United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby says that they’re in discussions with another airline about acquiring assets.
“And as I look at assets, maybe they will, maybe they won’t come available. We’ve actually even had some discussions with one airline about buying some,” he said, but declined to provide further information or the identity of the company
This is either:
- Spirit Airlines: and would mean either gates at Fort Lauderdale – if they could get enough gates to build a strong operation that would meet a long-standing desire for United – or slots at New York LaGuardia, the other thing of value that Spirit has. That presumably becomes available only if the U.S. government doesn’t bail out Spirit.
- JetBlue: They would presumably be looking to buy New York JFK slots. United already expects to get some New York JFK slots from JetBlue as part of their partnership starting next year. That will allow United to return to the JFK market, which former CEO Jeff Smisek pulled out of.
Smisek misunderstood the value – saw United losing money on the flights there, but not realizing they would lose business from high value customers on the West Coast who didn’t want to fly to Newark and they’d lose relevance for a segment of New Yorkers would wouldn’t be as attracted to United’s credit card.
Update: another possibility is Southwest Airlines who is leaving Chicago O’Hare and currently uses gates M2/M5 in terminal 5 and I believe those are preferential use (not common use).
Kirby says they’ve had discussions with one airline, which surprises me – that they haven’t had discussions with both Spirit and JetBlue. We know there have been discussions with Spirit, because United already bought gates from Spirit at Chicago O’Hare, after American Airlines bought gates there from Spirit.
Regardless, this is an unprecedented time for mergers and acquisitions frenzy in the industry, directly involving the President of the United States – Kirby raised the possibility of buying American Airlines with President Trump, Trump is discussing having the federal government acquire Spirit, and American is talking deals with Alaska Airlines.
Here’s the full interview with Kirby:
(HT: Enilria)
(Insert “Why not both?” meme here.)
He looks like a clown with those athleisure sneakers and the suit, with pants that don’t even fit. What a wholly unserious person.
other airlines are making those same calls.
The difference between Kirby and everyone else is that Kirby is incapable of keeping his mouth shut because he desperately wants to be seen as the smartest guy in the room even though he just copies other people’s strategies.