Spirit Airlines
has confirmed that the airline, in an attempt to cut costs, will furlough more than 300 pilots in January 2025 as the carrier continues to look for ways to return to profitability.
Furloughing pilots
The development, first reported by Reuters, was confirmed to Simple Flying by a Spirit Airlines spokesperson, who said that the airline was implementing a series of cost savings measures throughout its business, which will also affect its workforce.
“We have made the difficult decision to furlough approximately 330 Pilots, effective Jan. 31, 2025, to align with our expected flight volume. These decisions are never made lightly, and we are committed to treating all affected Team Members with the utmost care and respect during this process.”
Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying
To cut costs further, 120 captains will be moved back to a first officer role on the same day that the furloughs take effect at the beginning of next year.
While Spirit Airlines remains one of the few United States airlines to not file its Q3 financial report, in Q2, the carrier already said in the latter quarter’s results announcement that it would furlough around 240 pilots and downgrade around 100 captains.
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Pilot workforce reductions
The furloughs, which will come into effect on January 31, 2025, follow several previous rounds of temporary layoffs for Spirit Airlines’ pilots. In October, as confirmed by the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), the carrier furloughed 186 pilots.
In July, the airline had furloughed another 260 pilots, keeping in line with the plan that Spirit Airlines announced in April, which also included Airbus A320neo aircraft family delivery deferrals.
Photo: Robin Guess | Shutterstock
At the time, the airline said that it amended an agreement with Airbus
to defer aircraft that were scheduled for delivery between Q2 2025 and 2026 to 2030 and 2031. The companies also agreed to further adjustments to option aircraft, previously scheduled for delivery between 2027 and 2029, pushing them back to the 2029 to 2031 timeframe.
No changes were made to A320neo
family aircraft with scheduled delivery dates between 2027 and 2029, as well as one each directly leased aircraft that should arrive in Q2 2025 and Q3 2025.
“The agreement with Airbus will improve Spirit’s liquidity position by approximately $340 million over the next two years.”
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Removing capacity
Pilot furloughs have been a direct consequence of Spirit Airlines’ capacity cuts, which have included sales of aircraft that were already in its fleet.
On October 24, the carrier disclosed that it sold 23 A320ceo
/ A321ceo
aircraft to GA Telesis, a US-based aerospace asset manager, with the single-aisle jets, which had been delivered between 2014 and 2019, leaving its fleet from October until February 2025.
Whether the sale will change Spirit Airlines’ near-term fleet plan remains to be seen. As of August 1, the airline planned to end 2024 with 215 aircraft and 2025 with 219 aircraft, with six A321neo deliveries offsetting two A319ceo – and last – retirements.
Photo: Leonard Zhukovsky | Shutterstock
In Q2, Spirit Airlines said that it was on track to achieve $100 million of annual run-rate cost savings, with around $75 million of expenses cuts delivered by the end of 2024.
According to data from the aviation analytics company Cirium, Spirit Airlines averaged 5,790 weekly departures and 1.07 million weekly departing seats in 2023.
In 2024, the airline has scheduled an average of 5,569 weekly flights and 1.06 million weekly seats, a reduction of 3.96% and 0.9%, respectively.
However, during the first five months of 2025, with Spirit Airlines so far only providing its schedule data up to May 2025, it will average 4,766 weekly departures and 897,398 weekly seats.
During the same period a year prior, the airline had operated an average of 5,184 weekly flights and 1.08 million weekly seats, resulting in Spirit Airlines reducing its weekly flights and seats by 8.7% and 21.2%, respectively.
In addition to aircraft delivery deferrals, the low-cost carrier has been impacted by the accelerated removals and inspections of the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G engine powering its A320neo family aircraft.
Ch-aviation data showed that out of 91 A320neo aircraft, 23 are currently stored. Out of 52 A321neo
jets, only three are marked as inactive.
Photo: Spirit Airlines
Pratt & Whitney
and Spirit Airlines have agreed that the former would compensate the latter, and by the end of Q2, the engine manufacturer had provided $75 million of aircraft on ground (AOG) credits year-to-date (YTD).
Spirit Airlines estimated that by the end of the year, its AOG credits, recognized on its statements of cash flows, should be between $150 million and $200 million.
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