As Spirit Airlines approaches the time of its merger with JetBlue, it’s alarming some by letting go of 37 routes, as reported by MSN. Most of these routes connect with Florida airports, most notably Fort Meyers, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Orlando.
Other affected cities include Philadelphia, Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Juan, and another Florida city, Tampa.
What’s strange is that this reduction in service only reduces airline capacity by 5 percent for 2023’s first quarter, so why bother? Spirit says it has experienced supply chain problems in obtaining new aircraft, as well as trouble servicing its existing fleet, and—not to blame the victim—Jacksonville, FL’s shortage of air traffic controllers.
Simpleflying.com reports that Jacksonville Center needs 275 certified controllers and only has 205 with just 50 trainees coming up as of August of this year.
Spirit has said that while 40 percent of its traffic goes from Florida to the continental US, it could be as much as 50 percent if there wasn’t the Jacksonville constraint. Simpleflying reported that Spirit had a net loss of $52.4 million in the second quarter of 2022. Ouch.
But there could be a silver lining to the (immediately adjacent) cloud. Spirit has added routes as well as canceling them. New routes from San Antonio to Las Vegas and Orlando, Charlotte to Nashville, and Los Angeles to Memphis, along with others, are underway, says MSN.
And it can’t hurt, either, that Spirit has been working with rolling out new seats that are wider (by a half-inch, but okay. And did you know the middle seat is a full inch wider than aisle or window seats?), better cushioned (an inch more for your butt’s comfort pre-recline) and have improved headrests and that—here’s the part we all care about—create two more inches of legroom with curved seatback designs.\
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