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Today, the 47th President of the United States of America was inaugurated. I will save my personal opinion on the newly sworn-in President and instead use my crystal ball to make a few predictions that we’ll likely see during the next few years (if not in 2025).
American Airlines and JetBlue Will Re-Establish the Northeast Alliance
American Airlines and JetBlue Airways launched the Northeast Alliance in 2021. This strategic partnership allowed for codeshares, frequent flyer reciprocity, and closer alignment between the two carriers. American has long struggled to build its presence in NYC organically and JetBlue would feed it traffic so that that New York would serve as an international gateway. For the past two years, this alliance has worked as described.
In September 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit challenging this alliance. The trial began in Boston in 2022 with the DOJ arguing that this was anti-competitive. The case played out in court until December 2022 and in May 2024 a federal judge permanently ended the partnership and dissolved the alliance effective 30 days from that day. This was a huge blow for both airlines and appeals were filed. These have gone nowhere, but we might see things change and this partnership start anew this year (or over the next few).
Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines Will Merge
Frontier Airlines announced plans to acquire Spirit Airlines back in February 2022. The goal was to create a larger, low-cost carrier that could better compete against American, Delta, Southwest, and United. JetBlue countered with a $3.8 billion deal to acquire Spirit. That deal was terminated in March 2024 after the Department of Justice (DOJ) won its case to block the merger in January. Now, The Wall Street Journal reported back in October that early-stage merger talks were beginning. Spirit has since filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is restructuring.
It’s no secret that both carriers have been struggling. Spirit rebranded and made its Big Front Seats into more of a First Class experience while Frontier is adding First Class seats in the near future. Whether these changes will attract more premium customers is yet to be seen. The combined carrier would be positioned to better take on the Big 4 (American, Delta, Southwest, and United). This merger might be approved under the Trump administration. Even David Neeleman, CEO of Breeze Airways, thinks that the two airlines will merge and he shared this opinion with The Points Guy in a recent interview.
Capital One Will Acquire Discover
Capital One announced in February 2024 that it wanted to acquire Discover Financial Services for $35.3 billion in an all-stock transaction. The acquisition would create the largest credit card company by loan volume in the United States. Capital One and Discover account for under 20% of consumer credit card balances, but combined could put more pressure on Visa, Mastercard, and American Express according to Forbes. It would also let Capital One process transactions without needing to transact with Visa or Mastercard. The deal needs to be approved by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. This is expected to happen this year.
Anthony’s Take: As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I’m concerned about what is to come in the next four years. As a blogger and avid traveler, I’m excited about the three possibilities above and actually hope that they do come true.
(Image Credits: Natilyn Hicks Photography via Unsplash, American and JetBlue, Frontier Airlines, and Capital One.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
2 comments
Yes. Discover has a lot of accounts. And more accounts would be good for Cap1.
But the strategic value is the Discover Network, Discovers large-scale payment network.
Acquiring Discover would provide Cap1 with the opportunity to be on a par with Amex/MC/Visa … and not beholden to those other networks for processing Cap1-issued cards.
Potentially game changing.
Agree with all three.