The RR email could be delivery slots that have opened up or more used frames.

UA/AA/DL have similar contracts but they aren't about the merge. F9 is NK's direct competitor. They couldn't have signed a more expensive contract and still compete with us as the cost structures have to be the same.

NK seems to be expanding like a regular airline while F9 to me appears to be expanding Allegiant style with 50 new cities served twice a week.

I don't have any facts saying we won't merge and just offering counters to your interpretation. Something has to happen this year is we're going to keep growing.

I agree. I have no intel whatsoever, but something is bound to happen. For the record, I want us to stay organic.

I laugh every time I see that stock photo of the yellow plane with the silver nose! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...g-smaller-jets

That was a tribute to Tim Strawn. :D

http://www.filmsondisc.com/Features/Noses/great_8.jpg

A cautionary tale of multi fleet ULCC's:

https://www.businessinsider.com/wow-...in-2018-2019-1

Can you copy and paste the article?

I'll just leave this here.

Since its launch in 2012, WOW Air has been a disruptive force in the trans-Atlantic airline market. The Icelandic ultra-low-cost carrier has become famous for its brightly painted purple planes, no-frills in-flight products, and insanely low prices. In some cases, WOW has been known to offer one-way flights between the US and Europe for as little of $49.

Unfortunately, WOW Air suffered through a difficult 2018 that included a failed merger with crosstown rival Icelandair followed by the layoff of 111 employees and the reduction of its fleet from 20 to 11 planes.

During the first nine months of 2018, the airline saw revenues surge 31% to $501 million, but losses more than doubled to $33.6 million from $13.5 million during the same period in 2017.

WOW Air founder and CEO Skúli Mogensen told Business Insider that much of the airline's problems stem of the addition of wide-body Airbus A330-300 jetliners to its fleet.

"One of the mistakes that I made, that WOW made in the last 18 months was that we were moving away from the low-cost model," Mogensen said in the interview. "Most significantly we made our fleet structure unnecessarily complex with the addition of the widebody A330 to our fleet."

A WOW Air Airbus A330-300.
WOW
WOW Air launched with a fleet made up of narrow-body Airbus A320-family jets with 174 to 220 seats. However, the airline acquired three Airbus A330-300 jets with around 340 seats in late 2016 for flights to Asia and the West Coast of the United States.

Read more: The amazing story of how the Airbus A320 became the Boeing 737's greatest rival.

"One of the core essences of the successful low-cost model is to ensure that you maintain a simple and coherent fleet structure because it will very quickly complicate the operations and therefore the costs if you have multiple fleet types," Mogensen said.

The presence of the A330s not only increased the airlines operating costs, but it also put pressure on WOW to fill the extra 120 or so seats per flight. This hurt the airline's yields, Mogensen said.

The A330s are currently in the process of being phased out of service with the airline returning to a single aircraft type fleet strategy built around the A320-family.

A WOW Air Airbus A321neo.
Airbus
Unfortunately, Mogensen confirmed that many long-haul destinations served exclusively by the A330, such as the West Coast of the US, will also be cut from WOW 's network.

The WOW Air boss also said that his company strayed from the no-frills, low-cost business model that made it famous and behaved more like a traditional legacy airline.

"The second mistake we made and was in part because of the A330 was that we started behaving like a legacy carrier in the sense that we added a premium cabin," he said. "And again complicating our message, complicating our service delivery, complicating the marketing, and we are going back to our roots as a pure low-cost carrier."

From the failed merger with Icelandair and the layoffs, Mogensen is hopeful that the difficult time will result in a stronger, more efficient and streamlined company.

WOW Air
The airline is in discussions regarding investment opportunities with the private-equity firm Indigo Partners, which owns the low-cost carriers Frontier Airlines and JetSmart.

According to Mogensen, WOW Air expects to be profitable again in the near future and will once again be in expansion mode in 2020. This time, as a single-fleet, low-cost operator.

"We were profitable and successful as a single fleet low-cost operator up until 2017," he said. "So really it's 2018 that was an abnormally bad year, so we're confident that the original strategy worked so we're going back to that."

So I guess the MAX is either out or about to be the best deal on planes Spirit can ever imagine.

The current Airbus A320/21 NEO order backlog is huge. Order now and you will wait several years unless you decide to go with a more expensive lessor. Plus, with the unfortunate MAX issues, we may see more defections to the Airbus NEO or airlines holding on to their older A320s longer....

A big CS300/A220 order would make sense while their order backlog is manageable. JetBlue did their research and Spirit should follow (and negotiate a similar deal). It’s time to connect more dots on the map with more fuel efficient airplanes like the CS300....

This Max mess may trigger a merger or two. Mega mergers need an excuse; a recession, bankruptcy, or something such as this.

I doubt it. No one has enough of them besides SWA to take a big hit from parking them for a while, and SWA doesn't need to merge with anyone.

Doubt it, I don’t remember any mergers happening because they grounded the 787. Recession yes, grounded planes no.


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Chief Financial Officer Geir Karlsen told an investor presentation “We have 90 neos (A320neo) from Airbus on order. The Airbus 320neos are for all practical purposes for sale. We have started a process where we will try to find a new home for those aircraft”. Karlsen went on to show that Norwegian doesn’t think there is a lack of demand for these aircraft. “The problem is not to sell them … but to get the price we want … Hopefully by the end of the year we should be able to disclose news on a transaction”.

https://simpleflying.com/norwegian-t...o-reduce-debt/

By Tom September 6, 2018

By Tom September 6, 2018

☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️

Does not take much research. However, do a little, and it shows all the Norwegian Airbus planes they are shedding. Well, they are headed for a Leasing Company in China.

What’s the latest rumor on a potential aircraft order? Every airline with older A320 seems to be scrambling for more (eg United, Allegiant and every Chinese LCC) while the backlog for new NEOs continues to grow and grow with the MAX issues.

There are many more secondary and tertiary markets to connect out there.... As an example, Allegiant is opening a new base in SAV with 2 based aircraft and 15 nonstop destinations. Dave Neeleman’s MOXY plans to connect many secondary markets and stay away from the bigger hubs. How will Spirit maintain its growth rates without more airframes? Are we talking about a potential decision date this summer? More growth would be great for everybody - including the pax and pilot movement. Any thoughts or latest rumors?

WTHC, it's rumor and conjecture. Dumb.

Dumb? Thanks for your opinion Dad. Just asking for peoples’ thoughts. Who cares if it is conjecture. Ok, let’s hope for no fleet growth and stalled career progression.

An-124’s and 225’s. Go big or go home. You heard it here first.

Excellent! I prefer the 225s.

I think a new order is coming, even upper management keeps saying that they are looking at the different options, I can’t really think of a situation other than a merger or buyout where they wouldn’t place a new order soon. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they already have something lined up and haven’t announced it yet. Most likely it’ll just be more Airbus. Everything is just a guess though. Ive heard rumors from 330’s to an entire new fleet of Boeing’s. I’ve heard rumors that we may be getting some of WOW planes but who knows. I’ll believe it when they tell the investors new planes are coming.


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Thank you for a thoughtful response. Sure, all of this is conjecture, but what worries me is that Airbus has a growing order book and backlog. Beyond existing orders on the book, the wait time for new A320/21 NEOs is going to be a long time unless Norwegian sells its A321 positions to Spirit or expensive leasing rates are acceptable - who knows? With the MAX issues and grounding, the concept of the risk-less “single fleet type” is being reconsidered. Sure, SWA has profited enormously from a single fleet type for many good reasons, but I bet they are rethinking some of their options from a risk perspective after the MAX grounding.

Given the MAX grounding and existing backlog and the elongated Airbus NEO backlog, the only other logical types with manageable order backlogs and potential near-term deliveries would be the CSeries/A220 and the Embraer E2 (very few total orders so far). The E2 could be delivered sooner given its light order book - and Embraer seems desperate to land a big North American order after both JB and Neeleman’s Moxy picked the CS300/A220.

With stock price directly influenced by revenue GROWTH, I would think fleet discussions must be happening.

Southwest is not rethinking their fleet. Ygtfkm

You are correct - not likely. That said, I heard they had looked closely at the A220.

Revenue growth has to factor in CASM as well, and Embraer has had a tough time with unforeseen high CASM on the 190. That's a significant reason for Jetblue's decision to toss the 190s aside in favor of the 220. They'd better hope they have the CASM estimates right for the E2 or there will be a lot of disillusioned customers really quick.

I heard the company is so desperate for a quick airframe they are looking at the boneyard in Tuscson. There are many great DC-10’s just lying around waiting to be snatched up. They are so serious in fact they are even starting to ask flight engineer questions in the interview and telling guys to start studying for their FE written. Just picture it now...a big bright yellow tri-jet coming to a city near you.

the e2 shares the engine with the 220... the old CASM rates on the 190 were a product of its era. There were not competitors on that size with the right casm (maybe the 717 but there are regionals that own more crj200s than total 717s were created)

I can only hope, I would love to fly a tri-jet.

That would be fun.

Been there done that on the L-1011 and it is fun.

I was told they are getting some of the retired 747-200 freighters and converting the to Pax configuration. Seats will be on a platform and loaded with K-loaders to make quick turns

Man you are hilarious.

https://www.mro-network.com/airlines/spirit-airlines-seeks-fleet-expansion-interior-upgrades


For all those worried about planes.
Here’s a recent article .

why linky no clicky?

https://www.mro-network.com/airlines...erior-upgrades

I'm just another lazy pilot that cant bother to type, copy/paste or spellcheck

Did I miss something in the article? So far it looks like all the other ambiguous articles, not an actual aircraft order. We've been out in the market for a fleet order for a year now, let me know when there's an actual order.

"Kirk Thornburg, Spirit Airlines’ vice president of technical operations, said the airline is “out in the market for a fleet order” and recently completed its first-round of request for proposals, speaking at Aviation Week’s 2019 MRO Americas Conference. The airline operates an all-Airbus fleet—A319s, A320s and A321s--so far but Thornburg said Spirit plans to make a decision mid-year, although it could slide until the third quarter."

#134 is a WOW 320.

The fact that we keep scavenging dead airlines for planes is both reassuring in our intent to grow and concerning as it would seem to indicate the trouble we’re in by not securing 320 production slots earlier.

That’s my point. Completely agree. Without securing slots earlier, the alternatives are expensive aircraft leasing or scavenging with others looking to add older Airbuses like UAL, Allegiant and the Chinese LCCs. The Airbus order backlog is long....

Looks worse because the article mentioned Q3. Next article it will be Q4

And..... We should do what about it?

My point is, you're a broken record.

🍻