In travel news for July 12, 2022, we talk about a new River Cruise coming to Europe, news from Princess Cruises, and an update on the Spirit - Frontier - JetBlue merger.
Spirit Airlines - Frontier Airlines - JetBlue Merger
The Spirit Airlines - Frontier Airlines - JetBlue Merger drama continues. Originally Spirit entered into a merger agreement with Frontier for a cash/stock offer. Later JetBlue came out of no where in an attempt to buy Spirit for a superior all cash offer. Since then Spirit has made it clear they prefer the offer from Frontier over JetBlue. Both JetBlue and Frontier have improved their offers over the last few months, with JetBlue’s still being financially superior. Spirit was supposed to allow share holders to vote in early June, then late June, then on July 8th. Hours before the vote Spirit again pushed the vote now to July 15th. Frontier has announced it will no longer increase its offer to purchase Spirit. After the second time the date of the vote was pushed many business analysts believed the reason is that Spirit didn’t have the votes for the Frontier merger, and today Frontier admits that their calculations show there isn’t enough votes to move forward with the Sprit merger. So right now it’s looking like JetBlue will be purchasing Spirit Airlines. Given all the twists and turns in this merger I wouldn’t be shocked if there were at least one more surprise before this is over.
Princess Cruises the Emerald Princess Moves to the West Coast
The Cruise industry has been uncertain of the reopening plans for many popular asian ports. To satisfy the increased demand for cruises, especially domestic cruises some cruise lines are moving assets to the west coast of the united states. Princess Cruises moved the 3,080 passenger Emerald Princess to California which will have 16 just announced sailings. The Emerald Princess will have 7 day sailings to Mexico, 16 day sailings to Hawaii, and 7 day cruises along the California coast. Currently Princess is offering a “Launch Week” offer which includes $1 deposits but this offer is only good till July 19th.
New European River Cruise
Soon there will be a new company offering European river cruises. The company Transcent Cruises plains on launching their first sailing in Spring 2024. The new river cruise will sail the Rhine, Danube, and Moselle rivers. Operating a group charter model the company plans on targeting groups, including but not limited to the meetings, incentives, conference, and exhibition market. This will be the first time this targeting is applied to a river cruise product. Businesses have been moving from hotel/resort offering to cruise ships recently, expanding this to river cruises will open up additional experiences. If you’d like to know more about the advantages of utilizing a cruise for meetings, incentives, conferences, or exhibitions give us or your Travel Advisor a call.