Westmoreland airport 'waiting for everything to shake out' as feds try to block Spirit, JetBlue merger

At Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, there’s little to do but wait and see how things play out as its only commercial carrier gets swept into Justice Department turbulence.

The Biden administration Tuesday sued to block JetBlue Airways’ $3.8 billion purchase of Spirit Airlines, saying the deal would reduce competition and drive up airfares for consumers.

The Justice Department said the deal would especially hurt cost-conscious travelers who depend on Florida-based Spirit to offer cheaper options than they can find on JetBlue and other airlines.

“We’re just going about our business in the day-to-day operation until we hear more,” said Gabe Monzo, executive director of the Westmoreland County Airport Authority, which operates Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity.

“I don’t know how it shakes out in the big picture,” Monzo said. “We’re a small fish in a big pond.”

In the lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Boston, the Justice Department said the deal would end direct competition between the two low-cost carriers and eliminate Spirit, the nation’s biggest “ultra-low-cost carrier.”

“If the acquisition is approved, JetBlue plans to abandon Spirit’s business model, remove seats from Spirit’s planes and charge Spirit’s customers higher prices,” the department lawyers wrote. “JetBlue’s plan would eliminate the unique competition that Spirit provides — and about half of all ultra-low-cost airline seats in the industry — and leave tens of millions of travelers to face higher fares and fewer options.”

An expert countered any fears about how the lawsuit would impact airline travel in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

“Pittsburgh (International Airport) is beyond safe,” said Michael Boyd, president of BoydGroup International, a Colorado-based airline industry consulting group that has done work for the Westmoreland airport authority.

Arnold Palmer airport also has been a good site for Spirit, Boyd said.

“I think Latrobe has a high load factor,” Boyd said, referring to the number of passengers using Spirit’s service from Unity to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Florida destinations through the year. “It does not take any traffic away from Pittsburgh.”

But, even if JetBlue’s acquisition of Spirit Airlines does win out in a federal court battle, “there still will be yellow airplanes (Spirit’s colors) flying in the skies” over Western Pennsylvania, Boyd said.

Related

• U.S. sues to block JetBlue from buying Spirit Airlines
• JetBlue agrees to buy Spirit for $3.8 billion

If the acquisition is not blocked, there could be extra JetBlue flights to and from Pittsburgh. JetBlue’s intent primarily is driven by its desire to acquire Spirit’s pilots and airplanes, Boyd said.

JetBlue and Spirit do jockey for passengers at Pittsburgh International Airport in Findlay. They compete in more than 40 direct routes, where the combined market shares are so high that “the deal is presumptively anti-competitive,” the Justice Department said.

A spokesman for the Allegheny County Airport Authority could not be reached for comment.

The Justice Department said in its antitrust suit that JetBlue’s deal to acquire Spirit would eliminate its fastest-growing low-cost rival in competition for passengers on hundreds of routes serving millions of travelers and half of the ultra-low-cost passenger capacity in the nation. In the past 10 years, Spirit doubled its network in size and was expected to continue expanding at a quick pace. The acquisition stops this future competition before it starts, the Justice Department said.

If the deal is halted, Boyd said he does not believe Spirit would resume talks with Frontier Airlines on a merger. Spirit last summer rejected a proposed $2.8 billion deal from that Denver-based airline in a cash-and-stock offer.