Southwest Airlines flight attendants union board member Chris Click just came out of an executive board meeting and took to social media, fueling speculation that the carrier could be close to announcing a deal to acquire another airline.
The union safety chair ran a poll asking for opinions on which airline Southwest will acquire, and put his money (public vote) in favor of Breeze, while most respondents as of this writing are saying JetBlue. Breeze is run by Dave Neeleman, who sold Morris Air to Southwest before founding JetBlue (once his non-compete ran out).
Union leaders at the company fueling speculation of an M&A transaction has been picking up steam over the past nine months.
Last year, Southwest’s pilot union brought on legal counsel in anticipation of a deal to acquire another airline. At the time, JetBlue was speculated (as it was prior to the pandemic). That carrier was struggling, and the thinking was that investor Carl Icahn would push the New York-based carrier to sell. I didn’t expect it, as I wrote, because of anti-trust concerns from the Biden administration and incompatible Airbus fleet.
This was also before Southwest got its own activist investor, and the carrier turned to selling planes and taking on debt to fund stock buybacks. They’re in the midst of their own major transitions, like assigned seats and reconfiguring planes for extra legroom seating (and less legroom in back), and an acquisition seems like a lot to take on and not what the board members appointed by Elliott Capital would push for.
Historically Southwest has acquired only much smaller carriers. They acquired Muse Air after founding President Lamar Muse and his son founded a competing venture in Southwest’s backyard. That acquisition put the competitor (dubbed “Revenge Air”) out of business. Southwest acquired Morris Air, certain assets of American Trans Air out of bankruptcy, and AirTran in 2011 after losing a bid for Frontier. Could they do another deal?
Speculation over potential airline mergers and acquisitions is peak VFTW. ‘Could they?’ Giddy up!
Oh boy, and the mere mention of ‘unions’ is sure to bring out the haters. Do tell us yet again how some of you hate the workers. Just shameful.
In this case, they’re just the messenger on this potential ‘deal,’ so no ‘need’ to vilify them, even though we know you ‘want’ to anyway.
Wishing Southwest all the best; though, I doubt anything will actually happen.
I like MX… it gives more point-to-point options and the BCS/A220 fleet with pilots and solves the lack of replacement for their aging -700 NGs. Let’s see. (I am also hoping that B6 ultimately becomes part of AS.)
Southwest is already too big. Remember the SW meltdown of a couple of years ago. It almost shut down the entire domestic air grid.
This move would only further reduce competition and increase fares. I’d prefer to see southwest split into two not get even larger.
@David P — I’m with you. Competition is usually better for consumers, and passengers in this case. And I remember that ‘meltdown’ quite well, December 2022, right around ‘the holidays,’ so it really ‘killed Christmas’ for a lot of families. Similarly, with the outage, Delta failed for about two weeks, and its passengers were similarly hit hard (July 2024). Sure, each airline has rebounded, but those incidents still sting for those harmed.
WN mgmt is realizing they will have to take on a second aircraft type at some point while it is upstarts like Breeze that are a threat to WN’s profits because every low cost and ultra low cost carrier pays their people worse than WN.
WN still has a maverick reputation that allows them to do things that the big 3 cannot.
and the DOJ – at least under Biden – made it clear that it will not allow airlines to buy carriers in a lower “class” – ie legacies can’t buy low cost or ultra low cost carriers etc.
Those that think that United will be able to buy anyone are delusional in thinking that edict – which was only tested with the B6/NK merger proposal – will change – but NK is a legitimate fare check for larger carriers.
It is doubtful that WN will go after B6 but if they do, it will be handing a win to DL since WN has only succeeded in DEN among legacy carrier hubs and WN is certain to fail at eventually dismantle most of what B6 has built at JFK and BOS.
It will be interesting to watch but there is enough underperforming capacity in the industry that some types of merger/asset acquisition activity is likely.
It just is not likely to involve the big 3 and if WN is involved it will involve dismantling much of what is acquired with the focus being on acquiring aircraft.
Southwest taking on JetBlue would put them square inline with the other three so I could definitely see that happening because of the activist investor.
Southwest is transforming from the airline they were to a completely different airline. For whatever that is worth growth is imminent.
As unhappy as I am to see Southwest take away many of the reasons I was vehemently loyal to them, the death blow would be taking away companion pass.
That is the one benefit they offer that currently keeps me with them.
They are already not the same airline, and prices are through the roof.
One more major blow, then I empty my points balance, and leave them in the dust.
Can you say “illegal” boys and girls?!?! If an M&A is accurate, that F/A Board member might have some explaining to do to the Feds.
@Joe C — Is our country finally going to start prosecuting ‘white collar’ crimes? For example, Congress persons blatant insider trading, and actual widespread corruption, kickbacks, etc. And I do mean, ‘both sides,’ not just of political opponents on the other ‘team’ while sparing their own ‘team.’ Because, it seems like we simply do not hold the rich or powerful accountable. And it’s all about to get much worse.
Ooh merger gossip. This reminded me of a VFTW article last year that mentioned Enilria saying Sun Country was also an acquisition possibility.
Hopefully, this will never come about. Both of these Companies, started by David Neeleman, are not worth the time and trouble it would create. Southwest has never fully recovered from the Air Tran deal and they are not in a position at this time to enter into any more of these deals. They need to concentrate on strengthening their bottom line and improving the Customer experience, both external and internal. There is still a lot of work to be done with technology and training with the imminent arrival of seat assignments. It is not the time to be messing up the field with talk of acquisitions, and in my opinion, ones that had anything to do with Neeleman.
Which would have been less of an issue if we had actual alternatives such as working passenger rail and better bus services.
This could be a mess of a merger. Each airline is after a different market with different service, different aircraft, different style and different philosophies. Why not every airline be Southwest? No on the possible merger with me but it is just another opinion.
The new Southwest management should learn from this how bad an idea it is to allow a union rep to attend Executive sessions. Obviously, this blabber mouth can’t be trusted.
The business model of JetBlue is so different not sure Southwest would want to wrestle with combining the airlines. Breeze is different as the airline is much smaller and while different fleet types much more digestable. But anything is possible when a board demands growth and organically there isn’t a lot out there.
If they are in merger talks, that makes this Chris Click the dumbest union rep to ever exist. How many NDA’s is he violating by posting? I can’t imagine ANYONE being that brazenly daft.
I love Breeze. I can get a direct flight from LAX to Madison, WI for half the price of layover Delta flight. But inly during the summer…
Ugh! Neither, thanks.
Would much rather see JetBlue & Breeze combine.
Or Alaska & JetBlue. But Alaska is busy digesting Hawaiian at the moment, so the timing for that likely isn’t ripe.
But, if Southwest absolutely must acquire another airline, and the choice is between Breeze or JetBlue, then Breeze strikes me as the cheaper and more efficient option as it would be less costly to acquire and allows SWA to integrate the airline’s Airbus A220-300 (90 firm orders plus 30 options thru 2028, with 33 already delivered/in-service as of year-end 2024) single fleet type instead of JetBlue’s mix of Airbus A320/321 ceo/neo, quite a few of which (A320’s, that is) date back to the airline’s earliest years.
Plus, Breeze has younger, lower cost employees than JetBlue, that likely would be easier to integrate into SWA’s highly unionized workforce.
Simply put, SWA would gain 120 Airbus A220-300s (a vastly more modern and advanced/efficient aircraft than Boeing’s 737-7 MAX) far more quickly, and cheaply, than if it placed initial orders now, likely without the trouble, complexity and expense that acquiring JetBlue brings.
Something needs to happen with JetBlue, to correct & increase their Florida to LGA/JFK ROUTE
Recently cut down to 2 times a day….Wake up!
Passengers are booking elsewhere.
It’s pretty telling that most flyers — and the big three airlines — don’t really care much what Southwest does these days. For most travelling Americans, they have become irrelevant. That’s quite a fall from a couple decades ago