Sprint Airlines Expansion Bottom Line
The airline America loves to hate continues to expand throughout the country. Spirit Airlines expansion has been one of the largest year-over-year expansions in the world. They have added a number of routes in the past year. Spirit has also expanded their fleet, from 45 in 2012, to 95 by the end of 2016. The airline has been on a spree of adding routes, and it seems that this expansion will not stop in 2017.
New Routes Launched
Spirit launched a series of flights earlier this month. According to the Motley Fool, many of these routes are meant to compete with legacy airlines. The airline has started creating focus cities in places such as Houston and Baltimore. The schedule, according to Airline Route, is as follows:
- Houston- Seattle: Flies with an A320 1X daily,
- Houston- Newark: Flies with an A320 1X daily,
- Baltimore- Seattle: Flies with A319 seasonally, 1X daily,
- Baltimore- San Diego: Flies with A319 seasonally, 1X daily
- Baltimore- Oakland: Flies with A319 seasonally, 1X daily
- Detroit- Oakland: Flies with A320 seasonally, 1X daily
- Detroit- Seattle: Flies with A319 seasonally, 1X daily
- New Orleans- Baltimore: Flies with A319 1X daily
- New Orleans- Cleveland: Flies with A319 1X daily
- New Orleans- Orlando: Flies with A319 1X daily
- Hartford– Myrtle Beach: Flies with A320 seasonally 4X weekly
- Hartford-Orlando: Flies with A32A 1X daily
- Hartford– Ft. Lauderdale: Flies with A319 1X daily
As you can see, the airline will be launching flights from many of their hubs/focus cities to new destinations, such as Hartford. They are building up their hub at Baltimore, to compete with Southwest. The buildup in Houston competes with United. With the current rate of expansion, we can hope to see the airline entering new markets as the year goes by.
Strategy Changes and Fleet Expansion
Spirit has changed its strategy in recent months. They now want to operate in medium-sized cities, not just large cities. From there, they have added cities such as Baltimore, Hartford, and New Orleans. Spirit also wants to expand and focus on seasonal services. This makes them a hybrid between a traditional ultra low-cost carrier (such as Ryanair) and a holiday ULCC like Allegiant.
The airline also wants to expand its fleet. They currently have 95 planes, but they want to expand to 107 by the end of the year. With this fuel, they plan on continually expanding to different cities and expanding their hubs.
Landing Thoughts
I am an indirect fan of Spirit Airlines. I traveled them once, and I vowed never to travel on them again. However, the airline has been able to push fares lower on the markets they operate. Spirit is consistently rated as one of the worst airlines in the US, but their load factor is still quite high (around 85%). I am happy to see Spirit expand because it will bring lower fares to different markets. Yet, with the addition of basic economy, we will begin to see other airlines more strongly competing with Spirit. The unfortunate side is that normal economy fares will need to be up-purchased as compared to the current system. We will see if the airline can actually bring lower fares then.
What do you think? Have you flown on Spirit? How was your experience? Are you excited to see Spirit expand to new markets?
I have flown on Spirit 8 times on 2-hour flights to and from Florida and love this airline. I don’t want them to get too big so that they have the delays that other airlines have! All of my flights have been smooth and on time — I have no complaints so far!
I don’t like to tell people what Spirit is like because I’m afraid they will crowd all the planes. If you book them and buy the “big front” seats it’s almost like Domestic First Class on United, Delta or American. Sure you don’t get much in the way of food, etc. but the seat is comfortable and since you pay extra to be toward the front of the plane, most everyone else is away from you in the back. The miles expire in 90 days which is bad but there are ways to keep them alive. They have a fairly smooth boarding process and will even leave early once they think everyone is on board. The FA’s come through like once early in the flight to try and sell food and drinks and they quickly sit down to leave you alone so that can be nice.
The downside is that they may only have one aircraft at a remote airport so if it goes mechanical you are done for the day.
Most experienced business travelers would have little issue with Spirit I think. I just wish they hadn’t killed my workhorse nonstop between Houston and Kansas City. Oh well we always still have MCI-Detroit 🙂
I don’t mind flying spirit since I will only fly them for leisure and in the big front seats or the extra legroom seats. However, Spirit is upfront about how they operate and yet it seems to catch people off guard every flight. Flying them from Florida to New Orleans did more to remove my faith in the American public than any other activity in the past year. Why did you think you get a free checked bag or free meal.