Originally Posted by
mudpie
How do you know what the cost of having an airplane down is? We do know apparently Spirit loses money on operating planes.
I don’t but I can make an educated guess.
-if it’s leased lease rates are between 300-400k. Size and age of lease change the variable but a safe guess is 350k a month for the 320s.
-if it’s owned then there are finance charges and depreciation. Who knows what those combined are but again a safe bet is 200-300k per month. Of course depreciation probably isnt realized until the asset leaves the property so not a direct operating cost yet but it will be eventually.
-Maintenance costs. That will vary wildly but will not be cheap and the longer the airplane is down the more expensive it will be to get it back to active status
-Insurance. No idea there but certainly not free.
-Staff. Pilots, FAs, and every other support staff that wasn’t being used to their full potential are going to be at least half a million per plane. Under utilized captains alone probably cost a half million per plane. (Pre furlough) sorry Spirit team…it is a raw deal.
So a very conservative estimate is 500k per month per plane down and probably even substantially more. The credits (cash?) would have the potential to offset that amount but I highly doubt they covered the whole cost of the airplanes being down. Especially if they are down for 400 days longer than anticipated.