Supposed to grow 14% since last April year over year. So rough average 1.16% growth per month over the last year. And we are cutting by 5% this one month. I like your positive thinking but I don’t think it works that way. Just management trying to make it sound less bad than it is (which is their job I don’t fault them for it).

So we go from +1.6% to -3.4%. I wouldn’t say we are still growing, at least not this April.

 

Would you please show your math? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but when they say capacity expansion of 9% yoy, is that not still capacity expansion? I’m just seriously not understanding your logic and would love some enlightenment.

 

And, maybe it’s not explicitly clear, 9% expansion doesn’t necessarily mean 9% expansion of flying required by pilots. If we’re talking revenue hours, the variables are large. They could fly the **** out of the 321’s and have a higher seat/mile flown vs. the jalopy 319. To maintain the same seat/mile comparison, the jalopies would need to fly more (thus requiring more pilots) than the 321’s per block hour. It’s all about seat/miles. And seat miles, I acknowledge, do not equate to hours required by pilots. However, 9% increase in capacity is still a 9% increase in capacity regardless if it’s using the 321’s more or additional block hours for lower gauge aircraft which would require more pilots/hour.

EDIT: I pray the 319NEO is a replacement for the jalopies we currently have....
Also, it looks like you presume linear growth. I don’t know if you work here or not, but, fwiw we don’t grow linearly. Our aircraft deliveries are not evenly spread out month over month, and neither are the expansion in our seat/miles.

 

well apparently even quicker than Monday.

 

Month Seat Capacity Units

Apr ‘19 100.0
May 101.166
Jun 102.33
Jul 103.5
Aug 104.66
Sep 105.833
Oct 107.0
Nov 108.166
Dec 109.33
Jan ‘20 110.5
Feb 111.66
Mar 112.833
Apr 114.0
Virus April 109.0

So yes, it can be said we are up 9% instead of 14% year over year. Sounds pretty good but it is still an actual cut compared to the previous month. I would call it a 3.4% cut (assuming the monthly growth is exactly linear, which it isn’t but just for illustrative purposes)

And yes everything you said true about capacity being affected by size of airplane and stage lengths, not just block hours.

 

Illustrative purposes? We’ll assume linear growth? Do you fly for Spirit? Have you listened to our earnings conference calls? Your assumptions are..... inaccurate. You’d need to look at yoy growth (per each quarter and month) between 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-now to make your claim. (You could go back further, but I hope I’ve made my point.)

 

It just comes down to whatever your reference point is. If your reference point is April 2019 then yes we are still growing. If your reference point is March 2020, then it is a cut.

Compare to April 2012 and you can really feel good about it. “We are growing 299% instead of planned 300%”

 

I now see what you’re getting at. We are indeed flying more this upcoming April that we did last April, however we’re flying less than we did this month (granted the month isn’t over). Then by your own metric it’d be a 3% cut vs. current flying (planned March 2020) and it’d be the lowest cut in the industry.... is that what you’re alluding to?

 

The point of comparing to April to April rather than this month to last month is not to try to paint a rosier picture, it’s to account for the peaks and valleys of our seasonal demand.

read one way it’s 9% growth
read another way it’s 3% loss
or you could say growth has been flat since last December

that’s the fun of analyzing statistics

 

Agreed!

Lowest cut in the industry or weakest response in the industry?