{"id":5976,"date":"2026-05-10T15:55:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T15:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=5976"},"modified":"2026-05-10T15:55:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T15:55:49","slug":"frontier-swoops-in-after-spirit-fails-while-rivals-cut-capacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=5976","title":{"rendered":"Frontier swoops in after Spirit fails while rivals cut capacity"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

While most airlines in the US are cutting back on capacity expansion \u2014 or reducing flying overall \u2014 Frontier Group Holdings Inc. is going the other way, pumping more seats into the market.<\/p>\n

The reason is simple: a week after Spirit Aviation Holdings Inc. ceased operations, Frontier is executing on a strategy its CEO said has been in the works for months, pouncing on market share left on the table after Spirit went out of business.<\/p>\n

The airline is adding capacity into airports such as Orlando, Las Vegas and Dallas-Fort Worth, where Spirit had a large presence, according to a Bloomberg analysis of Cirium flight data. Frontier has added 3 million seats in the last week to its scheduled flying between June and September, the analysis shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSpirit\u2019s exit meaningfully alters the supply landscape,\u201d Frontier Chief Executive Officer James Dempsey said on an\u00a0earnings call\u00a0last week. \u201cWe positioned ourselves over the last six to nine months on launching routes that we thought would be opportunities that come as they reduce their capacity and with the possibility that they would cease operations,\u201d Dempsey said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The strategy is to win market share and achieve economies of scale, but it\u2019s also not without risk. US airlines\u00a0spent 56% more\u00a0on fuel in March from the month before, and any missteps are instantly amplified.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0Frontier Flight Strikes, Kills Pedestrian on Denver Runway<\/p>\n

Frontier\u2019s taking a gamble on the fact that the bottom end of the aviation market is underserved and those customers will still want to fly, but don\u2019t have many options available to them, according to\u00a0Brandon Parsons, an economist at Pepperdine University\u2019s Graziadio Business School.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFrontier operates in a market that\u2019s highly price sensitive, and with Spirit\u2019s exit, that market is underserved at the moment,\u201d Parsons said. \u201cThey\u2019re taking a long-term view, although it\u2019s not without risk as you still need to get through the short term to survive long term.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jet fuel can account for as much as a third of airlines\u2019 costs, and the largest US carriers including United Airlines Holdings Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc., have all said they will hold back capacity in order to protect margins.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0Jet Fuel\u2019s Surge and Trump\u2019s Meddling Cloud Airline Outlook<\/p>\n

United CEO Scott Kirby has been a vocal critic of ultra-low-cost carriers and has previously said that Spirit\u2019s business model didn\u2019t work in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think airlines want to return their cost of capital and particularly here in the United States, most don\u2019t,\u201d Kirby said on an analyst call last month. \u201cAnd that is unsustainable in the long run. So something had to change. It\u2019s unfortunate it had to be an oil crisis, but here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

United has said it is reducing planned\u00a0growth\u00a0by about 5%, and now expects capacity \u2014 or available seat miles \u2014 in the second half of 2026 to be flat to up about 2% from a year earlier.<\/p>\n

American Airlines has said it will decide on capacity reductions after monitoring demand. In Europe, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Air France-KLM and British Airways\u2019 parent IAG SA have all announced plans to pare back capacity growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shares in Frontier are up about 12% for the year through Friday\u2019s close, while the Bloomberg World Airlines index is down nearly 8%. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Frontier is not the only carrier that increased capacity in the last week. JetBlue Airways Corp. also added 37,633 seats, Cirium data shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spirit Airlines\u00a0ceased operations\u00a0on May 2 after failing to secure emergency funding. The collapse was preceded by unsuccessful negotiations with the US government about a bailout, two bankruptcy filings and a scuttled merger with JetBlue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dania Beach, Florida-based Spirit, which traces its roots back to the early 1980s, also explored a merger with Frontier in 2025, but those discussions ended without a deal. At the time of its closure, Spirit had a fleet of 96 Airbus A320 and A321 jets in service and another 76 in storage, according to Cirium data.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Frontier operates an all-Airbus fleet with 183 jets. The airline has previously announced that it will return 24 leased jets and defer the deliveries of 69 new planes from Airbus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have more route overlap with Spirit than any other US carrier, uniquely positioning us to recapture the demand they left behind,\u201d Frontier\u2019s Chief Commercial Officer Robert Schroeter said on the earnings call.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schroeter expects the exit of Spirit to drive up revenue per seat mile by 3% to 5%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to be nimble and tightly manage capacity based on fuel and demand trends and accordingly we are reserving updated long-term capacity guidance at this time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

#Frontier #swoops #Spirit #fails #rivals #cut #capacity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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