A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 taxis at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving from Boston on September 1, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Spirit Airlines is gearing up to shrink to a tiny version of its former self, focusing on high-demand travel periods and routes as well as expanding premium-class seats in an attempt to survive, according to a new plan it unveiled in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Tuesday.
Much of the airline’s focus will be on flying to destinations from its major Florida airports, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, as well as from the New York area and Detroit, CEO Dave Davis told CNBC.
Flights that don’t touch those airports “will be an even smaller part of the network,” Davis said.
He declined to specify which routes could be cut, but noted high competition on cross-country flights, as well as some weakness in demand for visiting friends and relatives, a key segment of air travel, in Latin America. He said some Latin American flying would likely be trimmed but that the region would still be important to Spirit.
The airline will also focus more on peak travel days and will cut money-losing flights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Davis said.
Leaner airline
The budget travel icon said it will get rid of even more of its Airbus fleet as it plans to exit its second bankruptcy in less than a year. It expects to emerge in late spring or early summer, Spirit’s lawyer, Marshall Huebner of Davis Polk, said at a hearing Tuesday.
Spirit said the changes will make the airline leaner and more competitive.
The company said under the plan it estimates it will have reduced costs and said its debt and lease obligations will be cut from $7.4 billion to $2.1 billion after this bankruptcy.
Spirit has reached an agreement in principle with its creditors for the plan, Huebner said, adding that secured lenders will make “material incremental liquidity available to Spirit via the release of cash collateral.”
Spirit will rework its network and schedules to increase aircraft utilization during high-demand periods and on popular routes and to lower use during travel lulls. The carrier also plans to expand its Spirit First and premium economy, as well as update its loyalty program.
Davis told CNBC that the airline is planning to roll out premium economy seating across the fleet and is considering adding a third row of its top-cabin product, the so-called “Big Front Seat.”
The new fleet would be made up of mostly older Airbus planes, “with the potential rejection of additional high cost NEO aircraft,” Huebner said, referring to the more modern Airbus A320 family of planes, adding that the exact size of Spirit’s fleet will depend on talks with counterparts like aircraft lessors.
He said Spirit’s annualized fleet cost would be cut another $550 million, down 65% from before its bankruptcy filing last year. The debtors have also eyed another $300 million in cost savings from nonfleet cuts, he said.
Spirit has already reduced some of its Airbus fleet and furloughed pilots and flight attendants to cut costs as it reduced its network, though some cabin crew members were called back to work ahead of spring break.
Davis acknowledged that attrition has depleted some staffing levels and said it is too early to tell whether the carrier will have to reduce staff to meet its new fleet footprint.
In its second bankruptcy, Spirit had held deal talks with Frontier Airlines, and with investment firm Castlelake. Nothing materialized, but Huebner hinted a combination could be back on the table.
“This emergence will allow Spirit to do many things from a position of strength and stability, including to consider potential future industry transactions,” Huebner said.
Davis said that more consolidation among low-cost airlines “makes sense” but added that “if we build a sustainably profitable entity here, we’ll have a lot of options in front of us.”
How Spirit got here
Spirit’s path will be challenging. It would pit a smaller version of Spirit against ever-larger competitors that dominate the U.S. market.
Some U.S. budget carriers have struggled due to a surge in labor and other costs post-Covid as well as a growing consumer shift in favor of more upscale travel, among other things.
“Because every single day counts, and every single dollar counts, the airline industry is just as competitive today with this deal in hand as it was last Friday, and we must — and will — lock down what we need from other stakeholders and then begin a high speed march to get this storied company out of Chapter 11 at the earliest possible date so that it can write its next chapters from a position of strength,” Huebner said.
Spirit was uniquely challenged by a massive engine recall from Pratt & Whitney and a failed plan to get acquired by JetBlue Airways, a deal knocked down by a federal judge in early 2024.
Spirit forecast it would generate a net profit of $252 million last year, according to a court filing in December 2024. But it said in an August report that it lost nearly $257 million in a matter of months stretching from March 13, after it exited its first Chapter 11 bankruptcy, through the end of June. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection again less than a month later.
Another challenge for Spirit is that large U.S. airlines like American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines have launched their own no-frills basic economy fares that look more like Spirit’s model, though they were attached to larger carriers.
Davis said Spirit still plays “an extremely important role” in the industry, though some competitors have prepared for the airline to shrink, if not cease operations entirely, adding flights on routes Spirit had abandoned.
“The reason fares are low, the reason basic economy fares are low on our legacy competitors, is because airlines like us exist,” he said. “If we didn’t exist, fares … would be substantially higher than they are right now, I can guarantee you.”
