Flight disruptions ease, Spirit Airlines postpones Frontier merger vote to July 8

Yahoo Finance's Dani Romero joins the Live show to discuss the easing of flight disruptions as well as the reasons for why Spirit Airlines has postponed its Frontier merger vote.

Video transcript

- July 4th. It was yesterday, the holiday weekend posing the latest test to the airline industry. Yahoo Finance Dani Romero joins us with the latest and the scorecard for this. We knew it was going to be bad. We knew it was going to be bad, and it was. So it was a low bar, couldn't clear, what's going on?

DANI ROMERO: Yeah. I mean, I would say that they did pass. So they didn't fail. But like you said, it wasn't a great weekend for the air travel. Friday, Saturday were a bit rough, but then it got better on Sunday and Monday. And according to FlightAware as of Monday, 1,200 flights were delayed and over 180 flights were canceled, which is down from the nearly 4,700 delays and more than 300 cancelations that happened the day before.

But keep in mind, we're talking about Delta, Southwest, United. They were all trimming their schedules to help with these excess delays. However, on Saturday, the real story there was for American Airlines. They had a software glitch with their internal scheduling system for their pilots. It wiped out 12,000 flights. And--

- Just when it couldn't get worse, a software glitch.

DANI ROMERO: Yeah, exactly. But it was gone for a brief moment, and then causing a big headache for the airlines, which eventually they got fixed. And American Airlines came out and they said that there are no operational issues as of now. But this also comes at a time when United and American Airlines are doing the negotiation contracts right now for their pilots.

- That's right. And sticking with airline news, we also have the merger front and center between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines. Each of them down about 3% today. What's the latest there?

DANI ROMERO: Yeah, so the ongoing bidding war between Frontier and JetBlue for Spirit Airlines-- remember, Spirit Airlines postponed their shareholder vote, which is they're going to decide whether they're going to accept or reject the merger with Frontier. And that's scheduled for Friday. But a lot is at stake in mind with all of this. We'll have to see what happens with this vote. But also, does it get canceled altogether again? And do they work out a new agreement, or do they reach an agreement with JetBlue? So we'll have to wait and see with that.

- Yes. We'll be on pins and needles here. I'll be here all week. I know you will too. So thank you for that, Yahoo Finance's Dani Romero.