Judge just blocked the JetBlue-Spirit merger. And here's the thing: even if you never flew Spirit once in your life, you benefited from them existing. They kept fares low. They existed as a brutal, cut-to-the-bone competitor that made the whole industry actually compete on price. Without them, consolidation wins. Fewer carriers. Higher fares. The market gets softer. That's what happens when airlines merge their way to a duopoly. This ruling matters because it's one of the few times someone actually blocked consolidation instead of just waving it through.