...if Spirit management can really pull it off.
Here is a transcript of the latest NK earnings call:
https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-t...-call-transcr/
Those contemplating applying to Spirit ought to give it a read. A few excepts:
For the full-year 2021, we estimate capacity will be about flat on a year over two-year basis. Given some of the skewed comparisons, I want to clarify our capacity plans for the next several years. Our base plan assumes capacity for the full-year 2022 will be up about 30% compared to 2021.
In 2023, the year-over-year growth rates should normalize back to our typical 14 to 17% compounded annual growth rate.
Regarding our fleet, During the first quarter, we took delivery of two direct leased A320neo aircraft. We ended the first quarter with 159 aircraft in our fleet. By the end of the first quarter, we had 12 of our 31 A319s back into service, and we expect to have about 20 in service by the end of the second quarter.
During the quarter, we completed a purchase of two A319s off-lease. This was a quick developing transaction and was not contemplated in our previous capex guidance. We have also elected to reaccelerate our seat replacement program. With these changes, our new total capital expenditure estimate for 2021 is now between 220 to $250 million.
When we placed our fleet order in late 2019, we knew the order would not fill our entire capacity need, particularly in the early years. Since then, we have been able to move a few deliveries around to plug some of the holes in our delivery stream. During the first quarter, we accelerated six deliveries from 2025 and 2026 into 2023. There's a modest increase in PDPs for 2021 driven by these accelerations.
We will also be looking to secure a few additional 2022 and 2023 deliveries, most likely from lesser capacity to fund our targeted 14 to 17% capacity growth target.
Right now, we have 319s that we're bringing out of the desert.
And so, we're flying probably about an equivalent number of aircraft as we did in 2019, probably around 140-ish aircraft. And so, we have a crew level that is pretty similar. And -- but we're going to have to hire a large number of crew between now and the end of the year because the fleet will grow from an operated fleet from 140 to the end of the year, we'll have 173-ish aircraft. So that's a pretty quick additional aircraft plus bringing the aircraft back on to service.
So that sort of infrastructure component is what we're talking about when we mentioned it on the last call of about a 30 million number of additional expense, which is going to be maintenance and getting crew, flight attendants and pilots and some mechanics back into the fold so that we can handle the aircraft level by the end of the year.
NK isn’t going to have the upcoming retirement wave - which may be as much as 6-7% of the pilot group per year in the coming years at some legacies, because it’s a relatively young pilot group. but if they can actually pull off the kind of growth they intend to try for, opportunities for quick seniority advancement ought to be plentiful - at least for those getting a seniority number in the next few years.