Spirit Airlines is departing Denver International Airport early next year as the budget carrier faces concerns over the engines in its fleet of Airbus 320 jets.
Spirit will no longer fly in and out of Denver as of Jan. 9, DIA spokeswoman Stephanie Figueroa told The Denver Post in an email. Spirit, which started flying out of Denver in May 2012, operated out of just one gate on Concourse C, she said.
In an emailed statement, Spirit spokesman Thomas Fletcher said the airline was forced to make some tough choices as it continued to learn more about how Pratt & Whitney’s GTF engine availability impacts its fleet and operations.
“After considering those constraints and the underperformance of our routes through Denver International Airport (DEN), we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue service at the airport, effective Jan. 9, 2024,” Fletcher wrote in the email.
Spirit will refund customers who have ticket reservations after Jan. 9, the email said.
Pratt & Whitney notified Spirit of a manufacturing issue in its engines in July and advised the airline to accelerate inspections on its jets and switch out engines as necessary, according to the company’s third-quarter financial report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Those necessary inspections resulted in canceled flights in October, according to the Associated Press.
But Spirit is a small player at the busy Denver airport.
Spirit’s passenger traffic at DIA this year has amounted to just 0.8% of the airport’s market share, reflecting declining traffic for the airline in recent years, according to DIA reports. In 2019, Spirit’s market share was 2.1% at the airport.
Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30 of this year, 386,142 passengers boarded Spirit airplanes in Denver, a 2.1% decline in passenger loads during the same period in 2022, the airport’s latest traffic reports show.
Last week, the airline reported a net loss of $157.6 million for the third quarter of 2023 with its chief executive officer admitting the airline has struggled to regain customers since the pandemic.
“Softer demand for our product and discounted fares in our markets led to a disappointing outcome for the third quarter 2023. We continue to see discounted fares for travel booked through the pre-Thanksgiving period. And, unfortunately, we have not seen the anticipated return to a normal demand and pricing environment for the peak holiday periods. Given these continued trends, we are evaluating our growth profile and our competitive position,” CEO Ted Christie said in a news release about the airline’s quarterly earnings.
In 2022, Spirit became the target of a bidding war among budget airlines, including Denver-based Frontier Airlines. But JetBlue emerged as the winner and announced it planned to buy Spirit for $3.8 billion in July 2022.
However, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit earlier this year, arguing that the merger would be hard on consumers by increasing fares and reducing flight options. That trial is underway this week in U.S. District Court in Boston.
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