A federal judge has blocked the proposed $3.8 billion acquisition of Spirit Airlines (NYSE: SAVE) by JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU), sending both carriers back to the drawing board to pursue growth. JetBlue's options as a stand-alone look rosier than Spirit's, with investors sending Spirit shares down more than 50% while JetBlue stock was in the green Tuesday afternoon.

JetBlue and Spirit have been a turbulent match from the beginning. In 2022, Spirit had agreed to be acquired by Frontier Group Holdings, but eventually succumbed to an aggressive effort by JetBlue to outbid Frontier and claim the prize for its own.

Frontier warned at the time that a JetBlue/Spirit combination would be hard for regulators to swallow. The two airlines heavily overlap on the U.S. East Coast and Florida and operate very different models, leading to questions about whether JetBlue's purchase of Spirit would eliminate a low-fare leader.

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Source Fool.com