Spirit Airlines (NK, Fort Lauderdale International) has restructured its order with Airbus, reducing deliveries next year and adjusting the spread through to 2029. The ultra-low-cost carrier has also axed its A319-100neo orders in favour of more A321-200Ns.
"Last week, we reached an amendment with Airbus on our fleet order that reduces 2024 deliveries and spreads the remaining deliveries over 2025 to 2029, giving us a consistent level of deliveries for the remainder of the decade," said CEO Ted Christie when announcing second-quarter results last week. "We also up-gauged all of our A319neo orders to A321neo."
Speaking later in the day during an earnings call, Spirit's Chief Commercial Officer Matt Klein provided more detail on the changes. "Earlier this year, we were given delayed aircraft delivery dates for 2023 and part of 2024, piling up deliveries in 2024," he said. "In addition, these delays are widely expected to continue beyond 2024. We also had some decisions regarding our A319N orders and optioned aircraft that needed to be made. Airbus has also been clear about their production limitations and the backlog of orders that will likely push new order deliveries into 2030 and beyond."
"Also, in the near term, we need a general slowdown in growth to derisk the business and give ourselves a chance to digest the previous few years of growth. Given all of these things and the fact that our original orders only extended in 2027, we started discussing a broader re-evaluation of our future aircraft deliveries. We agreed to make the following changes without changing the total number of commitments. One, we reduce 2024 deliveries by 11 and smooth the remaining deliveries between 2025 and 2029. Together with our direct lease commitments and the retirement of our A319-100s, these changes slow our growth in the near term and provide us with a consistent level of deliveries for the back half of the decade."
"Two, we up-gauged all of our A319N orders to A321Ns, to be delivered between 2025 and 2029. Three, we moved the timing of our optioned aircraft by one year to smooth out the timing of those options. There are many moving parts here, all of which we believe are positive to both Spirit and Airbus."
Spirit's latest fleet plan, published on August 3, will see it cut its A319-100 sub-fleet by 14 planes over calendar 2023, finishing the year with 17 aircraft. By the end of calendar 2024, only two A319-100s will remain in the Spirit fleet, with those two exiting over calendar 2025. The airline's fleet of sixty-four A320-200s will remain unchanged until the end of calendar 2025. Spirit's fleet of A321-200s will also remain unchanged at 30.
Spirit's fleet of A320-200Ns will increase from 69 aircraft to 85 aircraft throughout 2023, growing to 91 aircraft at the end of 2024 and 97 aircraft by the end of 2025. The airline has also started taking its first A321-200Ns in 2023 and will wrap up the year with eight. The A321neo sub-fleet will grow to 28 by the end of calendar 2024 and 43 by the end of calendar 2025.
Consequently, Spirit's overall fleet will grow from 194 aircraft as of December 31, 2022, to 204 aircraft by the end of 2023, 215 aircraft by the end of 2024, and 234 aircraft by the end of 2025.
