JetBlue Airways has not given up on its quest to buy Spirit Airlines, even though its initial bid in April was rejected, writes Lori Aratani and Ian Duncan for The Washington Post, as reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The airline presented a second bid Monday. JetBlue is now offering $30 a share for Spirit Airlines but said it would offer the original $33 a share “if the Spirit Board decides to constructively engage with us.”

After rejecting JetBlue’s first bid, Spirit said it would move forward with a pending merger with Frontier Airlines.

 “JetBlue offers more value — a significant premium in cash — more certainty, and more benefits for all stakeholders,” JetBlue chief executive Robin Hayes wrote in a letter to the company’s shareholders.

Frontier offers less value, more risk, more overlap on nonstop routes and its own regulatory challenges, Hayes wrote.

But Spirit’s board of directors chairman Mac Gardner wrote that the JetBlue proposal “involves an unacceptable level of closing risk that would be assumed by Spirit stockholders.”

Part of the concern centers on an existing alliance between JetBlue and American Airlines and fears that federal authorities would reject JetBlue’s purchase offer.

Read more in The Philadelphia Inquirer about Jet Blue’s second bid to buy Spirit Airlines.

CNBC takes a look at JetBlue’s enhanced offer for Spirit Airlines in this May 2, 2022 video.