US Justice Department uses JetBlue and Spirit’s acrimonious past to its advantage

Shortly after JetBlue emerged as the victor for Spirit Airlines in Jul-2022, speculation began to grow regarding how US regulators would view Spirit’s ultra-low cost model being eliminated from the marketplace. 

Now, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) is suing to block the merger, arguing that eliminating an ultra-low cost airline from the marketplace would be detrimental to consumers. 

There are other reasons the DoJ believes the merger harms competition – and ironically, the agency culled arguments made by Spirit as it was attempting to fend off JetBlue’s advances in favour of a merger with Frontier to justify its arguments.