Originally Posted by Stayontarget

I already talked about fleet size in the Frontier thread but here is a repeat for your convenience.

“…combined NK/Spirit will still grow pretty fast with the current order book. I know, I know, subject to change…Lots of variables…Yada yada.

The current order book would have a possible combined size of:

2024-374
2025-397
2026-419
2027-446?
2028-464?
2029-483?
2030-503?

Question marks are at the end of 2027 and on because Spirit hasn’t published their order book past then.”

That’s still huge growth. Taking on an additional 42 airplanes when the fleet size is only 150 is a huge ask for any airline and hard to scale correctly. Instead they deferred orders (but BB didn’t mention they have extended every 8 yr lease to 12 years thus far) to make it more manageable in an overcapacity domestic market. So while the big news is that they deferred orders, the growth rate is actually the same since they are keeping 20 airplanes that were scheduled to be returned.

I would say the ULCC model has been wildly successful. So successful that the legacies copied it with more seats in the market than the ULCCs could dream of. But instead of 1 option per day on Frontier and 1 on Spirit maybe you have 9 now with 7 of those options being on a legacy. Another reason to merge.

LCCs are pushing hard to pivot already. Bundled packages, free cancelations, stretched seating….It will take time but they will get there.