Cancellation of Spirit Airlines cost $50 million

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Due to cancellation of more than 2,800 flights of the Spirit Airlines, the airline company had to suffer a lost revenue expense worth $50 million.

According to the airline company, meltdown in service started in late July. Rise in COVID cases are leading to last minute cancellation of flights and softer bookings.

Spirit will reduce its flights as a part of its “tactical schedule reductions” for the rest of the quarter which ends in September 30.

With all cancelled and reduced flights for the next six weeks, Spirit estimated its third quarter revenue to range between $(885-955) million.

The cancellation numbers of Spirit has come to the normal levels. However, the airlines said that recovering from the crisis caused expenses to soar.

The airline said that it paid some to put some passengers who were stranded inside flights that were operated by other airlines. It also covered their hotel stays and incurred higher labour costs such as overtime.

Spirit said that it cancelled its 2,286 flights from July 30 to August 9 as it dealt with “overlapping challenges” including adverse weather, staff shortage and crews being stranded from their assigned flights.

On some days, cancellation amounted to more than 60% of the airlines’ schedule.

Ted Christie, the CEO of Spirit Airlines apologised for the disruption which affected tens of thousands of customers across the country. He also portrayed the issue as “out of character” for the airline company.

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