By Liz Moyer

Investing.com — Frontier Group Holdings Inc (NASDAQ) shares rose by 5% Thursday afternoon Spirit Airlines Frontier made an appeal to shareholders for JetBlue to withdraw its tender offer and to support Frontier’s offer of purchase.

Spirit Airlines Inc (NYSE 🙂 released a statement saying that its board decided that JetBlue Airways Corp (NASDAQ :)’s $30 per-share offer “faces substantial regulatory obstacles” because of JetBlue’s alliance with American Airlines Group In the Northeast, where there are many tourists (NASDAQ:). According to the statement, the additional regulatory hurdles make it “unreasonably impossible for the transaction to be consummated” and are not better than Spirit’s merger transaction with Frontier.

It stated that Spirit shareholders will have to wait too much for JetBlue to review its transaction and added that Frontier transactions are already moving as expected. It asked shareholders to vote for the deal by June 10.

The shares of Spirit increased 0.9%, while JetBlue’s shares rose 3%.

Frontier and Spirit made their $2.9 billion joint announcement earlier this year. The deal said that it would make a huge impact on the sector of discount airlines. JetBlue offered $3.6 billion in unrestricted shares at $33 per share. Spirit rejected it twice, then JetBlue returned with the $30 per share offer and launched a tender.

“It’s no surprise that Spirit shareholders are getting more of the same from the Spirit Board,” JetBlue said in its own statement responding to Spirit’s recommendation to shareholders. “The Spirit Board is driven by grave conflicts of interests and continues to ignore shareholders’ best interest by distorting facts to distract attention from their flawed process. Frontier has a better deal with them.”

In its own statement, Frontier’s CEO Barry Biffle said, “We continue to believe that JetBlue is worried about increased competition and put forward a proposal for a transaction that, simply put, can’t be completed. We are determined to continue to work with Spirit to improve competition and to deliver greater value to our stakeholders.