Spirit Cuts 9% of January Flights Due To Labor Shortages
Originally published on AeroXplorer
This week, Spirit Airlines cut 9% of its flights scheduled for January. The reason for this is staffing problems. Because of this cut, the Fort Lauderdale-based airline will have a more conservative outlook in the near term. This will probably last until the end of the first half of 2022, as it gets back on track.
Spirit Airlines has added more flights in January from Detroit, Dallas, Newark, and Indianapolis, while Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, Baltimore, and Los Angeles have the largest cuts. Photo: Sam B
Spirit expects 21,066 flights in January, according to its schedule filling this week. This is down from 23,182 last week, which is a drop of 9% and a loss of 2,116 movements. February is down as well, with 5% of flights cut this week. In the pre-COVID year of 2019, January and February had the fewest Spirit flights for sale. February, which was the lowest point of the year, had 24% fewer services than August, the peak month.
The reductions are widespread, with 114 routes in January to see fewer flights. Over one-third of the total cuts (36%) involve Spirit’s busiest airport, Fort Lauderdale. Nine routes have been removed for January, as shown below:
Fort Lauderdale to Pensacola
Fort Lauderdale to Managua
Fort Lauderdale to Raleigh Durham
Fort Lauderdale to Hartford
Fort Lauderdale to Minneapolis
Detroit to Minneapolis
Miami to San Salvador
Miami to St. Thomas
Orlando to Port-au-Prince
January of 2022 will see tough cuts for Spirit's network. Photo: Mark S
However, all but Fort Lauderdale to Hartford, which is bookable from March 9th, are scheduled to resume at some point in February.
Even though Spirit is not operating Fort Lauderdale to Minneapolis in January, Spirit will start service on January 5th between Miami and Minneapolis. This route will start with five flights weekly, and slowly climb to seven flights weekly. On February 17th, when Spirit resumes flights between Fort Lauderdale to Minneapolis, the airline will serve Minneapolis from both South Florida airports.
