Frontier made quite the splash this week when it rolled out a whopping 54 new routes for next summer. With such a big rollout, it’s hard to narrow this down into a single trend. That being said… if I were to boil it down, I’d say it’s something along the lines of “Spirit is going to keep flying as an independent airline, it’s going to make more aggressive moves to return to profitability, and we should prevent that from happening.”
Of the 54 routes that Frontier is adding, not all are technically new. In fact, fifteen of them have been flown in the last five years, as you can see in this map.
White is new, blue has been flown in last 5 years
That being said, none have been flown since summer of 2022. The last five that made it that long were Dallas/Fort Worth – Nashville and Salt Lake City, Raleigh/Durham – Miami, and Tampa, Denver – Chicago/O’Hare, and San Juan – Boston.
Of these 54 routes that Frontier is starting, the most overlap is against American which happens to fly 33 of them nonstop. Here’s how overlap looks across the industry.
New Frontier Route Overlap July 2023 – July 2024
Spirit is all the way down there with 13 overlap routes, so it may not feel like Frontier is targeting Spirit. But think of this more like pre-crime. Frontier thinks it knows what Spirit is going to do as it tries to return to profitability, so it is making pre-emptive moves.
There are three cities that really stand out to me.
Dallas/Fort Worth
This winter, Frontier is serving 16 cities from DFW with around 17 to 18 flights per day. This makes the airline the number two ultra low cost carrier (ULCC) at the airport with Spirit having 18 destinations and about 27 daily flights this winter.
In this announcement for next summer, Frontier said it would add or return to a remarkable 14 markets from DFW with 9-10 daily flights. Of those, only four are served by Spirit (Charlotte, Chicago/O’Hare, Detroit, and Los Angeles) and two by Sun Country (Minneapolis/St Paul and Puerto Vallarta), so it’s a mix of competitive and high-fare markets.
What’s particularly surprising is how deep some of this goes. DFW – Grand Rapids? Yep, that’ll be 3x weekly. Same goes for Omaha. But at the other end of the scale, Frontier will enter the very busy DFW – Houston/IAH market with 2x daily.
This move isn’t particularly surprising. Frontier has a crew base at DFW, and it has said it is moving to a move out-and-back modular schedule so the focus will be on those bases. But I do wonder if the priority moved up considering that this is also a very important market for Spirit.
Charlotte
The next largest expansion in this announcement is technically San Juan with eight new or returning routes, but that’s not all that interesting. Frontier recently announced it will open a crew base there as well, so of course it’s going to grow that operation.
More eye-catching is the third biggest expansion which isn’t a crew base at all. It is, however, another American hub… Charlotte. From there, Frontier will add seven new routes. besides flying to DFW and San Juan, Frontier will add Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago/O’Hare, Houston/IAH, and New York/LaGuardia.
Until this expansion, Frontier had been planning only to serve its bases this summer in Cleveland, Denver, Las Vegas, Orlando, Philly, and Trenton. This would now seem like a prime opportunity for a future base.
The reason this is so interesting is that Spirit has had its eye on Charlotte as well. While Spirit has cut flying this year thanks to Pratt & Whitney engine groundings, it has boosted Charlotte to serve 11 cities with upwards of 15 daily flights. Last summer Spirit had around 11 daily. I’ll talk about that more later.
Los Angeles
Frontier pulled out of LAX toward the end of 2021 and decided to try Burbank instead. That did not work, and it quickly pulled back to only serving Las Vegas from there. Outside of a limited presence in Orange County and a bigger operation in Ontario, Frontier had decided to effectively walk away from the LA area over high costs at the airport.
Now, Frontier is back, and it will start up flights to Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and San Francisco. In a twist, every single one of these will be served daily. That’s not how Frontier tends to operate, but it is throwing itself into some very high profile routes.
Other notable adds are six new cities from Raleigh/Durham along with five new cities from both Minneapolis/St Paul and New York/LaGuardia. LaGuardia, of course, reminds us that what goes up must come down. Frontier presumably isn’t gaining more slots at LaGuardia, especially now that the JetBlue acquisition of Spirit was blocked. Until this gets filed in Cirium, I won’t be able to easily do a comparison, but you know there will cuts out there. Besides, Frontier changes flights so frequently that it’s hard to trust anything as final until it actually flies.
With such a varied number of changes, could this really be targeted at Spirit? Certainly the airline is hoping to take advantage of providing lower fares in big legacy airline hub markets, but that’s just the setup for what it hopes will be success. The other side of the coin is something we covered in Cranky Network Weekly last week.
In Spirit’s March schedule, when we look year-over-year, numbers two and three are Charlotte and Dallas/Fort Worth. Los Angeles is actually one of the big losers, but Frontier had left the market entirely so this is a different dynamic anyway.
Undoubtedly many of these routes will fail. That’s how Frontier operates. It throws a lot at the wall and then keeps what sticks. But, at least in part, it appears the airline is trying to find which markets Spirit might turn to in order to boost profitability and beat the airline to the punch. It’s like Frontier is trying to hunt Spirit for sport. The legacy airlines create those market opportunities, and Frontier wants to do what it can to become the primary beneficiary.
46 comments on “Frontier Prepares for a World Where Spirit Continues to Exist”
Is Frontier still planning to buy Spirit, especially with the JetBlue deal being blocked?
MK03 – It hasn’t said anything about that still being the case.
What is the recent Frontier modest expansions plans out of PIT mean? Do we think Spirit was also planning to double down there as well?
2x daily to a destination (PIT-PHL) is surprising, but I think that’s more of a necessity of making that destination work.
Jeff – I think that was more just about seeing an opportunity and running with it.
I think it’s interesting that no one is mentioning in any of the articles I’ve read about these new routes how LGA to DEN is a resumption of what was Frontier Airlines only route from the New York area in the “A Whole Different Animal” Era for more than a decade from about 1999 until the Republic Airlines purchase and the Frontier Airlines absorption of Midwest Airline’s slots.
SubwayNut – AND it’s the only route pair exempted from the (silly, in my opinion) LGA perimeter rule.
The assumption that the JetBlue – Spirit merger is done is a rather large one to be making at this point as the ruling is being appealed. Also Frontier better be careful that Southwest, American & United will start gunning for them & push them out of many of these markets.
SEAN – The chance of an appeal winning is remarkably small. If you’re going to make a move, now is the right time.
But even if it isn’t, Frontier may as well progress under the assumption that Spirit is still around.
In the event that an appeal works and JetBlue takes over Spirit, even flights that remain in Frontier markets become less competitively relevant, as Spirit-format aircraft are replaced by JetBlue-format aircraft, with JetBlue having to find customers who are willing to pay a lot more than are Spirit or Frontier customers.
In other words, if JetBlue does merge with Spirit, life only gets better for Frontier.
I foresee Frontier being forced off of most of these new routes. And out of the fortress hubs (sooner or later). Without a huge operation at said hubs, they will have an impossible time being competitive. Yeah, they may pop up at the top of your Google Flight search at $59 – but people will soon figure out that every little thing adds to that price. In the end, that fare ends up not being “cheap” unless you are skilled at playing by the rules and traveling with the minimum you need. And, that this “cheap” flight may not even fly every day. If it does, it’s once a day. Meanwhile, AA or DL or WN will have 4 of more daily flights to these places. It all looks good on paper, but in reality very few of these flights will last a year.
Frontier has a legitimate cost advantage vs. the legacies, so they can potentially “win” a price war. The legacies have the ability to take extended losses to defend a hub, but they won’t do that forever, and might not be inclined to do that at all vs. a differentiated product like Frontier that is unlikely to poach their highest-revenue customers.
> And, that this “cheap” flight may not even fly every day. If it does, it’s once a day
Frontier is banking on the fact that leisure travelers are willing to plan their trips around the flight schedule. And that’s generally been borne out: Frontier, Spirit, and Allegiant have all built huge businesses selling tickets on daily and sub-daily routes.
They’re not going to get most business travelers, but that’s not the business model anyway.
Here’s the thing: these aren’t leisure routes for the most part. These are standard routes that require convenient schedules as well as competitive prices. I disagree regarding who can stick out a battle longer; the legacies have shown every ability to drown out an interloper such as Frontier. They have the resources to do it too.
And……anyone who knows much about Frontier will know that if there are IROPS, you are screwed hard. Those who don’t know it run the risk of learning a rough lesson. Yet another thing that makes them uncompetitive. Now, one hun where they hold their own is DEN, but that’s because they have critical mass there. They’d need to achieve this in the others to be a factor. Admittedly, there’s room at DFW for another (after DL fled like a little French girl years ago), so there may be potential there. But it will require WAY more service and investment.
The US Travel Association believes that only 20% of domestic air travelers are business.
If that’s true, then even the most “businessy” of routes is dominated by people traveling for personal reasons.
The split between business on the one hand and leisure on the other is reductive – if you travel every month to check on your 80 year old mother, is that leisure travel? No, it’s definitely not. What about if you travel to visit your son in college in western Massachusetts? Not exactly time spent on the beach, but again, personal travel. What about a family reunion?
People travel for personal reasons a lot more than just for “leisure”.
Look at Ryanair in Europe. A route from the UK to Poland is, for sure, not dominated by people going on holiday to get a tan, but it’s not a business route either. There are a ton of routes that Ryanair flies like that.
The not-business and not-leisure routes you describe are what is sometimes described as “VFR”, or “Visiting Friends or Relatives”. VFR is clearly not business, whether it’s “leisure” or not I suppose depends on how you want to define “leisure”. If it’s “to go take a vacation” then VFR probably isn’t leisure, but it might be if you define it as “a trip you choose to take for personal reasons” while “business” is “a trip you take to do work, possibly at the direction of someone else.”
The State of Hawaii Agriculture Form is an interesting thing to look at here, and more specifically, the back side which is an optional survey for the state’s tourism authority. One of the questions is asking the purpose of the trip, with the following options that allow for much more nuance than the simple “business” or “leisure” distinction:
Honeymoon
To Get Married
Pleasure/Vacation
Convention/Conference
Corporate Meeting
Incentive Trip
Other Business
Visiting Friends or Relatives
Government or Military Business
To Attend School
Sports Event
Other (please specify)
Without getting into an off-topic discussion or arguing about it, I would argue that “VFR” trips usually are leisure trips, especially if one considers it as a binary choice (i.e., “leisure” or “business”, no 3rd option). This is presumably especially true in America , where most people only get 2-4 weeks of paid time off per year and many people often do trips/”vacations” to visit friends & relatives instead of (or sometimes as part of) a trip to the beach/mountains/ocean/city.
Most “VFR” trips probably have more in common with traditional vacation-style trips (booked well in advance, often more price sensitive, etc; I’m thinking VFR trips along the lines of attending a wedding or seeing family over the holidays here), but some “VFR” trips have more in common with traiditional business trips (e.g., a VFR trip booked on short notice to participate in a funeral probably looks more like a business trip to the airline or to outside observers, based on the data surrounding it, regardless of the pax’s intent or who pays for the trip).
Personally, I would consider almost any trip ultimately paid by one’s employer (or, if an independent contractor or entrepreneur, considered as a legitimate business expense by the local tax authority) and intended primarily to support the employer’s business interests to be a “business” trip. In other words, I would include industry conferences/conventions and business meetings within that definition, even those to “leisure” destinations, such as when Brett flew the Cranky Concierge staff to Hawaii for a working trip in a nice locale.
Again, just my opinion and I’m not trying to argue over it. I understand your point that a trip to see family may not fall into the “tight” definition of a “vacation” per se; I think it’s just a matter of how one wants to split hairs over the “leisure” side of things. I guess ultimately it doesn’t matter that much in any event.
> Admittedly, there’s room at DFW for another (after DL fled like a little French girl years ago), so there may be potential there. But it will require WAY more service and investment.
I don’t necessarily agree. They’re not trying to be a full AA alternative – they just want to pick off business at the low end where AA has gotten complacent on costs and pricing at its fortress hubs. As Jeff Bezos said: “Your margin is my opportunity”.
The presence of lots of AA loyalists at the fortress hub actually complicates the competitive response for AA. You can roughly segment potential passengers into:
1. Passengers who have some level of affinity for AA. Maybe they have status, value the points, etc. These passengers will pay a fare premium for AA vs. a ULCC, even after accounting for the other factors (fees, flexibility, etc.)
2. Passengers who don’t have a strong affinity for AA. Infrequent flyers, etc. All else equal, they will go for the cheapest flight after accounting for fees, flexibility, etc.
If Frontiers into e.g. CLT and undercuts AA fares on specific routes, then AA has to choose how to respond.
1. Cut fares to match. In this case they retain most of the passengers, but lose revenue (vs. the prior state) from both customer groups #1 and #2.
2. Keep fares at a premium vs. Frontier. In this case they lose passengers in group #2, but they retain the full revenue they were getting from group #1.
It’s not obvious that #1 is always better – it might make competitive sense to allow Frontier to win many of the infrequent flyers, so that you can maintain the revenue from the frequent ones.
Biggest question is whether they can get back to profitability. They were profitable overall through the first 3 quarters of 2023 (losses in Q1 and Q3 more than offset by income in Q2), so the overall picture hinges on how well they did in Q4. We’ll find out Feb 6.
This is why Basic Economy was created. It gives the legacy airlines the opportunity to advertise a low price to match the ULCCs to attract customer group #2, but by making it overly restrictive they nudge customer group #1 to pay the current higher fare for regular Economy.
Exactly. As a business, it’s usually a challenge when adding a new price/service segment to find a way to get customers to (ideally) self-select and to avoid having premium customers “buy down” too much, so as not to cannibalize existing revenue.
Frontier could build another niche like they have at DEN, a place where they, UA and WN (sort of) have hubs. Yet they sort of compete below those two. It works because they have critical mass built up at DEN. DFW is another airport that should work for Frontier in that way – compete under AA and lead on pricing. To do that, however, they need a lot more volume than they’re proposing here.
Where I disagree with their current strategy is spreading so many resources around into places where they can’t really compete. Price is nice but it’s not enough. And – to address some comments above – not all VFR travelers are purely interested in bargain basement air travel. Many are more comfortable with what they’ve always known. And the horror stories about ULCCs stranding people for days do make an impact. I think trying to compete on a route like LAX-SFO is absurd. And only the Orlando and Cancun crowd will be flocking to their flights in a place like CLT. Just wait and see.
Frontier actually pulled out of Burbank entirely last year. As for LAX, will they go to MSC?
Phllax – Oh right, Vegas lasted until early Jan last year and then died.
I think Frontier’s strategy of going head-to-head with the Big 4 with routes out of their hubs is pretty interesting. Allegiant and its copycats (Breeze, Avelo, etc.) mostly take the opposite approach and try to pick routes that the Big 4 can’t or won’t fly. Spirit had a mix of both strategies.
The obvious advantage to the Frontier approach is: that’s where the customers are. The disadvantage is more competition, but if you can sustainably hold down operational costs, then you can win a share of even a very competitive market on price.
Hey Brett, one other thing you are not considering for the DFW market is Southwest. Of all of the new routes announced by Frontier, the only ones where WN does not have at least weekly nonstop service from Love Field are Grand Rapids and Puerto Vallarta. I realize it’s a different airport, but the airports are close enough to most people in the Metroplex that the routes will compete with each other.
It’s also a shot across the bow of Sun County, as they serve DFW-MSP and they also fly to PVR in the summer.
What do y’all think about new LaGuardia/NYC routes?
Spirit is the only other ULCC at the airport.
Frontier goes up against American and Delta to Cleveland and Cincinnati (not Spirit).
Frontier is the only ULCC going to Denver.
Frontier is the only ULCC flying to Raleigh from LGA.
Yeah, that was a surprise. Anyone know where they got the slots? I thought they only had a few.
My desires for Noo Yawk were written untold centuries ago. See Genesis 19 and substitute “Noo Yawk” for “Sodom and Gomorrah”.
> Here’s the thing: these aren’t leisure routes for the most part. These are standard routes that require convenient schedules as well as competitive prices.
I could have been more precise in my language – when I say “leisure” travelers, I really mean anyone who is not filing an expense report for their ticket. That includes vacationers, VFR, and SMB business travelers who might be booking their own ticket and directly responsible for the cost.
> the legacies have shown every ability to drown out an interloper such as Frontier. They have the resources to do it too.
AA, DL, and UA haven’t driven Frontier out of PHL, ATL, or DEN, despite substantial overlap in routes. There’s an upper limit to how much money they are willing to burn in a price war to defend a hub, especially when they consider that another ULCC could later come in and make them do it again.
Their real strategy seems to be recognizing that they are selling a differentiated product vs. the ULCCs, and market accordingly. Overlap with Frontier makes it harder to fill the back of their planes, but isn’t an existential threat to the economics of a fortress hub. A credible challenge from another full-service airline is a much bigger threat, that demands more resources to counter.
> And……anyone who knows much about Frontier will know that if there are IROPS, you are screwed hard. Those who don’t know it run the risk of learning a rough lesson.
Yup. Sub-daily frequencies and limited connecting opportunities mean they often can’t put you on another flight for several days. I missed a flight once (mostly my fault), and had to book an expensive same-day ticket on another airline to get home. Definitely a factor people should consider when booking.
> Now, one hun where they hold their own is DEN, but that’s because they have critical mass there. They’d need to achieve this in the others to be a factor.
MCO and LAS operations are bigger than DEN. PHL is ~70% the size of DEN, ATL is 60%. Quite a few big stations at this point.
Intended as a response to stogieguy7 above.
MCO and LAS are not hubs for other airlines. And 60-70% of their DEN operations isn’t enough to gain traction at the PHL and ATL captive hubs.
LAS is WN’s second largest hub behind DEN. This July, they are averaging 244 daily departures. I’d say that’s a sizable hub operation. For comparison, MDW=243, BWI=221, DAL=203. MCO is #9 at 143.
You touched on modular bases – that’s a key issue. Is all (or the vast majority) of it being funded from of modular bases, or is that no longer flavor of the month?
LGA-RDU does not appear to have a base at either end. That’s fine, in theory it could be an inside turn from somewhere else – XXX-LGA-RDU or XXX-RDU-LGA. Or maybe LGA is an exception to modular bases (LGA arrivals after 10pm or departures before 7am (?) escape slot control, maybe F9 think it’s worth it to risk that overnight in New York to get that extra slot?).
Because if Frontier really means it when they say they’re going to the vast majority of their system being modular, that will affect the kinds of routes they fly.
And that goes both ways – if there are enough routes that work out of RDU, then it would make sense for RDU to be a base. You have seen some of this already, with, for instance, CLE becoming a base, ditto SJU.
The modular thing has another impact – once a city is a base, F9 is much less likely to abandon it. So, modular -> more bases -> Frontier more “sticky” at those bases. Doesn’t mean F9 sticks to any one route of that base, but it does mean it will need to find a certain amount of overall flying to do out of that base.
Plus, remember why Frontier is doing this – to improve reliability. If it does improve reliability, then it’s going to do better in those markets, because more people will have a reasonable experience for their money. If Frontier can operate reliably, they’ll start to get a somewhat higher class of customer. That also cuts both ways, of course, because if Frontier gets a higher class of customer, it can also expect to get more of a competitive response from airlines that previously might have been inclined to ignore it.
So, in theory, this modular base thing could have a big impact. Which is why it’s so important to see whether Frontier is truly committed to it.
JT8D – Modular bases are still a key part of the strategy, but it was never going to be 100%. I can’t remember what they said, but they were always planning on having some flying that wasn’t just out and back from the base. I imagine right now it’s time to audition. If Charlotte or Pittsburgh or Raleigh/Durham works well, then they’ll just put a base there. As for LaGuardia, I have no clue. That’s not a great place for a base, and their prospects for growing are slim anyway. So maybe that remains an outlier.
IIRC they stated around 80% or maybe more would be the modular model at the time they announced it. Could be wrong of course…
With so many people flying, high load factors, high yield connecting traffic, and ‘basic economy’ choices, I just don’t see the 4 Horseman of the Legacies really concerned about 4 x week service.
Are there open gates even available at CLT these days?
Interesting…as of now AA had not put Basic Economy fares on the newly announced routes out of DFW (other than ones that already had it).
I think the more notable fact is yet another airline sticking it to AA. Lately it seems like it’s open season against AA. AA doesn’t have the strength of UA’s international/coastal network, or the pure domination of DL’s 4 fortress hubs. All the carriers have realized AA is the most vulnerable of the Big 4, and a prime target. Just look at WN at PHX and UA at ORD clawing market share away from AA. DL pulled ahead of AA at LAX, and AA is in a horrible position in NYC relative to UA/DL after the NEA was blocked. Concerningly, AA has also lost around 10% market share in MIA since 2019 with WN and NK growing there. PHL is still doing ok, but AA has never placed strategic importance at arguably their only true fortress besides CLT.
F9’s move against AA isn’t surprising. It’s quite a dogpile at this point, and there’s no guarantees this will be profitable. But at this point, F9 doesn’t have better choices to be making. This could also be argued as a move against NK, as Cranky did. However I think that’s largely because both F9 and NK view AA as the best target.
Are they getting attacked at DCA though? That’s also a fortress hub for American, yet the perimeter rule and slot issues must certainly complicate the issues with competing against American in that region. I doubt they lose it with all the competitive advantages that are basically holding them up there.
AA’s position at DCA is relatively secure due to slots, as you mentioned. But DCA isn’t much of a fortress with UA down the road at IAD and WN at BWI, less than 30 miles away. For example, despite AA’s strength at DFW, I wouldn’t consider DFW a fortress, due to DAL at WN. PHL is 75+ miles from EWR and BWI, so I’d argue it’s a fortress. I guess my definition is a bit arbitrary.
By all accounts, AA is flying plenty of unprofitable regional flights out of DCA in order to hold on to slots (they may still be profitable overall). AA has also sold cheap connections over DCA to fill flights, despite higher costs for AA there compared to say CLT. The issue for AA is that DCA is incapable of becoming a large connection hub due to infrastructure constraints and slot controls. However allowing other airlines to gain slots would hurt AA’s margins on profitable flights. So AA is stuck in the unenviable position of defending a hub that will never be super profitable.
JetBlue just said they might terminate the Spirit deal which they apparently have the right to do as of Sunday.
Frontier could be interested again in a Spirit merger – but at much lower cost. Spirit might have lots of incentive to make a new Frontier merger work w/ JetBlue not trying to run interference.
The DOJ is far less likely to object to Frontier – Spirit than they did w/ JetBlue’s attempted takeover of Spirit.
According to Phil Le Beau of CNBC, Spirit and Frontier have even more overlap than Sririt and JetBlue. A merger between those two airlines might not be the slam dunk many avgeeks apparently believe it would be.
It’s not avgeeks that matter but those that can appropriately analyze how to extricate large portions of the airline industry from the mess that it currently is in.
2024 was supposed to be a year of solid rebuilding and it is turning out to be year of considerable turmoil and low yields – even before the MAX 9 situation.
And, as of right now, just one airline -yes, you know – will be profitable in the first quarter. and there were low margins in the 4th quarter for most of the industry – long before the latest MAX situation.
The DOJ’s primary concern with B6-NK was the elimination of NK as an ultra-low-cost carrier.
Overlap has usually been solved by divestitures which B6 tried to do with NK but the government still didn’t like it – and neither did the judge (yes, he is government too).
And the overlap that NK and F9 have is in markets that are open to competition and where neither has as commanding of share as B6 and NK have in FLL.
Either way, NK is worth far less than it was and F9 has a plan w/ or w/o NK as a merger partner or perhaps even existing.
@Tim
Apparently, you’re suggesting that you’re the only person who shares views on airline blogs that qualifies as ” …those that can appropriately analyze how to extricate large portions of the airline industry from the mess that it currently is in.” Overlap seems to have been a big criterion to the judges who’ve ruled on the recent merger and joint venture lawsuits. And it apparently hasn’t mattered that airlines can easily change routes. If you would reread my post, I opined that a proposed Frontier/Spirit merger MIGHT NOT be the slam dunk – not **would not** be.
I read just fine what you wrote.
I am simply saying that Frontier-Spirit **might”” be back. Remember it was JetBlue that jumped in to that deal and tried to grab it.
And I don’t presume that there aren’t plenty of people that can look at the situation and come up w/ potential ways out of this mess.
The term “avgeeks” doesn’t imply people that are as committed to or capable of looking at the business and strategic considerations as much as who are just interested in aviation – but I am not going to debate that point.
I am not saying any deal moving forward is certain. I am simply saying that Frontier’s standalone plan **might** get “supplemented” with something else.
I am certain that CF will follow and write about whatever happens, as he should just because there are very few major strategic moves involving two carriers left in the industry.
Helllloooo Braniff!!!!!
LAX is the biggest head scratcher. They just abandoned the airport 2 years ago over high costs and now the strategy is to *checks notes* reenter and fly the 5 most competitive business routes, which are all well-served by multiple other airlines? Every airline loses money at LAX, so not sure why F9 feels like this is the right time and market mix to get into.