Spirit Airlines is planning to cut capacity by about 10% in anticipation of weak demand following the conclusion of the peak summer season.
The low-cost carrier's CEO, Ben Baldanza, says Spirit plans to cut capacity this fall by reducing average aircraft utilisation from 14 hours per day to 12.5 hours per day. He says Spirit, which last year returned seven A319s, will continue to operate the 26 218-seat A321s and two 145-seat A319s currently in its fleet.
"We're not getting rid of airplanes," Baldanza tells ATI.
He adds Florida-based Spirit will cut capacity by reducing frequencies rather than cutting markets entirely. He explains medium-haul flights of four hours and more will be cut more than short-haul flights due to rising fuel prices.
Baldanza says longer flights likely to be cut back include Fort Lauderdale to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Lima. Spirit only resumed in May flights to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, which were suspended last year.
Last year Spirit cut capacity by returning seven A319s. But Baldanza says Spirit increased utilisation to minimize the impact of the fleet cuts. Spirit for the entire year averaged 12.8 hours of utilisation while the average was 13.5 hours from May through December.
While Spirit will again reduce capacity this fall, the carrier plans to increase capacity next year as it takes delivery of four new A320s. Baldanza says the 178-seat A320s will be used to add capacity on some of its denser markets, including flights from Fort Lauderdale to New York, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. That, in turn, "will free up A319s" to launch some new markets and add frequencies in existing markets.
Baldanza says after the four A320s are delivered Spirit will offer almost as much capacity as it did in the first half 2008 before the carrier cut its fleet and furloughed employees.
"We will be close by the end of next year," he says, adding Spirit plans to resume capacity growth in 2011.
Three of the four A320s, which are being leased from AerCap, will be delivered in time for the 2009 peak summer season.
Spirit has already unveiled plans to launch flights next year to Chiclayo in northern Peru. But Baldanza says for the most part Spirit will use the extra aircraft to beef up frequencies on existing routes, pointing out a lot of its international services are currently only operated a few days per week.
"A lot of the growth over the next few years will be more depth than reach," he says.
Baldanza says there are not many holes left in Spirit's international network because it now has launched services to most medium and large destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean that are within range of its A319s. He says Venezuela is the one big exception but there is no room in the current US-Venezuela bilateral for a new carrier.
"Caracas is the one that sticks out," he says. "It's the obvious miss in the system."
Spirit also considered last year adding Manaus, which would be its first destination in Brazil. But Baldanza says while Spirit will re-look at Manuas "probably at some point" it is currently not on the carrier's radar screen.
Larger Brazilian cities are unlikely because they are out of reach of the A319. Spirit last year looked at serving cities deep into South America via Manaus. But for now Baldanza says Spirit is not interested in operating one-stop services or acquiring widebody aircraft, which would be needed to launch non-stop services from its Fort Lauderdale base to cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
