Loading summary
Transcript84 lines
- [00:02]
A
I'm Brian Summers, and I write the Airline Observer.
- [00:04]
B
And I'm Brett Snyder, author of Cranky Flyer. You're listening to the Air show, the podcast where we talk about what goes on in the business of the sky. I am back from my Mexican adventure, and, Brian, I have learned one thing.
- [00:17]
A
What was that, Brett? Don't drink the water.
- [00:19]
B
I did not have to learn that the hard way. No, I learned not to miss two weeks in a row, because otherwise you apparently get accused of being full of yourself.
- [00:27]
A
Well, you are.
- [00:28]
B
Yeah, I don't know what's happening here. This is an outrage. And yes, I did to the episodes. To be clear, I am sad that John isn't here for me to yell at. But you are, Brian. So I just want you to know I am keeping a list. And I hold grudges.
- [00:41]
A
Ah, dios me. Oh, Brett. Well, you know, if you listen to the show carefully, last week, you know, we also accused you of something else. Yeah, over promising and under delivering. You set out to Mexico, sir, to fly all seven of the nation's jet operators. Don't know why you would do that, but you were doing that anyways. You promised it would be every last one. How many of them did you actually fly, Brett?
- [01:10]
B
Six. That's pretty good. So I started in Mexico City. I had an amazing time there. But, man, that place, I just ran myself into the ground because you're at high altitude and the pollution, and I was walking everywhere and getting up early, and it was amazing. I loved it. But I was like, I don't have this in the tank just to get Magna Charters. So I skipped Magna Charters. I don't regret it. To be clear, that airplane I later saw diverted to a different airport. So I'm feeling pretty good about my decision. But listen, all that really matters here is that I got to fly Senor Air. And that means I can now officially deem them the airline with the best name ever.
- [01:51]
A
You are a quirky fellow, Brett. But enough about Mexico. What do you want to talk about today?
- [01:58]
B
Let's talk about Omaha.
- [01:59]
A
Oh, what have I done, Brett?
- [02:02]
B
Actually, what would be more interesting would be to talk about Lincoln. But maybe that's a little too niche for us. So instead, let's do the long promised episode on the Allegiant and Sun country merger, shall we?
- [02:12]
A
Yes, Brett. Finally something that we agree on. Let's. Let's finally do this. You know that we waited for you because you and I have slightly different viewpoints on this. We wrote two stories. One in your publication, one in mine. The headlines were a little bit different. Mine was why Allegiant and Sun country is an obvious combination. And yours was Allegiant to buy sun country, and I'm not sure why.
- [02:39]
B
Yeah, this seems a little more than a slight disagreement, but I suppose that's what headlines do. It's. It's the underlying bit that's more slight than the headlines. Huh.
- [02:48]
A
Well, you know how it works. Headlines have absolutely nothing to do with what's actually in the story. I've spilled the beans there.
- [02:53]
B
It's true. You've just revealed all the secrets now. But look, I appreciate you guys waiting, but I know the reason we were really waiting is we were hoping that more would come out on this that we could really dig into. But nothing really has, I'm sorry to say. I know I've talked to a bunch of people, though, and I know you have, too. So, you know, let's get into this. So why don't you just start with the details here to set the table.
- [03:20]
A
Sure. Allegiant has said it is going to buy a Sun Country. Allegiant is going to be the surviving brand. Allegiant is going to have the full management team, although Sun Country CEO Jude Bricker will join. Join allegiance board. Sun country shareholders are going to get what was the equivalent of $18.89 per share at the time of the announcement. But because only $4.10 of that is in cash and the rest of it is in Allegiant stock, that's going to fluctuate with the market. When the deal closes, Allegiant owners are going to own two thirds of the combined company, while former sun country shareholders will have the remaining third.
- [04:03]
B
Yeah, pretty straightforward. I mean, obviously the fluctuating share price thing, but it's a pretty straightforward combination. And the approval should be pretty straightforward, too, I would think. There is virtually no chance of regulators blocking this. As I see it. Forget about the fact that the current administration has no interest in even thinking about something this small, but Allegiant and Sun country have just about no overlap strictly on an airport basis. There is overlap on one shining route, the monstrous Appleton to Fort Myers flight. Huge demand. But, you know, even forgetting about the airports. Just think about it this way. Some countries all about MSP Minneapolis. Right. With just a few exceptions. And Allegiant only serves one airport in the entire state of Minnesota, and that's St. Cloud, which is a little over an hour northwest of the Twin Cities. But it only has less than daily seasonal service to Punta Gorda and then less than daily year round to Phoenix Mesa. So it's a blip. As far as I can imagine, this is just about as little overlap as any two airlines could have. So not an issue even worth discussing there. So let's just assume that it sails through that process. But Brian, why is it that this seems like an obvious combination to you?
- [05:20]
A
Okay, bad news first for the listeners. Brett, we're not going to have an obvious big drag out fight on this.
- [05:26]
B
Boo.
- [05:27]
A
Oh, I'm sorry. I agree with your analysis about the network and there are definitely reasons this merger is a head scratcher. So I use a different approach for my analysis. We're not quite Europe here in the United States, but if the name of the game is airline profits, the United States still probably has too many airlines and probably too many discount airlines. Jude Bricker told you and me that much when we interviewed him in September. And if you heard heard Bricker on this podcast, you know he's more honest than the average airline CEO. He's really honest when you meet him at conferences, backstage, or maybe at a cocktail party. And Bricker is a very smart guy. He knows journalism. If he wanted something to be off the record, he would have said it was off the record. He generally doesn't do that in cocktail party conversation. So one of the things that he was telling me and probably you and probably anybody else that wanted to talk to him was was that if there was a logical merger partner for sun country, it would probably be Allegiant. I would sometimes give him a hard time and I'd say, when are you going to get the money together to buy Spirit? And this was even before Spirit was in deep, deep trouble. It was just in trouble at that point.
- [06:43]
B
The mighty Detroit MSP hubs.
- [06:45]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Bricker would just say, look, we have so much in common with Allegiant. They would be the obvious partner if there was ever a merger. And I think we know why they would be the obvious partner. One of those reasons is that Bricker was COO of Allegiant before he went to Sun Country. And of course he basically stole that model of buying used airplanes and then flying them less than daily. The only difference, and I agree with you, it is a giant difference that may cause trouble in the future is that Allegiant doesn't have these big bases in northern cities where it flies a lot is to the destination cities, the places people go on vacation. And sun country, we know that's big in the originating market of msp. And that kind of operates like an O and D hub. So you are correct, Brett. MSP is a real wild card for Allegiant. And I'm sure you have more to say on that topic because it could be the make or break of this merger.
- [07:45]
B
I do have more to say, but first I want to push back on that point about Jude saying there are too many discount airlines in the US While that may be true, this doesn't really solve that problem. You have two successful airlines, their own niches, they basically know overlap, right? So shrinking them down into one airline, it doesn't really solve the problem. The problem is we have too many failing discount airlines, and those either need to be culled or merged, and this doesn't really help that. So that's how I view that piece of it. But beyond this, the real question here is what is the benefit of the combination? What are the synergies? I hate that word, but there are synergies. They're talking about them. They do have similar models, as you've said, but they also have that similar but opposite model, which is a weird way to put it, I suppose. But what I mean by that is sun country uses MSP as its big origin base. It can operate that as a hub, too. But Allegiant uses big destination bases like Vegas or St. Pete. And this creates some real weirdness when you're trying to merge the models.
- [08:51]
A
So weirdness, that's a word that you must have learned getting your MBA at Stanford, right? Is that. Can you define what weirdness means in this context?
- [08:59]
B
You love talking about MBAs. Weirdness is a technical term. Let me try and explain it. Take Charlotte. This is one I've used a couple of times when talking to the media. So Allegiant flies year round to its Florida bases from Concord Airport, which is outside of Charlotte. Right. Secondary airport, as we know. A velo. Big fan of that. That's a base that they're keeping in their reorganization, but it's meant for locals. This is for people who live in the Charlotte area. They want to go to Florida. Absolutely fits the Allegiant model. But sun country flies to Charlotte itself, not Concord, because Charlotte is a destination from Minneapolis, St. Paul and. And the people that are in MSP are less likely to fly to Concorde if that's the option you give them, or even know what it is for that matter. So sun country belongs in Charlotte. They're trying to fly people from MSP to the places they want to go. So what will the combined Allegiant Do. Will it keep this split Persona where it serves one airport as a destination and another as an origin in the same Metro, or will it make the mistake of trying to consolidate that? And I know this is a little example, but it's one reason, and I think it illustrates it well, because it is so small, that this isn't as simple of an integration as everyone seems to think. It's going to be noisy and challenging with some of these types of things.
- [10:24]
A
I think that's fair. But is there anything about this merger combination that you like?
- [10:29]
B
Oh, sure. I mean, I. I like getting the Amazon cargo business. It's not very lucrative, but it doesn't lose money.
- [10:35]
A
It's more lucrative than it was. They renegotiated that contract, right?
- [10:39]
B
Well, they had to. But it's a good hedge. It's. It's a collar. When times are good, Amazon is not going to do as well. But when times are bad, it's going to do better. So it kind of keeps you in that range of profitability. But also, I don't think it's worth buying an entire airline just to get that piece of the business. And then there's all this talk about being more flexible with how they can route airplanes and connect dots and schedules and all this stuff. This is where I was hoping we'd learn more and why I wanted to wait a little. I don't understand it. I don't really see it. They both have scheduled business. They both have charter business. They flow airplanes in different ways. They're already pretty good about it. So I'm not sure exactly what this means, but I guess we'll find out.
- [11:23]
A
Now, you just mentioned charter. When you put these two charter businesses together, does that become a chance for your favorite word? Synergy? Do you like that at least?
- [11:34]
B
Does it? I don't know. I mean, I like the charter business for both of them, but they already have a charter business. I mean, sun country has been kind of creative with. I know they do the MLS charters and they'll sell the positioning flight as a scheduled service. I don't know how that's actually worked out for them, if it makes any money, because it's very infrequent service. So is there more they can do with that? I. I don't really know. I like charter, but it's not like the cargo side, where Allegiant doesn't do it and now they will do it. They both already have pretty good charter operations. Right? So, I don't know. Do you think it's a big benefit.
- [12:10]
A
I don't know if it's a big benefit. It's better than nothing. But I do know one thing. Brett and I bet that we can agree on this. This is a pretty good merger for sun country, right?
- [12:20]
B
Yes. Sun country, if they could have merged with Spirit and grown in Detroit, I think we can all agree that was the way to go.
- [12:27]
A
That was the worst bit you've ever had on the show, and I cannot believe you're still on that gig.
- [12:32]
B
Well, we're still talking about Sun Country. Come on, man. I actually still think that that is kind of Sun Country's move. If Spirit dies, Sun country can try and move into Detroit and do the same thing. But that's kind of the extent of its growth opportunities. It's doing fine, but it doesn't have huge opportunities. Sort of stagnant. So, look, give me a 20% premium on my share price, and I don't have a great plan to grow anyway, so. Oh, man, I'll take that every day. Congrats to Sun Country. It's great.
- [13:03]
A
Congrats to Sun Country. I think your congratulations are misplaced, sir. No one ever talked about sun country before Bricker got there in 2017. It was a zombie airline. It was like it didn't exist. It should have gone out of business at some point, but Bricker made something out of nothing. And then, thanks to his big investors, Apollo Group, which bought the airline in 2018, Bricker made a ton of money. That 2021 IPO was really good for him.
- [13:38]
B
Yes. Congrats to Jude. This is very true. He's done a great job at that place to get this kind of outcome.
- [13:45]
A
You know, I talked to him on the phone a couple weeks ago, and because I really don't care anymore, I said, jude, how much money are you going to make out of this thing? And he just laughed me off. But he's going to be even wealthier.
- [13:57]
B
This is like a Scrooge McDuck scenario. Going to, like, dive into the pool of money. Love it. Good for him.
- [14:03]
A
That guy has made more money off of, like, 20 to 50 airplanes than any any CEO ever, right? I mean, I guess Bill, Frankie probably did it at America west, right?
- [14:12]
B
Well, that's ancient history at this point.
- [14:15]
A
But here's the thing about Bricker. I think he had taken sun country about as far as it could go. He's been very impressive. But remember, he really couldn't take this airline out of Minneapolis. And it wasn't for lack of trying. They tried to position the airline in Portland and Nashville I think DFW as well. But in all these places, sun country was just a spill carrier. And if there's anything that we've learned from Scott Kirby, it's that you do not want to be a spill carrier. So then he went into cargo and charter and that sort of thing helped profits. But there was never going to be a growth story at Sun Country. He was kind of stuck. So then he had to find a partner. And I think Allegiant not only was the best match, but perhaps the only one. I didn't see any other obvious merger candidates, maybe breeze, but otherwise I don't think it was going to be another ulcc. And I guess on paper, Alaska might have been a good match, but I didn't see any appetite for Alaska to try to compete with Delta from the low ground in Minneapolis. It would have gotten pummeled. So I think that we have to agree that for Bricker and Sun country, this was the right move. It was the only move. On the allegiance side, it could be a little bit dicier. It's not as clear cut, but we're gonna see what happens.
- [15:33]
B
Yeah, the Alaska thing would have been disastrous.
- [15:36]
A
To be clear, no experts were actually talking about Alaska and Sun Country. It is something that maybe made sense if you didn't follow the industry that closely. Both of these airlines have a 737S and. And Alaska wants to grow a little bit. And wouldn't Minneapolis be a good market for them? Well, yes, but because of the competition with Delta, that was not something that anybody who really follows this industry closely was talking about.
- [16:02]
B
But this leads into what I'm going to talk about in a little bit about the risks involved in this merger, because Alaska coming in, Delta would not be okay with that and it would kill the entire sun country franchise. But that's kind of the problem with sun country is you serve at the pleasure of the big bad widget, and so there is risk there. But let's maybe table that for a second here, because what I want to talk about here is some of the arguments people are making about why this is so good for Allegiant. I've heard a lot of people making these arguments to me, and so far no one's changed my mind about this. But the first argument that I heard from people is about, look, this is a great fleet and labor play, so they can get some planes and they can get some crews for cheap and hooray for them. But why does Allegiant need that? I don't really understand. It has an order book of airplanes so it can flex on its older fleet, keep whatever it needs, and keep a mix of new and used however it wants, and then cruise like this isn't 2022. Nobody needs cruise right now except for Spirit, which can't keep them for obvious reasons. So I. I don't really understand that argument.
- [17:08]
A
Yeah, Brett, when it comes to Allegiant, I cannot say that this is the most genius merger of all time. You're not going to get a huge debate out of me. But I will mention that Allegiant has wanted to be a bigger company for some time now, and it had a lot of what they thought were genius ideas, but were actually boneheaded things to try to get there. Did you think that I would do a whole show without talking about Sunseeker?
- [17:34]
B
Oh, don't forget the family fun centers and the weird golf software that they had, too.
- [17:40]
A
Yeah, Allegiant made some interesting moves over the years to try to get to be a bigger revenue company. You remember, the company is still called Allegiant Travel Company, but that was something that for a long time they really leaned into. So it was like, oh, we're not an airline. We do all kinds of things and we're going to grow revenue that way. But that business is all gone. I think Sunseeker was pretty much the end of that. They sold off the resort last year at a big loss. And management has made clear that this is now only an airline. And so buying sun country is a way to show us, I think, that management means business, and this is the way to get bigger as an airline faster. Remember, this is an airline that spent a fortune putting its name on an NFL stadium in Las Vegas. And now we see their branding everywhere. A lot of people in the US still see this as kind of a niche regional leisure airline. But if you talk to people at Allegiant, they want to be like the nationwide leisure airline, and this is the way that they can get there. But is it a no brainer? No, it's not. Bret, what other arguments do you hear for the deal that maybe you do or do not agree with?
- [18:55]
B
Okay, well, the other really big one that I keep hearing is that Allegiant needs international. And this makes it easy since the joint venture with VIVA isn't going to be approved anytime soon or in its current form. I don't like this argument at all about international because nothing is stopping Allegiant from going international. It already has ETOPs and flag carrier status. I don't think that goes away, right? Like it got all that stuff back in the Hawaii days when they did that. It just doesn't have the tech and the process. Process is up to speed. It's been talking about flying international for over a decade. If it really wanted to fly internationally, it could have done that by now.
- [19:32]
A
And then what do you make about this argument, which I do not make myself, that maybe this merger replaces the Viva joint venture?
- [19:39]
B
That makes no sense at all because Allegiant wanted Veeva so that it could combine its own point of sale in small cities, but with a Mexican based airplane. Right. So you get all these small cities going to Cancun and it works well. And then it's also the flip side of it too, where you can get Viva getting their point of sale with destinations in the U.S. it was a great opportunity that you can't get without having this sort of cross border type of magic happens. But it's not going to happen now. First of all, the government still hasn't ruled on it because it's stuck in this stupid political fight.
- [20:13]
A
We're not supposed to talk about politics on the show, Brett.
- [20:16]
B
It's still stupid. Also though, now that Viva and Valeris are merging, in addition to the Allegiant and Sun country thing, it would require a whole refiling if they even wanted to bother with this thing. I don't know if they will want to continue to do it. They probably won't care about it for a long time because they both have to worry about these integrations first. But the point is that sun country doesn't bring anything to the table that Vivo is going to bring. It takes a bunch of frozen Minnesotans south of the border and that's not bad business in the winter. But it doesn't help Allegiance original issue. It fits in some countries model, but it doesn't fit in Allegiance models. So I don't really know that this does anything.
- [20:55]
A
Well, let me go back to what you said about how Allegiant could fly internationally if it wanted to. That is true, and I'm mostly with you there. But Allegiant reminds me a little bit of the old Southwest Airlines. Oh yeah, very profitable. Good model, but super slow to evolve. I think that Allegiant first filed for international scheduled service in 2013 and it was going to fly to Mexico the next year. It didn't do that. Nor did it do that after any of the other times it filed to fly to Mexico. So yes, Allegiant could do all this stuff on its own, but it might be easier to just buy a franchise that already does it. Like Southwest bought AirTran. Now it really has no choice. On day one of this merger, it's gonna be flying from Minneapolis to Mexico and maybe it can figure out from there.
- [21:48]
B
Yeah, I mean, we don't need to rehash Southwest AirTran here because they love talking about how it got them international. And yes, they were incap of going international at all, thanks to internal issues, but they bought AirTrain for different reasons. I mean, they were killing a lower cost competitor and they were very effective at it. You just don't say that quiet part out loud. But in this case, that's not what's happening anyway. Yes. Okay. International works from Minneapolis. That's great. At least it works for now. Because this gets into the risks that I was talking about before, where msp there is real risk because they do exist because Delta allows it. And if Delta decides that it doesn't like Allegiant in there instead of sun country, the whole thing goes up in smoke. Right. Like if. If this somehow makes Delta uncomfortable, that's bad news. I don't think it will, but it is a risk.
- [22:42]
A
Can we still use the angry Glenn theory now that Glenn is on his way out? He's just got a few weeks left.
- [22:49]
B
Oh, that's a great point. I guess we'll find out.
- [22:51]
A
Yeah, no, this was this idea. If we have any new listeners out there, that sun country only gets to be in Minneapolis at scale because Glenn Howenstein of Delta permits it. But let's remember the why of Delta's benevolence. And that's because it benefits Delta. Right. Delta's always out for Delta. Even at the best fortress hubs. The main airline, Delta in this case doesn't have 100% of the share. Someone else has to fly there and take the spill. Passengers. And under Bricker, sun country has been a very. What's the word that we would use? Good competitor or what? Respectful competitor.
- [23:30]
B
With Delta, there are many words you could use.
- [23:34]
A
Respectful, maybe. I don't know.
- [23:35]
B
That works fine. Sure, that works great.
- [23:38]
A
Yeah. So if not sun country, there would have been another discount airline that came in there. Maybe it would have been Breeze or Spirit in better times. Or Frontier. These were airlines. Well, at least Spirit and Frontier tried to get into Minneapolis. They didn't have much luck. So if Allegiant can kind of maintain the status quo and not threaten Delta too much, I think Allegiant will be okay. Remember that Bricker is becoming an advisor to allegiant CEO and joining the board. Sometimes when executives do this, they do absolutely nothing. They sit on the beach and they collect their checks, and sometimes they actually advise. I'm going to assume that as long as Bricker is around Allegiant, he can give some advice of how not to poke the bear and teach folks at Allegiant how to play nice with Delta.
- [24:27]
B
Sure, he can advise all he wants, but this isn't always rational. Wasn't Allegiant one of the airlines, maybe the only airline that was trying to get into that secondary Atlanta airport at one point back in the day, balding someone may still hold a grudge. Who knows?
- [24:42]
A
Are you saying that people at Delta hold grudges?
- [24:45]
B
I'm not saying that they hate Allegiant because of that. I am saying that it's entirely possible. And you just never know how they view potential threats from different airlines. And so that is a risk. It's just one of the things. And there are also a whole bunch of other risks. But maybe the other risks are littler. So, for example, sun country allows connections. Allegiant does not. Sun country sells through third parties through the gds. Allegiant does not. Which model will win? Sun country flies further, has. Has more freebies on board like water. I think they call it Minnesota Nice. If Allegiant gets rid of that, does that ruin the bond with the Minnesota Nice? Does that anger the loyal travelers? If they're gone, then this whole thing falls apart. That's bad news. The whole thing is kind of funny if you don't live in Minnesota, which I do, not to be clear, but when I was in Mexico, I sat at dinner one night with this family from the Twin Cities and the mother and the father, both Delta elites. But when it comes to their vacations, they fly sun country with the family. They love it. And yes, it's cheaper, of course, but they also just have this affinity that somehow Jude was able to navigate. When they went through all these changes back in the day, they were very aware of the merger, by the way. They even brought it up to me before I could say anything. And so people are watching this closely, and it could impact loyalty. And I don't really know. It's a risk. These are all risks.
- [26:11]
A
It is a risk, and I think it's a pretty big one everywhere but Minnesota. People kind of laugh at that airline if we even think of it at all. Once wrote a story in which I called it America's Most Quixotic Airline. But amazingly, the thing has been around since 1982. And it's a Minnesota based company. People fly it because they want to save money, of course. But as you say, people really like that airline. They have an affinity for the brand and they treat it as their own hometown airline. And as you note, that made it relatively easy for Bricker to make Frontier and Spirit irrelevant in that market. I know that Allegiant has come a long way in the last 15 years since those very, very angry pilots questioned the safety of the MD 80s. And you know, generally people say nice things about the airline, but when I talk to Allegiant customer, I usually hear some version of, you know, it's a fine airline that gets me on vacation and it's great that I don't need to make a stop. But I've never really met anyone who loves the Allegiant brand. So it's a good question, right? When the planes say Allegiant on them, will Sun Country's customers remain? I don't know. And actually I asked Bricker if they had given any thought to the Hawaiian Airlines Alaska approach, where you keep keep the brand in Minnesota. But as strong as the sun country brand is, it's not Hawaiians 100-year-old brand. And he said it was just going to be way too difficult to do so Allegiance coming to Minneapolis and we'll have to see how people accept that.
- [27:48]
B
He also probably said not my problem, and then dove into the pool of Money with Scrooge McDuck. By the way, you mentioned the angry pilots. We haven't even talked about them. Forget about the angry part. Sun country pilots are paid better than Allegiance. So now you've got this bigger Allegiant that there's going to be some pressure here on labor and costs and stuff too. So I'm not sure how that integration is going to go.
- [28:09]
A
Yeah, they are paid better if you want to go into the weeds here.
- [28:12]
B
Just another side note of things that could go wrong is all I'm putting out there. We can do this all day, right? Like we've been bouncing all over these potential issues here. But maybe the problem is we're just thinking too hard about this. This is probably not about strategy, none of this stuff. It's about the money. The Legion wants to get bigger. This does that. They keep touting these synergies and what the numbers are. We know how much Wall street loves that kind of dirty talk. That's really what gets them going. Allegiant is, is using mostly equity to do the deal. So it doesn't cost a lot of cash, just the $4.10 per share. And it picks up an airline with less leverage that just kind of spits out cash and feels like maybe that's what's leading here or that's what allegiant hopes is leading here. And we're probably just overthinking this and allegiance, just hoping none of those risks we're talking about screw any of this up.
- [29:04]
A
Yeah, the overthinking thing is a very good observation, Brad. I think the longer that I do my newsletter and we do this show, the more people are willing to tell me things. Maybe not for publication, but on the sidelines of a conference or at that cocktail party where they say, like, you know those talking points that sometimes we tell you guys in public? Well, those don't really have anything to do with what we're actually trying to do. Actually, the reason that we're doing this is much more nuanced and we're never going to make it public. Do you find that happens sometimes?
- [29:38]
B
Absolutely.
- [29:39]
A
And so it's possible we'll never know the real reason for this merger.
- [29:43]
B
That is possible. You are. You are correct.
- [29:47]
A
Brett, I've got one more thing for you. After judger accounts. His money. What's he gonna do? He's not an old man. I think he's got one more CEO job in him. Where's he going?
- [29:57]
B
Maybe ITA needs a new CEO.
- [30:00]
A
Not going to let you off the hook that easily. Where's he going?
- [30:02]
B
I don't know where he's going. You're going to have to ask airlines to see if they want him. He's got a good track record, but as you said, 20 to 50 airplanes. Right? So maybe Avello and Breeze are looking now. Breeze is probably already above 50 airplanes. I don't know. You tell me. Where's he going?
- [30:16]
A
I think there are a couple board of directors in the Dallas Fort Worth area that might take a look at Jude or should take a look at Jude. I actually don't think that they will because that's not the way the airline business goes. I actually see Jude. I was making fun of you for. It's not going to be ita, but he's a man of the world, and I wouldn't be surprised if he takes some job outside of the United States and just goes and has a good time.
- [30:36]
B
There's nothing better than sitting on the streets of Rome sipping an espresso, just.
- [30:41]
A
Saying and listening to your German overlords.
- [30:44]
B
That's. There's the downside to that whole plan.
- [30:47]
A
You've been listening to the air show. If you have suggestions or questions for us, or if you're interested in sponsoring the podcast, go to our website, theairshowpodcast.com to get in touch.
- [30:58]
B
Leo Duran produced and edited this episode. Our theme music is by Joshua Mosher. Thanks for listening and we'll be back soon.