Half a billion dollars to save 14,000 Spirit Airlines jobs? That's $40,000 per job (check my math)

Photo above – Passengers celebrate the news that Spirit now has service from Ft. Lauderdale to Costa Rica, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Raise your hand if you want to fly nonstop from Fort Lauderdale to Guatemala.

Frontier is America’s worst airline. Sprit is only 2nd worst in the nation. Trump wants to buy Spirit, to “save” 14,000 jobs. Stop laughing . . . he really said this (MSN link to Fortune Magazine below). That's going to cost $40,000 per job.

There are 500 million reasons this is a bad idea. First of all, if Spirit has anything worth saving, then a legitimate, operationally sound airline should make buyout. Waiting . . . waiting . . . all I hear is crickets. United Airlines bid on American Airlines earlier this year. Apparently NOBODY wants Spirit, because . . .

- It’s the worst for comfort

- worst for reputation

- 2nd least reliable

But you can see the potential in this takeover. The federal government already has many agencies (social security, IRS, FDA) with satisfaction ratings below 50%. DC bureaucrats might feel right at home running Spirit.

If Washington does take over Spirit, America will be trending. Russia nationalized an airline last year. Over 20 other nations have completely nationalized at least one airline, including Botswana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. A bunch of European governments hold stakes in some of their flag carriers, but those stakes all fall well short of 50%. Those state owned shares are mainly to ensure tighter regulatory control . .. and to preserve jobs.

I don’t buy the White House story that the Spirit takeover is needed to save 14,000 jobs. In a market-based economy, corporate losers are supposed to go bankrupt, or be acquired by their better run rivals. In the airline world this means cutting unprofitable routes, selling unused gates, rationalizing fares, improving service – and usually cutting some headcount. The surviving headcount will be approximately proportional to the surviving number of daily flights, no?

Spirit Airlines' main hub is Fort Lauderdale. They’re trying to siphon off travelers who fly on Delta and Southwest to reach Disneyworld via Orlando's airport. No problem with that, as long as it doesn’t require a US government takeover. Why should DC spend half a billion dollars to compete with Delta, America’s top ranked airline?

America already has over a dozen carriers with international service, and 3 dozen more with domestic/regional flights. Does anybody really care if Spirit or Piedmont or Aztec are forced to mend their ways, or be bought out by a legitimate airline? The only people who care about nationalizing Spirit are the 14,000 employees, and some political strategists looking forward to the mid-term elections.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

MSN

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/the-surprising-reason-a-spirit-airlines-bailout-could-be-bad-news-for-travelers/ar-AA21x2U1?ocid=BingNewsSerp