Originally Posted by RemoveB4flght

This is actually a good explanation. I do remember reading an article a couple years back saying that ULCCs main catalyst for profits are ancillaries. Those full flight had quite a bit of bags, but no one has insider knowledge of the books. It just feels wrong to have that many pax and bags and not turn a profit.

Again and again, “turning a profit” is not the main goal of a growth company like Spirit. And everyone has insider knowledge of the books, it’s a publicly traded company.

There are other key financial metrics to focus on. With the parked aircraft this year, our Q3 fleet size is nearly identical to the fleet size in Q3 of 2022. The total operating revenue for Q3 was just under $1.3 billion which is down 6.7% from the revenue in Q3 last year. That difference represents the softening demand this year.

When you look at that revenue per passenger, it shows we made 13% less per passenger this year vs last. Translation: we flew more people but didn’t charge them as much money.

The other interesting thing is that when you further break down that average revenue per passenger, the seat fare portion was down, but the ancillary revenue went up slightly, and accounts for 58% of our revenue per passenger. We are making money on bags/etc, but aren’t able to charge as much for the seats in order to compete in this time of lower domestic demand.

Aircraft utilization was actually slightly higher than it was a year ago, but not by much.

Operating costs were also higher than they were last year, and yes we lost money this quarter, but pilot “feelings” about profitability are certainly not what determines the viability of the ULCC model.