US low cost carrier Spirit Airlines has declared it intends to closely monitor its fleet ramp-up to 65 aircraft by year-end 2015 to "reduce the risk of overextension and undue exposure in market downturns".
Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Spirit Airlines offered that assessment in a regulatory filing related to its planned initial public offering of 20 million shares priced at $14-$16 per share.
As of 31 March Spirit operated a fleet of 35 Airbus narrowbodies - 26 A319s, seven A320s and two A321s.
The carrier's commitments through 2015 are for 33 additional Airbus narrowbodies.
Spirit's new-delivery A320 aircraft that started arriving in 2010 are configured with 178-seats. In the filing Spirit explained the higher-capacity aircraft "support reduction in unit costs relative to smaller A319 aircraft, and allows us to deploy the right-sized aircraft according to route length, passenger volume and seasonality".
Spirit expects to use the aircraft coming online through 2015 to add capacity on existing markets and to expand its network.
Both the Caribbean and Latin America are focus regions for Spirit. Citing data from the US Department of Transportation (DOT), Spirit explained that the current value of the US-Caribbean/Latin America aviation market is $15.4 billion. "We believe approximately $12.3 billion of this market is within nonstop reach of our aircraft from the United States," the carrier stated.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
