Republic to SELL Frontier
07-26-2013, 07:53 AM
#1
Gets Weekends Off
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Joined APC: Jul 2006
Posts: 1,221
Republic to SELL Frontier
07-26-2013, 11:29 PM
#8
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2011
Posts: 218
The only valuable assets Frontier has that would appear to interest Spirit (at least, on the face of the deal) are:
The rest:
Not putting down Frontier (good luck, guys), but why would it "make perfect sense" for Spirit to be involved?
- LGA slots/gate (maybe SAN or LAX gate)
- DCA slots (Spirit could sell them, or reverse course and operate to DCA again)
- maybe the CHI - SJD (Cabo) route authority (if this limited, like CHI-CUN, which Frontier lost to AirTran/Southwest)
The rest:
- Frontier is not a ULCC (management running the show now may want them to be, but they're not currently).
- Frontier planes have the wrong engines, and are configured wrong (too few seats, they recline, with TV's).
- DEN is expensive to operate out of, and is already dominated by the world's largest airline (UA) and the US's largest domestic airline (Southwest).
- Frontier's balance sheet is leveraged, with lots of debt (Spirit is debt free).
- The current Frontier fleet mix is 319 dominant (Spirit hasn't added a new 319 to the fleet since Feb. 2008).
- Frontier future delivery positions are superfluous (Spirit has firm orders for 140 aircraft over the next 5 years: 7 A319s [convertible to A320], 53 A320s, 45 A320NEO, and 30 A321s, plus 5 320NEO leases).
- Frontier has few, if any, route authorities Spirit doesn't already have (Spirit serves more of the Caribbean and Central America than Frontier, Southwest/AirTran, and JetBlue . . . combined)
Not putting down Frontier (good luck, guys), but why would it "make perfect sense" for Spirit to be involved?
07-27-2013, 12:09 PM
#10
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2011
Posts: 218
Frontier flies into DCA currently, and they don't do it as 'US Airways Express', they do it as 'Frontier Airlines', with Airbuses. Frontier must have slots @ DCA to do that, I would think.
If Frontier doesn't have DCA slots . . . well, it makes even LESS sense for Spirit to buy them, as 'CanoePilot' speculated.
If Frontier doesn't have DCA slots . . . well, it makes even LESS sense for Spirit to buy them, as 'CanoePilot' speculated.
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