Reference no: EM133523849

Frontier Airlines announced in early February 2022 that they had purchased the nation's lowest air-fare carrier, Spirit Airlines, for 6.6 billion dollars. This merger, when complete, will create the 5th largest airline in the United States.

Spirit Airlines lists Ancillary Revenues - extra cost items on each flight. Most of these were included in the pricing of a ticket in the past, particularly during the days of airline regulation.

Today this has gotten entirely out of hand, although some of these items added severely needed revenue to airlines when fuel prices became much higher several years ago. For example, Southwest recently had a very successful ad campaign when they were one of the few airlines where "Your bag flies free on Southwest!" As the video on the previous page shows, airlines are looking to gain revenue by challenging standard models and practices.

Is this necessary? Should airlines provide more "free" services, should they invade "non-hub routes," or is this the only way cut-throat competitor airlines can hope to make revenues to stay in the black these days? Cite all sources.