Flight attendants union head Sara Nelson is looking to Donald Trump to save her members at Spirit Airlines – and appears to be blaming Joe Biden for the predicament they’re in.
That’s consistent with her past statements on the merger plan between JetBlue and Spirit, and also perfect framing for encouraging action by the President, even though a contemplated loan in exchange for warrants worth 90% of the airline has no basis in law.
- Nelson says her union “cheered the JetBlue/Spirit merger.” She says it would have been good for labor, and credits the Biden administration with that.
- The Biden DOJ blocked the merger. Since it “didn’t succeed” that “consolidate[d] power among the largest airlines.”
- Now Spirit Airlines is in dire straits and “thousands of Flight Attendants and other frontline workers have their lives, paychecks, healthcare, homes, and retirement hanging in the balance.”
- This is about “real people” and they are “praying for a lifeline” from President Trump. At this point, any rescue seems to come from the Trump administration.
Only after getting improvements and protections in black and white, our union cheered the JetBlue/Spirit merger because the airlines knew they had to work with labor under the previous administration. It would have improved competition, increased safety, benefitted consumers, and allowed labor to negotiate to the highest standards. We also knew it would only consolidate power among the largest airlines if it didn’t succeed. We weren’t wrong. Now, thousands of Flight Attendants and other frontline workers have their lives, paychecks, healthcare, homes, and retirement hanging in the balance. Let’s remember real people are hoping and praying for a lifeline. And no doubt they deserve it! But if nothing else, they especially deserve consideration and kindness.
Only after getting improvements and protections in black and white, our union cheered the JetBlue/Spirit merger because the airlines knew they had to work with labor under the previous administration. It would have improved competition, increased safety, benefitted consumers, and…
— Sara Nelson (@FlyingWithSara) April 22, 2026
When the merger was announced she declared it “the first merger that we enthusiastically support.” When the Department of Justice filed suit against JetBlue’s acquisition of Spirit Airlines she called that “backward thinking.”
Nelson is a political operator, arguably the person most responsible for getting pandemic airline subsidies through Congress. So while Joe Biden was probably the most pro-union U.S. President in history besides FDR, it appears to me that she’s willing to blame Biden now for Spirit’s predicament and curry favor with Donald Trump – pray to him! – in order to get a bailout for Spirit Airlines.
just another way to get under Scott Kirby’s skin even though UA has the least overlap with NK of the big 4
Can’t blame her for trying. She obviously cares about the workers.
(Though, shouldn’t she be going to Congress to beg for a bailout… oh, wait…)
Wow Spectrum Boy, you did good, you managed to mention the most profitable airline this year, United, in the first post about NK. It is awesome how Scott loves rent free in your head. Meanwhile Georgia Klan Air, got yet another Federal racial bias complaint this week, leading all the majors. Skies are so grey in Atlanta you must need a safe space. Delta, “peace be upon them” just keeps falling every quarter. Makes your sycophancy harder kid.
As for Nelson, she is a well known shill so no surprise to see her pray to Orange Jeebus for help.
I would like NK to survive this debacle. Do snobby legacy UA loyalists really want their airspace invaded by ex-NK passengers? and somewhat funny comedians will have to change up their jokes.
I just got off a UA flight, last night. Very nice. I don’t think that I’ve ever flown NK; I’m thinking that I should book a trial NK flight before it possibly disappears forever. I never did fly Concorde before it disappeared, one of my great disappointments in my flying life.
Maybe they should have taken offer from Frontier. We can not bail them out because of bad business. Biden blocked it and now it must fail. Lots of people lose their job all the time the government can’t Savage’s stations, clothing stores or grocery stores. Bad business decisions result in negative outcomes. Sorry
I’m sure Sarah Nelson is a Democrat. She probably hates Trump like the rest of the zombies. I hope Trump has her kiss his ass and serve him a coke.
Sara Nelson is a joke and clown.
I still remember before they decided let go 5500 ppl from United, she went to 9/11 memorial site and crying and say we never leave anyone behind.
Then what? 5500 let go, never had an explanation from her till now.
I knew a Spirit bailout was wrong. Having the idiot Sara Nelson support confirms it.
An airline is not your AI girlfriend, there to make you feel good. It’s there to make a profit for the people that invested in that airline.
If this is announced I could see UA (and other airlines) marching into court asking for a stay, claiming there’s no legal standing for a Presidential administration to invest/bailout a private company without Congressional approval. Even the TARP of 2008 needed Congressional approval, failing the first time until lowlife Congress critters got the call from lobbyists. Spirit’s wiggle room is very limited. The airline could not afford to wait through a protracted court battle.
She’s so dumb. There going to keep the money the tax payer is going to spit out.
And I’m praying for Nelson to resign in disgrace over her constant misdirection on issues, grandstanding rather than doing her job, indifference to the plight of her constituency in real life, and general ineptitude. Unfortunately we can’t always get what we want.
Sarah Nelson is bought and paid for. Can’t believe she is supporting this crap.
@George Romey — Tell us more about your sycophantic AI girlie friend, sir!
All the “bail out” is going to do is steal $500M from the taxpayers to cover the losses that Besset’s company invested in Spirit in ’25. The Spirit business model does not hold up, especially given recent fuel cost increases. The “bail out” will cover it through the November elections then they’ll be bankrupt again except this time we lose. Might as well give the $500M directly to the employees and save us all the trouble. This deal is just another smash and grab by the administration and their hoodlums, without the hoodies
@ Tim — Delta is putting together their $50 billion bailout PowerPoint as we speak.
Jim,
you clearly have no memory.
This site has specifically noted that Nelson does things just to irritate Kirby.
The stat that you aren’t going to quote is that UAL stock is the only one of the big 3 that is down over the past month. DAL is up. AAL is up. UAL is down.
UAL”s market cap as a percentage of DAL’s is back to 66%, the lowest it has been in years. The ratio was as high as 85% not very long ago.
UNITED SINKING
Wall Street isn’t impressed at all w/ UA compared to DL.
@JC gets it. This bailout may only incidentally help workers or consumers, but that is not the real goal. Clearly, there are insiders who would benefit. We used to stop illegal grifting like this. And, if it were the other party doing it, you’d better believe there’d be hell to pay. We need greater transparency and accountability here and in-general.
@Tim Dunn — What are you talking about? United beat Delta in Q1 2026. Wall Street is either favoring United at the moment, or not even thinking much about aviation right now, other than to recognize that the war (and increased fuel costs) are going to screw us all. Man, your hope-ium must be addictive.
1990
UA’s INCOME STATEMENT benefitted from sales/lease back arrangements while DL took a NON-CASH accounting charge for its airline equity holdings.
UA increased its long term debt because that is how leases are categorized.
DL generated a higher operating profit margin.
the most telling statistic is how well the big 4’s owners – investors – have largely responded to first quarter earnings.
Wall Street gave the biggest thumbs down to UA’s earnings and the biggest thumbs up to AA who they see as turning things around. DL stock growth has been positive over the past 30 days while UA is negative.
UA’s market cap is worth less relative to DL than it has been in years – UA as a company is wroth just 2/3 of DL, down from 85% not that long ago.
I have said for years and this is playing out as I expected. UA’s massive order book is a liability now that fuel costs are cutting earnings which means UA has no choice but to take on debt.
Add in that UA’s labor costs will be increasing dramatically as it settles with FAs and then has to deal w/ mechanics and other ground workers and UA’s earnings will be falling.
from a competitive standpoint, DL’s growth will focus on what defines UA the most – Asia/Pacific – while AA is fighting back and winning in its larger domestic network. WN is seeing enormous revenue growth; UA has been living off of the weakness of AA and WN and both of those two are set to reclaim revenue that UA has benefitted from.
and let’s not even get to the fuel cost advantage that DL will have as long as this war in the Middle East goes on and beyond until fuel supplies are rebalanced.
DL just bought Balkan crude from Phillips 66 on the Gulf Coast at a substantial discount to US crude and shipped it to the Trainer refinery via a Maltan freighter because of the suspensio of the Jones Act which is in place to try to reduce fuel prices and is likely to remain in place for months, increasing DL’s profits for the refinery.
in contrast, AS and UA as heavy fuel users on the west coast and in E. Asia will face above average prices for fuel.
Sara Nelson knows that she needs UA’s FAs to approve the TA; UA continues to decline from its financial peak.
It is easy to see that this Sarah Nelson is about one thing…her union. She has badmouthed every president regardless of the party. NOW…she comes in “praying” that the president will save the airline (yeah…praying to save HER union paycheck). NO! NO! NO!. Let Spirit die in peace. It has squandered the two bankruptcy bailouts and there’s no sign that giving them TAXPAYER MONEY would save them a 3rd time. Enough is enough. The “patient” is on irreversible life support. Pull the plug.
@Tim Dunn — Ok, so now we’re just playing accounting games here. Just like when ‘profit-sharing’ is down, because, lookie lookie, no ‘profits,’ technically, because we manufacture a different category to silo co-branded credit cards.
@Win Whitmire — So, would you want a leader who doesn’t care about the best interests of their members, constituents, etc.? I’m sure she gets paid, as she should; not as well as a CEO or mercenary for the capital class.
1990…”mercenary for the capital class.” A true Marxist if I ever heard one. She is not a leader…she’t a leach on the people she’s supposed to represent.
J.C Hit it on the spot. Smash and grab without there mask. Love it!!!!!
Sara Nelson should resign. She has failed at everything she touches. She has trashed the President and has made everything political. She hates anyone with an R next to their ballot….but yet it took a R President for 2 United Airlines JCBAs to be passed, and she failed to get it under the D and failed with the Biden DOJ and DOT to help Spirit. She continues to spread hateful Tweets and its a surprise no one takes her seriously when she begs?
Sara Neslon needs to resign