Spirit curbs growth plans
 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-26/spirit-air-surges-most-in-four-years-after-curbing-growth-plans?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=bd&utm_campaign= headline&cmpId=yhoo.headline&yptr=yahoo


New investor plans in Spirit.com too. No more additional orders. Spirit is slowing down. Rather than pay pilots to retain and attract pilots. They are curbing growth. Almost our our 161 planes coming are NEOs which are options to cancel anyway. Since the NEO program isn’t producing planes at the moment. No more reason to stay or come here. I won’t upgrade anymore. This place will stagnant like Virgin America did. We knew it was coming too. Just something to think about if you’re considering staying or coming here.

No need to buy new airplanes (yet) if merger is on the horizon. Also Virgin wasn't profitable for many years. Not the case here. Double digit growth is still agressive. None of us have a crystal ball so a 3,5,10 year projection is nothing more than a guess. Slowing growth and capacity discipline could very well be smart for profitability and sustainability. No more orders (yet) is not the end of the world.

The earnings call was really good. Lots of positive news. Growth in 2018 is >20%, that is huge. “Slowing” to 10% in 2019 is still massive growth. They really don’t know what they will be doing after 2021, they weren’t specific. Only that the hub/spoke model doesn’t work for them due to lack of available slots and gate spaces. They will probably try to do smaller orders via leases in the future, they don’t plan to stop growing. Still a very healthly margin, around 16%.

Per earnings call they are looking for work rule enhancements to help in recoverability during irrops.

Spirit is a high growth carrier, do not be fooled. Between orders you'll probably see some minor stagnation, blamed on the pilots no doubt.

Maybe they just finish the ****ing contract

Bottom line: there is no guarantee of any upgrade in the near term for a new-hire. It’s actually been that way for a while. Now our Management says they are going to curb growth, which makes it worse. Spirit was a gamble in the past but the Quick upgrade made it worth it. Now it’s just a gamble. If I were job shopping I’d personally avoid going to Spirit. I’d stay at my regional till the legacies call. Even if the legacies have no growth you will still progress due to retirements. Just my $.02

Apparently, you guys are still opening up three new destinations next year though. Two mid-sized US cities and one international, presumably that would be STL and IND +UIO

No different than AirTran in 2006-2008. Any of us looking for work during that time knew the difference between the two places. On one hand, there was a profitable LCC that was a decent operation (but with crappy pay) but had seen it's phenomenal growth slow. Or, you could roll the dice with a tiny LCC (with similarly crappy pay) that was losing money but had investors who wanted to throw airplanes at it. The tiny, clueless LCC with deep-pocketed investors called first for many of us.

Did the masses really expect the 20-25% YoY growth to continue adfinitem?

Also, anyone know what happened to that profitable LCC when the growth slowed and they got big enough to step on a few toes?

They said in the earning call that they are in active negotiations and hope to reach a deal. They wouldn't lie to their shareholders, would they? :cool::(

Why would they finish the contract? Look at the numbers reported. The operation is running fine so no hurry to close the deal with the pilots. If I was running the place i'd be happy with status quo. Wall street agrees with me, the stock popped. Clearly the contract is on the back burner, not an issue that needs attention.