Finding a Spirit flight might get a lot harder this summer
Spirit Airlines is cutting some 12,000 flights through May and June compared to last year.
Just four airports are losing service from Spirit, but others will see up to 84% fewer flights.
The budget airline is continuing its turnaround, having emerged from bankruptcy last month.
According to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm, the budget airline has scheduled 12,000 fewer flights through May and June compared to the same period last year — a decline of around 24%.
Research from Deutsche Bank analysts places the June decline for Spirit's domestic flights as high as 27.5%.
However, only four airports are no longer being served. Manchester, New Hampshire, the only one in the US, had just seven flights scheduled across the period last year. Two of the airports are in Haiti, where several airlines stopped flying after a Spirit plane was shot at last November.
Still, some cities are facing huge drops in service since May and June 2024.
Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Boise, Idaho, have seen their scheduled Spirit flights drop 84%, down to just 18 from 111 and 115, respectively.
Flights from Portland, Oregon, have more than halved, falling from 357 to 124. Boston's service has plunged from 1,272 to 710.
The only three airports to lose more than 1,000 flights — Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, and Orlando — have between 20.5% and 28% fewer Spirit flights than last year.
The cuts come as Spirit continues its turnaround.
It filed for Chapter 11 protection last November as it worked to restructure its debt and business model, before emerging from bankruptcy last month.
Last Thursday, Spirit announced that Dave Davis, the former president and chief financial officer of Sun Country Airlines, would be its new CEO.
Budget airlines have had a rough time since the pandemic, as higher costs and overcapacity forced them to rethink their business models.
Spirit, Frontier, and Southwest all added premium seating options.
They now also face a potential downturn in travel demand across the board due to economic uncertainty from Donald Trump's tariff plans.
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