Call it Spirit de corps.<\/p>\n
The White House is reportedly mulling a takeover of Spirit Airlines in a move that would see the troubled carrier\u2019s planes used to transport U.S. soldiers and military equipment, CBS News reported<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n Citing U.S. officials, the report said the White House is considering invoking the Defense Production Act as part of a gambit to save the airline.<\/p>\n On Thursday, President Donald Trump addressed reports that the administration was considering taking a stake in Spirit, which has declared bankruptcy twice in the last two years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking at helping them,\u201d the president told<\/a> reporters in the Oval Office. \u201cWe have 18,000 people that live in this country that are great people and great employees. We\u2019re thinking about doing it, helping them out, meaning bailing them out. Or buying it. I think we just buy it. We\u2019d be getting it virtually debt-free. They have some good aircrafts. They have good assets. And when the price of oil goes down, we\u2019ll sell it for a profit. I\u2019d love to be able to save those jobs. I\u2019d love to be able to save an airline.\u201d<\/p>\n The next day, CBS News reported:<\/p>\n The government would lend Spirit $500 million at a reasonable rate interest, and become the top debtor in the bankruptcy pecking order. The loan would be protected by Spirit assets that would exceed the government\u2019s costs, and would provide taxpayers with a warrant \u2014 the right to own 90% of the company after it emerges from bankruptcy.<\/p>\n The Pentagon would use Spirit\u2019s excess capacity for transporting troops, military cargo or other missions, sources told CBS News.<\/p>\n The airline would then likely be sold to another carrier.<\/p>\n Passed in 1950 at the onset of the Korean War, the Defense Production Act<\/a> gives the president wide-ranging powers<\/a> that allow him to control domestic industry during times of national emergency.<\/p>\n Administration officials declined to comment to CBS News.<\/p>\n The post White House Reportedly Considers Using Spirit Airlines To Transport Troops as Part of Takeover<\/a> first appeared on Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Call it Spirit de corps. The White House is reportedly mulling a takeover of Spirit Airlines in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,231638,152267,942,53035,3123],"class_list":["post-605427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-defense-production-act","tag-military-equipment","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-spirit-airlines","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605427","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=605427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}