Spirit Airlines shareholders are approving a $3.8 billion sale of the company to JetBlue Airways.
Spirit Airlines shareholders voted Wednesday to accept a $3.8 billion buyout from JetBlue Airways, but the deal could still face a challenge from federal antitrust regulators.
JetBlue emerged as the winner in a bidding war with Frontier to acquire Spirit, the nation’s biggest budget airline.
Spirit announced the outcome after a brief meeting, which was held online. Spirit said only that the JetBlue deal was supported by a majority of shares voted; it promised an exact count within four business days.
Wall Street widely expected shareholders to approve the sale after they forced Spirit to drop a proposed merger with Frontier Airlines in favor of JetBlue’s richer, all-cash offer.
JetBlue is expected to repaint Spirit planes and fold its pilots and other employees into the JetBlue workforce. The deal would make JetBlue the nation’s fifth-biggest airline with more than 450 planes and about 7,000 pilots and — it hopes — help it win customers from American, United, Delta and Southwest.
However it would also eliminate Spirit, the nation’s biggest budget carrier, and that might not sit well with regulators, who appear to oppose any further consolidation in the airline industry after a round of mergers between 2005 and 2016.
The Justice Department is currently fighting to kill a partnership in New York and Boston between JetBlue and American, which the airlines call the Northeast alliance or NEA. Department lawyers say the alliance is anti-competitive and will drive up prices for consumers. A trial that began last month in federal court in Boston resumes Monday.