Latest / Wicked Radio with Bill Adams / Wicked Radio 5-4: Who Really Killed Spirit Airlines?
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Here we are starting a brand new week. Unfortunately, a
- 0:05Speaker 1: lot of people are starting a week without jobs. Conservative
- 0:07Speaker 1: vestiment is fourteen thousand. I've heard as many as twenty vibe.
- 0:10Speaker 1: Let's stick with fourteen. But regardless, this is all about
- 0:13Speaker 1: Spirit Airlines getting away a direct result of people who
- 0:16Speaker 1: have absolutely no idea how business works and how the
- 0:21Speaker 1: free market works, sticking their noses into it for political points.
- 0:25Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened, despite what you've been told about
- 0:28Speaker 1: Spirit Airlines. But I always leave you with great news.
- 0:30Speaker 1: There's amazing news. Actually, the free market always always wins,
- 0:35Speaker 1: kind of like how water always finds the lowest ground.
- 0:38Speaker 1: You know, eventually this actually something amazing happening with this
- 0:43Speaker 1: defunct Jet Blue Spirit Airlines merger. But regardless, it made
- 0:46Speaker 1: it more difficult on all of us. We got to
- 0:48Speaker 1: get through that, and we will. But the free market,
- 0:50Speaker 1: in two great examples, is gonna come on on top here.
- 0:53Speaker 1: And that's fantastic.
- 0:54Speaker 2: Hey.
- 0:54Speaker 1: And it's also unless you're watching this or listening later on,
- 0:56Speaker 1: it's May the fourth. May the fourth be with you're
- 1:00Speaker 1: wondering why you're seeing so much Star Wars stuff out
- 1:02Speaker 1: there in the world today in your business world and
- 1:04Speaker 1: your life and your casual lifestyle world. That's why it's
- 1:07Speaker 1: a big promotional thing. It took them years to figure
- 1:09Speaker 1: out to use May the fourth, May the Force, you know,
- 1:12Speaker 1: for Star Wars promotions, but they do it now anyway.
- 1:15Speaker 1: That's why eanks for finding me. Welcome to Monday and
- 1:18Speaker 1: May the fourth. It's Wicked radio, live streaming and replay
- 1:21Speaker 1: x YouTube, Facebook, but your audio podcast too wherever you
- 1:24Speaker 1: like to get those like share, follow whatever they tell
- 1:26Speaker 1: you to do. Thanks for being here. How did we
- 1:28Speaker 1: get here? How did we get here? Let's start with
- 1:31Speaker 1: this past weekend, Secretary Transportation Sean Duffy at Newark Airport
- 1:35Speaker 1: explaining what's going on with Spirit Airlines and then he
- 1:39Speaker 1: kind of looked took shots. I appreciate this about this administration.
- 1:42Speaker 1: I do. They have people who are in the administration
- 1:46Speaker 1: in cabinet positions everything else. They're not afraid to name names,
- 1:50Speaker 1: and I love that. So here's how we started with
- 1:52Speaker 1: a held a press conference.
- 1:53Speaker 2: Ze Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is speaking at Libordia
- 1:56Speaker 2: or Newark Liberty Airport, YA.
- 1:58Speaker 3: Spared airlines seized operations. So what that means is Spirit
- 2:04Speaker 3: does not have airplanes in the air flying as of
- 2:08Speaker 3: this morning. Also, their call centers are closed and they
- 2:12Speaker 3: don't have staff at ticket counters.
- 2:15Speaker 1: So now that's chaotic. Regardless, some would argue that it's
- 2:19Speaker 1: chaotic to fly Spirit Airlines anyway. But still this means
- 2:22Speaker 1: less options for the consumer, and that sucks. That's what's terrible.
- 2:25Speaker 1: First piece of good news was other airlines, including American
- 2:28Speaker 1: I believe Jet Blue as well. Funny enough, because they
- 2:30Speaker 1: were supposed to be buying them, stepped up to help people,
- 2:34Speaker 1: you know, with their flights. They'll take them on, they'll
- 2:36Speaker 1: try to fit them in however they can. They're also
- 2:38Speaker 1: going to accept job applications for these fourteen thousand plus
- 2:41Speaker 1: people who are now out of work because of this.
- 2:44Speaker 1: But then Sean Duffy did something else. He named names,
- 2:46Speaker 1: and he explained exactly why we're here. It's important that
- 2:49Speaker 1: he did this on Saturday. Why are we here today?
- 2:53Speaker 3: There was a proposed merger between Jet Blue and Spirit,
- 2:58Speaker 3: and Joe Biden and Pete poota je judge along with
- 3:01Speaker 3: the Biden doj decided that they did not want that
- 3:04Speaker 3: merger to take place, and at the time, the Biden
- 3:09Speaker 3: and Buddha Judge DJ bragged and said as they canceled
- 3:13Speaker 3: the option for this merger that this was a victory
- 3:16Speaker 3: for US travelers who deserve lower prices.
- 3:19Speaker 1: And better choices. Now, many at the time said this
- 3:23Speaker 1: was a disaster.
- 3:25Speaker 3: This merger should have been allowed, and this today would
- 3:29Speaker 3: indicate this is not better for travelers, This is not
- 3:31Speaker 3: better for pricing, and this is not better for competition.
- 3:34Speaker 1: Actually, in what world would it be? How do you
- 3:37Speaker 1: remove an airline or stop a merger? Stick your nose
- 3:40Speaker 1: in with the government, sticks in private industry. It's nose
- 3:43Speaker 1: into private industry and stops a merger. Look at the
- 3:45Speaker 1: end result. It took two years, but here we are
- 3:47Speaker 1: now one airline has to go away. That means jobs
- 3:50Speaker 1: go away. People who are stuck with those flights are
- 3:53Speaker 1: all screwed up. The other airlines have to try to
- 3:55Speaker 1: fit them in. People are out of work. In what
- 3:57Speaker 1: world is that? Okay? But that wasn't the case. Who
- 4:00Speaker 1: is he talking about, specifically? Who stepped in from the
- 4:03Speaker 1: political world in twenty twenty four to screw this all up? Well,
- 4:07Speaker 1: let me give you a little hint. It rhymes with folkahonness.
- 4:12Speaker 1: Some would call her. Some people who wound up being
- 4:14Speaker 1: president again coined the term Pocahontas. That's right, Elizabeth Warren,
- 4:21Speaker 1: the senator from the used to be great state of Taxachusetts,
- 4:25Speaker 1: the People's Republic of Massachusetts, now stuck her nose in
- 4:29Speaker 1: and spearheaded the effort to screw up this merger. Could
- 4:33Speaker 1: it be? Is that really true? Was it really her? Well,
- 4:37Speaker 1: let me go directly to one of her posts from
- 4:41Speaker 1: let's see what the date is, March fifth, twenty twenty four.
- 4:44Speaker 1: This is Senator Elizabeth Warren. You may know her as Pocahontas.
- 4:48Speaker 1: I've worn for months that a Jet Blue Spirit Airlines
- 4:51Speaker 1: merger would have led to fewer flights and higher affairs.
- 4:55Speaker 1: Actually that's where we are now despite the merger. Anyways,
- 4:58Speaker 1: Justice and USD were right to stand up for consumers
- 5:02Speaker 1: and fight against it, run away airline consolidation. This is
- 5:06Speaker 1: a Biden win for flyers, Yeah, real win. Look at
- 5:12Speaker 1: all those jobs you cost, you absolute moron, but there
- 5:15Speaker 1: you are, and that This is the classic case of
- 5:18Speaker 1: when people who have absolutely no clue how business or
- 5:21Speaker 1: free market works stick their noses in, come out of
- 5:24Speaker 1: the teepee and stick their noses into business and screw it.
- 5:28Speaker 1: Up for everybody, and here we are. But she wasn't
- 5:31Speaker 1: the only one to screw up a deal this big.
- 5:33Speaker 1: You need some help now. You would be hard pressed
- 5:36Speaker 1: to find anybody dumber in politics than Senator Chris Murphy,
- 5:40Speaker 1: amazingly from another New England state, from Connecticut. Good job, Connecticut.
- 5:44Speaker 1: Let's go back again to twenty twenty four when they
- 5:47Speaker 1: were all jumping up and down celebrating destroying a merger
- 5:50Speaker 1: that would have saved all these jobs. Here he is.
- 5:52Speaker 1: Let's go back in time and find out how dumb
- 5:55Speaker 1: he was then and now.
- 5:56Speaker 2: So this week, at the request of the Biden administration,
- 5:58Speaker 2: a federal judge blocked a big airline merger between two
- 6:01Speaker 2: airlines you've heard of, Jet Blue and Spirit. I want
- 6:05Speaker 2: to tell you why this is really important for consumers
- 6:09Speaker 2: but also for the country. The Biden administration has made
- 6:14Speaker 2: it a priority to try to break up these big monopolies,
- 6:18Speaker 2: to try to infuse more competition into our economy. You know,
- 6:22Speaker 2: this is a problem because you've seen these massive companies
- 6:27Speaker 2: become more and more powerful, and that's really bad for workers,
- 6:31Speaker 2: it's really bad for consumers. It just sort of, you know,
- 6:35Speaker 2: guts the emotional soul of the country when.
- 6:38Speaker 1: How do you think the emotional soul of the traveler
- 6:40Speaker 1: stuck at airports this weekend? Felt? Chris? Did you ever
- 6:43Speaker 1: think about that? Because they cannot They they don't have
- 6:45Speaker 1: the ability to think down the road what the implications
- 6:47Speaker 1: would be for this. They can't do it because I
- 6:50Speaker 1: can't find a better word for it. People like Elizabeth
- 6:53Speaker 1: Warren and him, Chris Murphy, they're just they're they're dumb.
- 6:57Speaker 1: They're just they're very, very simplest, dumb people who stick
- 7:02Speaker 1: their noses to where it doesn't belong for political points
- 7:05Speaker 1: because it sounds great. We're doing this, We're stopping big corporations,
- 7:09Speaker 1: you know, those billionaires, and look at the results. Now
- 7:11Speaker 1: you've got an airline gone and fourteen thousand conservative estimate,
- 7:15Speaker 1: job's gone until now. Now, this is the timeline of
- 7:19Speaker 1: the propagandavist sent out there and the media spin that started.
- 7:23Speaker 1: What did you probably hear was the cause of Spirit
- 7:25Speaker 1: airlines going away over the weekend? Think about it? What
- 7:28Speaker 1: did you have your your dim wit friends tell you?
- 7:32Speaker 1: What'd you hear? What the mainstream media? What did CNN
- 7:35Speaker 1: tell you? It's all about? What did they try to
- 7:36Speaker 1: spin as soon as Sean Murphy started naming names, Sir
- 7:38Speaker 1: Sean Duffy started naming names. This is Trump's high gas
- 7:43Speaker 1: prices causing Spirit airlines to go away. As if a
- 7:47Speaker 1: temporary spike in gas prices is going to cause an
- 7:50Speaker 1: airline to go away. No, it was hemorrhaging money because
- 7:53Speaker 1: a deal that would have saved it went away because
- 7:55Speaker 1: of idiots like Chris Murphy and Elizabeth Warren. That's why.
- 7:58Speaker 1: But once they started name and names people to want,
- 8:00Speaker 1: I've started to understand the truth about why this airline
- 8:03Speaker 1: went away. Oh we gotta get the spin out there,
- 8:06Speaker 1: get the news out there. Blame Trump gas. People see
- 8:09Speaker 1: high gas prices this weekend, Blame the gas prices. Fuel prices,
- 8:13Speaker 1: whose airline fuel? That's what it was, right, don't you
- 8:17Speaker 1: buy it? Thankfully we have people now at charge who
- 8:19Speaker 1: actually know what they're doing. Scott Pisent, Treasury Secretary. Boy,
- 8:22Speaker 1: is this guy a brilliant He actually was on Maria
- 8:25Speaker 1: Bartiromo explaining pretty much what Sean mur Sean Duffy getting
- 8:29Speaker 1: all their durphies and Duffies and Murphy's mixed up, explain
- 8:32Speaker 1: what exactly happened, But he laid it out perfectly this weekend.
- 8:36Speaker 4: This is just more of the mess we inherited from
- 8:39Speaker 4: the Biden administration. In twenty twenty September twenty twenty two,
- 8:43Speaker 4: Elizabeth Warren, who loves to write letters, sent a letter
- 8:47Speaker 4: to the Justice Department, to the Labor, to the Transport
- 8:50Speaker 4: Department saying that they should oppose the merger with Sperry Airlines.
- 8:56Speaker 4: Jeff Blue wanted to buy them for three point eight
- 8:58Speaker 4: billion dollars. It would have given them much more resiliency.
- 9:02Speaker 4: And she and the Transportation Secretary peepe Buddha Jedge is
- 9:07Speaker 4: probably the worst transportation secretary in history when he came
- 9:10Speaker 4: to the office. They also they were against the merger.
- 9:14Speaker 4: And if Jeff Blue had merged with Spirit, we would
- 9:19Speaker 4: have all these jobs that were lost. Yesterday we had
- 9:22Speaker 4: thirty airport, thirty regional airports who have lost service. And
- 9:27Speaker 4: I can tell you what happened here. It wasn't Treasury,
- 9:29Speaker 4: was Commerce that was trying to put something together. But
- 9:33Speaker 4: the reason we were here was because the merger. The
- 9:36Speaker 4: Biden administration opposed the merger. We shouldn't have been here
- 9:39Speaker 4: in the first.
- 9:40Speaker 1: Shouldn't have been here in the first place. Isn't that correct,
- 9:42Speaker 1: Because why again, what's our theme today? People who have
- 9:46Speaker 1: absolutely no idea how free market economy works. Socialists from
- 9:50Speaker 1: Massachusetts and Connecticut in the form of Elizabeth Warren and
- 9:53Speaker 1: Chris Murphy stuck their noses in for political points because
- 9:56Speaker 1: it sounded good to stop a big corporation, those billionaires,
- 9:59Speaker 1: those bad people stuck their noses in, and here you
- 10:02Speaker 1: are now, look where we are now. But I always
- 10:06Speaker 1: leave you with good news. If you look through all
- 10:08Speaker 1: the propaganda and the spin and the crap, and you
- 10:10Speaker 1: look through the idiots who get us to this point,
- 10:12Speaker 1: free market always wins. What do you mean, Bill, this
- 10:15Speaker 1: sounds pretty bad when fourteen thousand people lose their jobs. Well,
- 10:19Speaker 1: free market is more powerful than they are. Because something
- 10:22Speaker 1: amazing is happening right now from airline insiders, and they're
- 10:25Speaker 1: all saying this people who actually follow this industry. Jet
- 10:28Speaker 1: Blue may be pulling off an ultimate power move here
- 10:32Speaker 1: because there are smart people that actually run the company,
- 10:34Speaker 1: and believe it or not, no matter what you think
- 10:36Speaker 1: of Spirit Airlines and all the fight videos we used
- 10:39Speaker 1: to see on Spirit Airlines, that's a different matter. There
- 10:41Speaker 1: are smart people who run these things. Hours after Spirit
- 10:44Speaker 1: Airlines went dark, Jet Blue began swooping in, reportedly into
- 10:50Speaker 1: South Florida. That would be Fort Lauderdale, which is a
- 10:52Speaker 1: major Spirit hub with a full blown rescue mission. And
- 10:56Speaker 1: they're not playing small ball here. Here's the breakdown. Ninety
- 10:59Speaker 1: nine dollar rescue fares for anybody holding a valid Spirit ticket,
- 11:03Speaker 1: same route, same dates, one eight hundred Jet Blue. So
- 11:07Speaker 1: check out to that. Because remember those airlines I was
- 11:09Speaker 1: talking about, they're helping out people, jobs and flights. They're
- 11:12Speaker 1: swooping in, but that's just a little bit of it.
- 11:17Speaker 1: Jet Blue plans now because of this opening, scoop up
- 11:21Speaker 1: Spirit Airlines assets. They have a lot of assets, both
- 11:25Speaker 1: tech and actual physical airplanes and to make Fort Lauderdale
- 11:29Speaker 1: a major hub. So even though the government stuck the
- 11:32Speaker 1: noses in where it doesn't belong and they screwed up
- 11:35Speaker 1: this merger, it may work out for the free market
- 11:37Speaker 1: economy and therefore consumers anyway, because they're going to buy
- 11:40Speaker 1: Spirit Airlines assets regardless, and that wouldn't be a merger.
- 11:44Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be incredible where the free market wins again
- 11:47Speaker 1: despite idiotic politicians stepping in and screwing it up. You notice,
- 11:52Speaker 1: by the way, Elizabeth Warren was dead silent about any
- 11:56Speaker 1: of this stuff this weekend, even though she screwed it
- 11:59Speaker 1: up in the beginning twenty twenty four. Chris Murphy also
- 12:02Speaker 1: silent because he was probably asleep all weekend. But anyway,
- 12:04Speaker 1: there they are not saying anything because they know this
- 12:07Speaker 1: falls directly on them. But once it started to fall
- 12:10Speaker 1: directly on them again, what was the spin. It's it's
- 12:13Speaker 1: Trump fuel prices, it's a rent, it's Operation epic Fury
- 12:17Speaker 1: causing this. No, I know you didn't believe that, but
- 12:21Speaker 1: make sure that people around you didn't believe that either.
- 12:23Speaker 1: Free market always steps in and win. But there's another one,
- 12:26Speaker 1: and this is great. This is just a little bit
- 12:28Speaker 1: of a light hearted kind of thing. So you know
- 12:30Speaker 1: how they always put together like crowdsource funding things and
- 12:33Speaker 1: you know, free market things and even gofundmes at some
- 12:36Speaker 1: time where the online presence of people who have ideas
- 12:40Speaker 1: start to boost up a little bit. There's a kid,
- 12:43Speaker 1: his name is Hunter Peterson. He's an airline enthusiast. He
- 12:47Speaker 1: says he's a TikToker. He put together a crowd funding
- 12:53Speaker 1: crowdsource funding plan to buy Spirit Airlines. Now I know
- 12:57Speaker 1: that just sounds funny, right. You know, some goof on
- 13:00Speaker 1: TikTok gets on there, But let him explain in just
- 13:04Speaker 1: a couple of hours how much money they actually put
- 13:06Speaker 1: together or dedicated towards actually buying Spirit Airlines. Did it work?
- 13:09Speaker 1: Will it work?
- 13:10Speaker 2: No?
- 13:11Speaker 1: It will not. But I'm telling you, sometime in our lifetime,
- 13:14Speaker 1: one of these things is actually going to work. Someone's
- 13:16Speaker 1: going to put together a funding source online whatever it's called,
- 13:20Speaker 1: in a few years and is actually going to be
- 13:22Speaker 1: able to buy a major corporation. This is a classic example,
- 13:25Speaker 1: two great examples of the free market fixing things. Jet
- 13:29Speaker 1: Blue buying up Spirit assets anyway and ordering those flights.
- 13:33Speaker 1: That's the first thing where this will work. And the
- 13:35Speaker 1: second thing is actual people taking things into ruins. Here's
- 13:39Speaker 1: this kid, Hunter Peterson on TikTok over the weekend with
- 13:42Speaker 1: his idea for regular people to buy Spirit Airlines. In theory,
- 13:46Speaker 1: this is fantastic. Someday one of these is going to Okay,
- 13:48Speaker 1: So it's.
- 13:49Speaker 5: Been about two and a half hours, and y'all are
- 13:51Speaker 5: really interested in all of us buying Spirit Airlines. So
- 13:55Speaker 5: I made a website. It's called Let's buy Spirit dot com.
- 13:58Speaker 5: Register your intent. I won't take any we're not going
- 14:00Speaker 5: to use it anymore. That was kind of a joke,
- 14:03Speaker 5: and we're going to try and I guess buy Spirit Airlines.
- 14:07Speaker 5: Let's see this, you and me. I'm kind of autistic
- 14:11Speaker 5: and I really like airplanes.
- 14:12Speaker 4: It's so.
- 14:14Speaker 1: Quote for me as CEO.
- 14:17Speaker 2: Are we actually do?
- 14:19Speaker 1: How fantastic is that? And it got into that. I
- 14:21Speaker 1: don't know where it is right now. I checked it
- 14:23Speaker 1: last night, but it got into the hundreds of millions
- 14:26Speaker 1: of money pledged because people less facing people knew their
- 14:29Speaker 1: money actually wasn't gonna be spent. But seriously, just the
- 14:31Speaker 1: idea that something like this could happen, with the concept
- 14:34Speaker 1: of putting together money or people pledging money to do it.
- 14:38Speaker 1: What happens if this actually works, not yet, ten years,
- 14:42Speaker 1: fifteen years down the road, something some company is going
- 14:44Speaker 1: to fail and there will be actually be actual investors
- 14:48Speaker 1: that will be crowdsourced online to buy them, you know,
- 14:52Speaker 1: not in the dark boardroom somewhere, you know, not insider
- 14:56Speaker 1: trading on Wall Street, but regular people joining up to
- 14:58Speaker 1: buy a company. Someday day it's going to happen. I
- 15:00Speaker 1: don't know what industry it would be. I don't know
- 15:02Speaker 1: what company it would be. But someday somebody's gonna pull
- 15:05Speaker 1: this off because you have the resources. Now, you have
- 15:08Speaker 1: the ability to get that information to put together that
- 15:10Speaker 1: kind of funding. If anybody was ever smart enough to
- 15:12Speaker 1: put this together, that would that would be amazing. But
- 15:16Speaker 1: the free market wins. The big takeaway, don't buy the lie.
- 15:19Speaker 1: It's not Operation Epic Fury closed Spirit Airlines. The dumb
- 15:23Speaker 1: people among us will believe that because they believe the
- 15:25Speaker 1: media spin. But when did that spin start to come about?
- 15:29Speaker 1: When you had the Treasury Secretary and the Transportation Secretary
- 15:33Speaker 1: naming names and who is responsible for screwing this up?
- 15:36Speaker 1: Idiot politicians who stuck their noses in. But the free
- 15:39Speaker 1: market's going to win anyway. Something will happen with Spirit.
- 15:41Speaker 1: It's a shame that they're going through that. I can't
- 15:43Speaker 1: stand at the fact that people are stuck in airports
- 15:45Speaker 1: and their flights and all this other stuff. But this
- 15:48Speaker 1: will wind up being a great thing. Jet Blue will
- 15:50Speaker 1: buy the assets, they'll expand their operations, and the free
- 15:53Speaker 1: market always wins. Always, don't buy the spin. Actually hanging
- 15:56Speaker 1: out with me, I gotta get out of here. I
- 15:57Speaker 1: got stuff to do, But so do you. Welcome to Monday,
- 16:00Speaker 1: May the fourth be with you. You're gonna find a lot
- 16:02Speaker 1: of Star Wars content on your social media today, maybe
- 16:07Speaker 1: even people at work dressing up like Star Wars characters.
- 16:09Speaker 1: I don't know how weird it gets. I don't know whatever,
- 16:11Speaker 1: but it's a big Star Wars day for the fandom,
- 16:13Speaker 1: and they're gonna push the I think it's the No
- 16:15Speaker 1: Grogu movie that's coming out. You can see advertising for
- 16:17Speaker 1: that all over the place. It's just a fun marketing
- 16:20Speaker 1: kind of thing. That's all all right, Thanks for hanging
- 16:21Speaker 1: out with me, appreciate you. It's only Monday. Making a
- 16:23Speaker 1: wicked awesome Monday. The replay on x and YouTube and
- 16:26Speaker 1: Facebook and the audio podcast as always wherever you like
- 16:29Speaker 1: to get them. Making a wicked awesome start to the week.
- 16:32Speaker 1: It's only gonna get better from here. Talk to you tomorrow.