Frontier Reduces Fleet, Releases Earnings

In a busy week for Frontier Airlines, the carrier released its Q4 and 2025 earnings, and also announced it will shrink the size of its operation by returning 24 leased A320neos to its lessor AerCap early, with those leaving the fleet as soon as this summer. AerCap also will take ownership of 10 future airplanes being delivered in 2028 and ’29 as part of a sale-and-leaseback promise with the carrier, with Frontier also deferring as many as 69 A320neo and A321neos by as many as four years, pushing delivery back to 2031-33.

In order to decide which of its 24 airplanes to return, the carrier will reportedly line up each plane being considered and made a decision based on how tasty the animal on its tail would be if cooked and served in-flight. For reference, N347FR — Lone Star the Longhorn Steer shouldn’t sleep too comfortably in the coming weeks, while N334FR — Stretch the Great Blue Heron is probably safe. When asked for his thoughts, N620FR — Tico the Two-Toed Sloth had no comment.

For the year, Frontier lost $137 million, down from a tidy $85 million profit in ’24. It did end on a high note, with a $53 million profit in Q4, right on with where it ended 2024. Its forward-looking guidance is somewhat unclear, which probably is correlated with shedding itself of 15% of its fleet. Its projecting a $0.26-$0.44 loss per share in Q1 on a 1-2% drop in capacity, and for the year it has a wide projected range between down $0.40 and up $0.50.

AA Flight AAttendants Have Had Enough

American Airlines flight attendants board of directors passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in Robert Isom, the carrier’s CEO. This is the first time this union has ever taken this step, but reports from the meeting tell us the board didn’t technically complete the vote — when they went to formally do the count, they found that their ballots had been outsourced to a third-party vendor and delayed due to “operational complexity.”

APFA president Julie Hendrick highlighted the airline’s weak financials, operational failures that have left FAs sleeping on floors in airports, and the unseasonable cold weather in the Dallas/Fort Worth region as the reason for the vote. The union also called out the CEO for supporting a “failed corporate sales strategy,” but followed it up with “No hard feelings, Vasu.”

In a video to staff, Isom reportedly said “Keep moving, nothing to see here,” and went back to rearranging the deck chairs in the office and ensuring that the orchestra in the lobby continued to play.

Southwest Shrinks Board, Grows On-Board Connectivity

Two members of Southwest’s Board of Directors — David Cush and Gregg Saretsky both will end their tenure next Monday, February 23. Both Cush and Saretsky were Elliott appointees to the board, with their departure marking another step in Elliott’s withdrawal from the airline.

With the pair leaving the board, Southwest will not replace them, instead electing to reduce the size of its board from 13 to 11 members. Sources inside the carrier’s Dallas headquarters tell Cranky that the decision to reduce the board by two stemmed from the lack of assigned seats in the board room which was causing chaos with the airline’s new seating policies. By reducing from 13 to 11, it opens up more space in the room which will allow for assigned seating for future meetings.

What was the first thing Southwest did after reducing its BOD footprint? Ink a deal with Starlink to bring legit, high-speed Wi-Fi to its planes — and quickly. The carrier says that installation will begin soon, with the first aircraft entering service this summer, and more than 300 planes by the end of the year. To keep us on our toes, it plans to keep one plane without the new connectivity and it will do its best to make sure that’s the plane you get every time you fly the carrier.

Air Canada Completes Widebody Order

Air Canada announced an order for up to 16 Airbus A350-1000s, with eight firm orders and eight options. Air Canada is in the midst of updating and modernizing its fleet, and these aircraft — with a range of about 9,000nm and low operating costs — will give the carrier the ability to fly just about anywhere in the world from Toronto and Vancouver.

AC’s current widebody fleet features Dreamliners, B777s, and A330s. It has 14 more B787-10s on order along with 30 A321XLRs, with delivery on both expected to begin this year. The carrier follows Delta as the second in North America to order the A350-1000, with Air Saint-Pierre expected to be next.

The planes will have Rolls Royce XWB-97 engines, and will feature the quiest twin-aisle cabin in the sky according to AC’s press release. To enforce that, passengers caught listening or watching a device without headphones will be thrown out the back of the plane immediately and no refund will be given. It did not yet release the expected seating configuration for the A350-1000 order but our sources tell us at it will have AC’s traditional maple syrup trough in the mid-galley. Select planes will also feature a mini-ice hockey rink in the back, kept cold by a funnel to the air outside the plane while at cruising altitude.

Allegiant’s ’25 was Down, but Better

Allegiant’s year-end earnings were in the red, as the carrier announced a loss of nearly $45 million on $2.6 billion in revenue, but that is a significant improvement from the $240 million loss it posted a year ago. Its Q4 was also stronger in 2025, with the airline seeing a $52 million profit on $656 million in revenue, s 33% jump from 2024.

It bragged in its earnings release that it “Ranked number 2 amongst major US carriers in the Wall Street Journal’s ‘The Best and Worst Airlines of 2025’,” but did not detail whether it was #2 in the best or worst category. We’ll assume for now it was best, but we will put our Cranky investigative Team on this to get to the bottom of it.

Capacity grew 12.6% in 2025 for Allegiant, and its CASM ex-fuel dropped 6.1% to 8.4 cents. It ended the year with $1.1 billion in liquidity, a figure which includes $838.5 million in cash and investments, and the rest in pool towels in a central Florida storage facility that its held onto since divesting itself of the Sunseeker.

• Aeromexico had a punctual January.
• Air Anka is seeking permission to operate to the United States so it can visit its namesake Paul Anka.
• Air Tahiti Nui named Lionel Guérin CEO.
• AirAsia X will begin serving London/Gatwick from Kuala Lumpur via Bahrain.
• American‘s next salvo in the Battle for Chicago is a new AAdmirals Club.
• Arajet is teaming with Meliá Hotels International to create fly and stay packages in New York.
• BA had three FAs get higher than the plane.
• Cabo Verde Airlines is returning to Brazil.
• China Airlines is partnering with Plusgrade to offer new ways for loyalty members to spend their miles.
• Delta is adding to Hawai’i.
• El Al is adding.
• Emirates signed an interline agreement with something called Loong Air which we really hope only flies Shorts aircraft.
• Flair‘s incoming CEO Lee “Nature Boy” Corrado will be based in Toronto, not Vancouver.
• Frontier‘s latest strategy to raise revenue is to take it via lawsuit.
• flynas is going to launch a Syrian-based LCC.
• Lufthansa City opened a new base in Frankfurt.
• Oman Air carried nearly 6 million passengers in 2025. Most of them thought they were flying to Amman.
• Republic Airways released 2.7 million shares valued at just under $52 million to United in exchange for United forgiving debts and obligations of Mesa that remained on the table after it merged with Republic.
• SmartLynx Australia has transitioned its brand to now be Skytrans.
• SpiceJet finished in the red for its Q3.
• Spirit is recalling 500 furloughed FAs.
• United‘s $100 million investment in Azul was approved by the Brazilian government.
• WestJet — like much of Canada — is reducing it footprint to the U.S. But domestically, it’s growing.
• ZIPAIR will up the number of times its zips to Los Angeles from Tokyo/NRT up to 10x weekly this summer.

I was going kayaking with my friend on our vacation and when we got to the rental place he handed me two paddles and asked “which one do you want?”

And I said “I’ll take either oar.”