Frontier tight-lipped on potential merger in quarterly earnings

DENVER — Several investors pressed Frontier Airlines on the potential for a merger with Spirit Airlines on Tuesday after reports surfaced that the two low-fare carriers may have resumed talks about a deal.

Frontier CEO Barry Biffle declined to comment on merger and acquisition questions during the carrier’s third-quarter earnings call, although several investors probed the matter with hypothetical questions about how a deal might affect current operations.

Seven-and-a-half months after Florida-based Spirit (NYSE: SAVE) and JetBlue Airways Corp. terminated their $3.8 billion merger agreement due to regulator hurdles, Spirit is reportedly seeking ways to avoid bankruptcy. One option is the revival of a merger with ultra-low-cost competitor Frontier (Nasdaq: ULCC), according to a report by the Wall Street Journal last week.

Even if an agreement between the two carriers were to materialize, they would likely have a tough time getting it approved by federal regulators, said Mike Boyd, president and CEO of Evergreen-based aviation consulting firm Boyd Group International.

Spirit in early 2022 struck a multibillion-dollar deal to merge with Frontier, but terminated those plans when the carrier failed to win the support of shareholders. Spirit instead pursued a deal with JetBlue (Nasdaq: BLU), which outbid Frontier multiple times in unsolicited offers.

> Read the full story at the Denver Business Journal.