Originally Posted by
joepilot50
To me it all screams reactionary.
During the domestic travel boom following COVID, they try to appeal to the low cost customers. Make the service as cheap as possible in order to offer the lowest price possible. Now the money is in the premium market, they now react to that. By the time we actually dig out of the hole to get money from the premium side of the business, bet that will start to weaken like domestic travel has.
No doubt. they've been very reactionary, and thats on the record. Isom said in 2018 that "Spirit and Frontier were the most profitable airlines in the industry and we need to be mindful of that." That model was what we chased and we're still seeing the effects of that. Now of course they're aggressively making the switch to premium and high end customers to chase DAL/UAL because thats what's working....but international growth is constrained by the shortsighted COVID decision to retire the 75/76 and 330 and (not their fault) delays of the 78's and XLRs.
That being said, considering our present position, he's got a point that we have a larger growth runway in future years in the premium/intl space than the other network carriers. So we can all hope. XLR's coming. new credit card deal starts next year. More 78's on the way and 773's getting new interiors. Still hiring pilots for growth. Let's see where things stand by end of 2026....