Very true. I don't see us as a serious Business traveler airline. Really curious how this strategy is working for Frontier.

 

Business travel has not rebounded. First class is now full of personal travel by paying, upgrading or using miles. There is a new “business” traveler who wants a comfy seat where they go and are willing to pay for it on their own. Mostly with fun bucks from a credit card. The airline still wins as delta makes billions from Amex alone.

I hope this works and we install more big front seats. Didn’t 588 and 587 have 10 big front seats like a 319? Or was it 8?

 

Funny that everyone here has an opinion on how this pace should be run, but when it comes to this question it's total crickets.

 

hordes of senior pilots leaving?

 

I think Chimpy is on the money. What else can be done? These new class additions won’t do anything to fix the fundamental issues with the company. Who wants to pay premium for a big front seat just to be yelled at by a contracted gate agent?

 

Yes, plenty are leaving with a lot waiting on class dates

 

Need to first repair public image. Legitimate national ad campaign imo. Play up who Spirit helps, why does Spirit exist? They talk about hitting back and controlling narrative but i gotta feeling these announcements will just be more fodder for the media. Play a "safest airline in the USA" card, feature the airbus as a talking point. Boeing is down and people dont need much push to want to avoid Boeing operators. Make it hard to make fun of Spirit.

I dont think the company would do any of this, being historically staunchly anti-national advertising, and none of this matters anyway if the 2020 loyalty bonds remain due in 13 months and with no end to falling revenue and net losses in sight. PRNewswire is not advertising. Commercials on during NFL football games is advertising.

Then they have to ensure the integrity of routes and fleet, and im not sure how they plan to do that down 70 aircraft in just a few months?

I believe they waited way too long to adapt. Everyone working the line could tell the ulcc model was failing back in 2022. Oops.

 

There is no way to cut costs enough to compete with the legacies on their “basic economy” because the legacies can just run their domestic networks at a loss subsidized by CC revenue. The 3 headed oligopoly of the US airline industry is now almost completely impenetrable due to CC revenue. Hence why NK is now being forced to compete on the product and not just price. NK can’t make money selling $30 seats anymore. They have to increase revenue and the only way to do that is to increase the quality of the product. Depending on whether or not they can renegotiate the debt this pivot could be successful, or this could all just be maneuvering to attempt another M&A (my guess is that it’s a little of both).

 

Do we need to start being nice and helpful to people? what are you talking about here?

 

This right here 👆

It's unfortunately too little, too late. This airline will never be able to shake its reputation (or we'll run out of time before it does) as a late night punchline. Changing the cabin product won't draw premium customers and it'll potentially alienate the ones that actually do like Spirit for what it is/was. A merger or drastically shrinking after cleaning up the books through Chapter 11 (or by some miracle, debt refinancing) will be the only things that will allow this place to survive.