Last week, Southwest Airlines confirmed that it was preparing a bid to acquire Denver-based Frontier Airlines, which will be sold at auction in bankruptcy court next month. Yesterday, August 3, was the deadline for any interested party to file a nonbinding proposal to bid on Frontier Airlines in bankruptcy court. As of yesterday, Southwest Airlines and Republic Airways are both qualified bidders. Below is an updated timeline of the process:
August 3: Deadline to file nonbinding bid. For the next seven days, Southwest Airlines will continue our due diligence in order to submit a binding proposal to the bankruptcy court.
August 10: Deadline to file binding proposal with the bankruptcy court in New York.
August 11 - 17: Bankruptcy court will conduct an auction to determine the winning bidder for Frontier's assets.
***We will do our best to update our site as more news becomes available.
Comments
Good Morning Paula,
Here are just a few question that I have:
Are Republic and Southwest ( Qualified Bidders) the only ones who will be able to bid for Frontier's assets?
Would it be it correct to say that only Qualified bidders are able to look at Frontiers' books to determine a value for their bids?
With the auction process, can a Qualified bidder only bid for what they want or would they have to purchase Frontier as a whole? So, what is the auction process?
Who decides on the the winning bid?
Will the final result be announced by the 17th of this month?
Could you please explain the bankruptcy process in more detail?
Thanks in advance
Wow. I didn't know SWA was going after Frontier. Is it because of their gates? I'm seeing the synergies with this purchase?
I was hoping Republic would by Frontier. That looks like a better complement with their purchase of Midwest Airlines.
Confused about the Process - all good questions. Please standby while I gather answers.
I Think it would be a great asset for Southwest to buy Frontier Airlines. The people that work for Frontier (those that love their jobs) will now feel secured that they can continue working. In these hard times, Its great to see company's helping eachother out in a way that might save many jobs for those that might be out. I don;'t know how Southwest will handle that, But I am hoping that SWA gets it. Perhaps more gates, more flights and MORE HAPPY PEOPLE IN THE AIR.
Kind of curious... I know that Southwest has a standardized Boeing fleet. Their business has thrived in part because of uniform equipment, service, policies/procedures that have remained consistent over the years. Yet Frontier's fleet is all Airbus. So I wonder, if the acquisition is completed and the Frontier fleet absorbed into Southwest, will that add operational challenges and increased costs to the business?
So will the owning of f9 mean that southwest will code share with only them and drop west jet and the other mexican carrier,?
We have tickets to fly Aug 17h to Denver. Paid for in advance -
what do we do now?
so Frontier flies from DFW to Denver. Would Southwest fly that route until able to fly out of Love?
>>I Think it would be a great asset for Southwest to buy Frontier Airlines. The people that work for Frontier (those that love their jobs) will now feel secured that they can continue working. In these hard times, Its great to see company's helping eachother out in a way that might save many jobs for those that might be out. I don;'t know how Southwest will handle that, But I am hoping that SWA gets it. Perhaps more gates, more flights and MORE HAPPY PEOPLE IN THE AIR.<<
Southwest has already said that Frontier employees will be given the ability to RE-APPLY for their jobs within Southwest should they find a need to increase staffing. As noted elsewhere, Southwest is already overstaffed some and has plenty of cushion to absorb them. They will get more gates in DEN and other airports, but the Frontier fleet goes away, and they'll likely absorb most of the traffic with their existing network or with a few more legs added to some routes. There will also likely be a handful of cities cut because of this.
>>>Kind of curious... I know that Southwest has a standardized Boeing fleet. Their business has thrived in part because of uniform equipment, service, policies/procedures that have remained consistent over the years. Yet Frontier's fleet is all Airbus. So I wonder, if the acquisition is completed and the Frontier fleet absorbed into Southwest, will that add operational challenges and increased costs to the business?<<<
Paul - the Frontier fleet will be grounded with in 1-2 years it sounds like. Southwest has a glut of 737s on order, they've even had to park some recently, so they'll be replaced pretty quickly.
>>>Wow. I didn't know SWA was going after Frontier. Is it because of their gates? I'm seeing the synergies with this purchase?
I was hoping Republic would by Frontier. That looks like a better complement with their purchase of Midwest Airlines.<<<
Southwest and the new boss wants to be the major playing in Denver - BADLY. They have been unable to be the cost/fare leader in this market (Frontier continues to control fares), and has hurt yields and loads. This is a cheap way to acquire a competitor, remove them from the market, and gain market share and also pricing control of the market. Fares will likely go up in most cases, especially in the advanced booking windows. However, this does get Southwest more gates/slots in DEN and other key airports like LGA. Look back to the asset acquisition of ATA that Southwest did. ATA provided good competition out of MDW, but got throw into Chapter 11 when their military charter contracts got cancelled by FedEx (who controlled the one ATA was attached too). Southwest took advantage of the great opportunity to get more gates in Chicago, but also eliminate a competitor. AirTran was the other bidder for ATA, but Southwest beat them out. It will be interesting to see how the battle in Milwaukee plays out with Southwest going in there now to hit on a weakened Midwest (now part of Republic) and AirTran.
Post new comment