Spirit Airlines Inc. is in talks with Frontier Group Holdings Inc. about filing for bankruptcy to facilitate a takeover by the rival discount carrier, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

For the past eight years, in fact, Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines have been the will-they-or-won’t-they couple of the airline industry, having repeated merger discussions

Spirit had before been in merger negotiations with Frontier in 2022, but the plan fell apart after JetBlue Airways ( JBLU, Financials) made an all-cash offer of $3.8 billion. Early this year, the U.S. Department of Justice nixed the JetBlue-Spirit merger.