Spirit’s March was Bad, Like Really, Really Bad

The airline may not be flying anymore, but the bankruptcy continues on. Spirit filed its Monthly Operational Report for March to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week and some of the results are legitimately eye-popping. For the month of March, traditionally a strong spring break month for Spirit, the carrier earned $256 million in gross revenue. While might seem a little low on its own, it’s when you put it next to the operating expenses almost $413 million. We’ll wait while you do the math. Or if you’d rather: That’s a loss of $156 million in one mouth. Yowza.

Spirit spent $99.6 million on fuel in March. Remember, its operating loss was $156 million, meaning if Spirit received free fuel for the entire month — didn’t spend a penny on it — it still would have lost $57 million dollars. Despite what some may say, high fuel prices were not Spirit’s issue. That’s a -61% operating margin overall, and -22% if it managed to procure a free fuel card. On March 31, the carrier was down to about $118 million in unrestricted cash, and it was blowing through about $5 million per day. With figures like that, it’s shocking Spirit lasted as long as it did.

What does this mean? Spiking oil prices might have been the nail in the coffin, but this was well on its way long before the war skirmish incursion in Iran. That $500 million from the government was never going to save Spirit. It might have delayed the inevitable for a few weeks at a significant cost to the taxpayer, but that’s a best-case scenario, believe it or not.

Spirit may be gone, but the fight for Fort Lauderdale is heating up. Come join us on The Air Show this week as we dive into the situation at FLL, especially since we are taking next week off. In addition to Allegiant as shown below, some blue carrier is trying to do a thing….

Allegiant Adds Eight

This week it was Allegiant’s turn to try and fill the yellow-plane sized void in the Florida air travel market, as it stepped in to backfill what it could. Some of these routes are very Allegiant-like, but one stands out as a particularly odd choice for the carrier.

Allegiant plans to begin service between Fort Lauderdale and Boston — a route dominated by Delta and JetBlue, and one that goes against Allegiant’s usual strategy of picking its spots strategically and avoiding entanglements with major carriers. Delta currently flies the route 2x daily, while JetBlue flies it 4x daily, but it goes much higher in winter. It makes you wonder how Allegiant plans to make money flying the route just 3x weekly.

The other seven new routes for Allegiant are:

From FLL:

• Kansas City (2x weekly)*
• Omaha (2x weekly)
• Pittsburgh (3x weekly)*

From Orlando/Sanford:

• Trenton (2x weekly)

From Punta Gorda:

• La Crosse (2x weekly)

From St. Petersburg/Clearwater:

• Columbia (MO) (3x weekly)
• Philadelphia (2x weekly)

*former Spirit routes along with FLL-BOS.

Each route begins Oct. 1 or 2 with the exception of PIE-COU which will start November 19th.

Landline Teams up with Massport

You probably know Landline as the regional carrier that could. It operates buses in lieu of airplanes on short regional routes for several airlines including American from Philadelphia and Chicago, Air Canada from Toronto, United from Denver (well, used to do this one), and Sun Country Allegiant from Minneapolis/St Paul. But it’s adding a new option, debuting in Boston on June 1.

Landline will work with Massport, the owner and operator of Boston’s Logan Airport, to create a remote terminal in Framingham, a suburb located west of Boston about halfway to Worcester. Delta and JetBlue are the two biggest carriers at BOS, and they’ll be the launch airlines for the program. Passengers can drive (and park for way less than the airport), or be dropped off at the remote terminal in Farmingham where they can check-in, check bags, and clear TSA in much less time than it would take at the airport.

The Landline bus will then take passengers to the airport and will arrive airside, behind security at Logan, allowing a quick connection in the terminal. Delta passengers will be dropped at Gate A18 and JetBlue passengers at Gate C8. Meanwhile passengers on other airlines who snuck on the bus will be forced to wear a Lakers jersey and will then be dumped in the middle of a Celtics game.

The advantages of this — if it works — are large. In addition to saving time for passemgers who use the service, each person who does means one less person in the check-in area at the airport, one less person at the TSA checkpoint, and one less car adding to traffic.

For more on Landline’s new offerings in Boston, please visit Thursday’s post on crankyflier.com.

WestJet Called Out for Alleged Tomfoolery

WestJet passengers are alleging to the Canadian government that the carrier has been canceling flights citing “unscheduled maintenance” which, by Canadian ,law doesn’t require it to pay out compensation claims to customers. But passengers claim the carrier swaps aircraft to flights its wants to cancel, subbing in airplanes already under maintenance, and giving it cover to claim it was work on the plane — and not a controllable issue — that led to the cancellation.

Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulation requires a payment of C$1000 or two vats of maple syrup (customer’s choice) when a flight is canceled or delayed more than nine hours and the reason is within the airline’s control and not for safety reasons. Unscheduled maintenance falls under the safety reasons exception.

This comes four years after WestJet was ruled to have done this exact same thing, so we can only assume this is somehow tied to the World Cup. If it turns out this is a regular thing, be sure and check back in with us in 2030 to see if WestJet got caught doing it again on its Spain flights.

Garfield Hates Monday? Well Avelo Hates Tuesday

Avelo Airlines turned five this week and as a parting gift from its birthday celebration, it’s giving all of its front-line employees Tuesday off. How are they doing it? Simple…don’t fly on Tuesday.

In an effort to reign in costs, the little airline that could will not fly on Tuesday for the duration of the summer. One has to wonder if this some sort of reverse psychology trick, like how everyone craves Chick-Fil-A on Sundays, knowing it’s going to be closed. Maybe a similar effect will have the flying public particularly interested in fly Avelo on Tuesdays starting this fall after being denied Tuesday flight for an entire summer.

We’ll have to see if this lasts beyond the summer and if Avelo permanently stays as a six-day-a-week airline. But for now, the airline’s fleet of 15 B737 aircraft will all get a breather one day per week, which the airline hopes will save it enough money to avoid tough decisions to stay flying well into the future.

• Aeromexico plans to resume flying to Caracas in October.
• Air France, along with Airbus was found guilty of corporate manslaughter over AF447 which crashed in 2009 and killed all 228 on-board.
• Air Tanzania is beginning London/Gatwick service next summer.
• AirAsiaX added its first A321LR.
• British Airways wanted a $13.4 million payment from London Heathrow as compensation for errors with the airport’s baggage handling system. Airlines asking airports for lost baggage compensation — see, airlines — they’re just like us.
• Cabo Verde Airlines is wet leasing a B737-8 MAX.
• Copa had a strong start to 2026.
• Etihad is expanding its Paris service to 3x daily with two of the three on A380s.
• Eurowings is growing in Berlin.
• Korean Air pilots are suing Asiana’s union. The merger seems to be going well.
• Norse Atlantic is considering a sale.
• Philippine Airlines is placing its PR code on QR flights from Manila, Cebu, and Clark.
• Qantas is adding capacity to New Zealand.
• Qatar is adding to its African network.
• Riyadh Air is finally selling tickets.
• Singapore turned a tidy profit.
• Starlux is raising cash via a sale-and-leaseback on three A330s.
• SWISS is adding service to Bengaluru.
• United is bringing back Las Vegas and Miami service to Cleveland in an attempt to break the record for one way traffic on a singular route compared to the return.
• Zinc. Please let it happen.
• ZIPAIR is returning to Orlando for three more charter flights.

 Why did the hot dog and hamburger leave the Memorial Day cookout?

They were tired of being grilled about their relationship.