The future landscape of US LCCs took an unexpected turn when New York-based JetBlue Airways made a $3.6 billion all-cash offer for Florida-based ULCC Spirit Airlines, which it called "superior" to the $2.9 billion cash and stock bid made by Denver-based Frontier Airlines. The JetBlue proposal offers more immediate value to Spirit's shareholders than the Frontier bid, but it also comes with added regulatory risk and complications related to merging two disparate business models and corporate cultures, industry watchers and analysts say.
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