Spirit Airlines again puts off a vote on Frontier’s offer as it mulls JetBlue’s.

Spirit Airways stated Thursday that it had once more delayed a shareholder vote on its proposed acquisition by Frontier Airways, permitting it to proceed discussions with Frontier and with JetBlue Airways, which has made a rival bid.

The vote, which was to happen Friday morning, was rescheduled for July 15.

The postponement is the third time in a month that Spirit has pushed again the vote because it has repeatedly spurned JetBlue, arguing that antitrust regulators would most likely reject a mix of the 2 airways. As a substitute, Spirit has inspired shareholders to assist the Frontier deal, which it has stated has a neater path to regulatory approval.

JetBlue has argued that regulators are more likely to scrutinize both deal and will discover as a lot to object to in a mix of Spirit and Frontier, which compete in lots of markets. JetBlue’s all-cash provide additionally values Spirit extra extremely, at about $3.6 billion; Frontier’s stock-and-cash proposal valued the corporate at about $2.4 billion.

The Biden administration has taken a dim view of enormous company mergers and is anticipated to be skeptical of both deal, significantly with airways struggling to beat episodes of mass flight cancellations. Both mixture would create a brand new fifth-largest U.S. airline, nonetheless, which may higher compete with the 4 carriers that dominate the home market.

Spirit and Frontier collectively introduced their plan in February, with JetBlue providing a competing bid for Spirit weeks later. As a result of Spirit and Frontier share a low-cost enterprise mannequin, they’re a extra pure match, business analysts say. And by becoming a member of forces, the airways would create a bigger finances provider that would profit from nationwide scale.

For JetBlue, buying Spirit would speed up its plans for progress, although combining the 2 operations may show tougher.