progress on being more reliable, the massive week-long operational meltdown the airline had in August 2021 shows that they still have issues to resolve.

Frontier, on the other hand, has long struggled with its own operational issues and has yet to establish itself in a hub somewhere. The current Frontier is the second iteration of an airline with that name, and like its namesake, tried to carve a niche for itself in Denver. But efforts to expand have been met with only moderate success, and the company has been chased out of many markets over the years. In others, its growth has been slower than hoped. Several years ago, Frontier tried to merge with Southwest Airlines, but demands by the pilots finally forced Southwest to back away from the table, and Frontier has struggled ever since.

Both Frontier and Spirit have been aggressive pioneers in the a la carte pricing practices that have taken over the industry, charging a fee for almost anything that they can think of. In fact, both make far more money from fees than from actual ticket sales.

Both carriers have trouble recruiting and retaining pilots, especially pilots at the bottom of the seniority list who haven’t really become invested in the airline. There is speculation that the merger is an attempt by both carriers to help fix that. But it is still a gamble, because a pilot with an opportunity to go to a legacy carrier that is more stable and pays much more may not be willing to take a pay cut to fly with the new combined entity.

So, what can we as the public or you as a potential pilot expect? This is not an all-encompassing list, but here are some of the basics: mergers never happen on the schedule anticipated; they always cost more than expected (usually a lot more); integrating work groups is challenging at best and painful at worst; the savings that are advertised, especially in airline mergers, almost never materialize. In fact, the public will end up paying more for tickets. Finally, employees will demand an increase in compensation, and the pilots will be leading the way. In the past few major mergers (Delta/Northwest and United/Continental), the management teams paved the way for a smoother transition by getting the pilots on board first before moving. The carrot was a new contract and significant pay increases for everyone. Alternatively, American/US Airways/America West/TWA chose not to do this, and it caused a significant amount of wasted money and hard feelings that continue to this day. The websites also need to be consolidated, and this has proven to be a major hiccup in the past, with Day One operations often resulting in a spectacular crash and huge public embarrassment. IT infrastructure also needs to be merged, and this usually takes several years to fully design, test, and execute.

Both carriers have airplanes on order, and as an all-Airbus fleet, will see significant savings from a common fleet. Both need pilots, but final numbers won’t be available for a while, because in a merger like this, some overlapping city pairs will be dropped altogether or condensed. This is going to be a long process, and it will come with some growing pains. But, in the end, if it is managed reasonably well (that’s a big if), it will bring stability and lots of opportunities for pilots looking for work.