{"id":605068,"date":"2026-04-25T05:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T05:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/605068\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T05:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T05:54:10","slug":"united-ceo-says-hes-in-talks-to-buy-assets-from-another-airline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/605068\/","title":{"rendered":"United CEO Says He\u2019s In Talks To Buy Assets From Another Airline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t by Gary Leff<\/a> on April 24, 2026\t\t\t<\/p>\n

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby says<\/a> that they\u2019re in discussions with another airline about acquiring assets.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as I look at assets, maybe they will, maybe they won\u2019t come available. We\u2019ve actually even had some discussions with one airline about buying some,\u201d he said, but declined to provide further information or the identity of the company<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is either:<\/p>\n

Spirit Airlines: and would mean either gates at Fort Lauderdale \u2013 if they could get enough gates to build a strong operation that would meet a long-standing desire for United \u2013 or slots at New York LaGuardia, the other thing of value that Spirit has. That presumably becomes available only if the U.S. government doesn\u2019t bail out Spirit.
\nJetBlue: They would presumably be looking to buy New York JFK slots. United already expects to get some New York JFK slots from JetBlue as part of their partnership starting next year. That will allow United to return to the JFK market, which former CEO Jeff Smisek pulled out of. \t<\/p>\n

Smisek misunderstood the value \u2013 saw United losing money on the flights there, but not realizing they would lose business from high value customers on the West Coast who didn\u2019t want to fly to Newark and they\u2019d lose relevance for a segment of New Yorkers would wouldn\u2019t be as attracted to United\u2019s credit card.<\/p>\n

Update: another possibility is Southwest Airlines who is leaving Chicago O\u2019Hare and currently uses gates M2\/M5 in terminal 5 and I believe those are preferential use<\/a> (not common use).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kirby says they\u2019ve had discussions with one airline, which surprises me \u2013 that they haven\u2019t had discussions with both Spirit and JetBlue. We know there have been discussions with Spirit, because United already bought gates from Spirit at Chicago O\u2019Hare<\/a>, after American Airlines bought gates there from Spirit.<\/p>\n

Regardless, this is an unprecedented time for mergers and acquisitions frenzy in the industry, directly involving the President of the United States \u2013 Kirby raised the possibility of buying American Airlines with President Trump, Trump is discussing having the federal government acquire Spirit, and American is talking deals with Alaska Airlines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the full interview with Kirby:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

(HT: Enilria<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\n\tMore From View from the Wing\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t 8 Comments<\/a>\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Gary Leff on April 24, 2026 United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby says that they\u2019re in discussions with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,15972],"class_list":["post-605068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-united-airlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}