Spirit Airlines plays hardball with Frontier's second merger bid despite bankruptcy

Spirit Airlines rejected Frontier Airlines’s second merger bid, opting to continue on its current path to emerge from bankruptcy.

The low-cost airline filed for bankruptcy last year after the Justice Department blocked a proposed merger with JetBlue. Before JetBlue’s offer, Frontier offered a $2.9 billion merger deal to Spirit, which the airline appeared likely to take until JetBlue countered. Frontier publicly announced a second offer to merge with Spirit in a press release Wednesday.