Spirit Airlines Faces Setbacks in Its Pandemic Recovery
Photo Credit: Spirit Airlines has scaled back its recovery plans following operational and staffing challenges. Flickr / ajay_suresh
Skift Take
Sometimes there is too much of a good thing like at Spirit Airlines, where a too-rapid summer recovery ended in operational disaster. The discounter has scaled back its plans with a focus on hiring and improved reliability with its eye now on 2023 to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic.
The recovery got the better of Spirit Airlines in the third quarter. The surge in Covid-19 cases and its own staffing-related operational issues in August dragged the discounter down and forced it to scale back its recovery plans, including reclassify 2022 as yet another "recovery" year.
“The direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic have lasted longer than anyone could have predicted," said Ted Christie, CEO of the Miramar, Florida-based carrier, during a third-quarter earnings call on Thursday. While every U.S. carrier felt the negative effects of the Delta variant, Spirit's own staffing challenges and subsequent August meltdown when it cancelled more than 2,800 flights over 10 days cost it $50 million in revenue and forced it to completely reevaluate its recovery plan.
And that plan, prior to August, was rosy. The leisure-first recovery played to Spirit's strengths as a holiday-destination oriented airline with more than half of its schedule touching Flor
