United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) will not bid for the assets of Spirit Airlines (NK, Fort Lauderdale International) if they become available, the company’s chief executive Scott Kirby said, as reported by Reuters.
“It is not in our wheelhouse. And so we are not going to try to do that,” Kirby said in an interview, adding that Spirit’s aircraft, slots, and routes would not work for United, and that it would take two to three years and about USD15 million per plane to reconfigure Spirit’s fleet under United’s standards, making it impractical.
The ch-aviation database shows Spirit’s fleet comprises sixty-two A320-200s (182 seats), ninety-one A320-200Ns (182 seats), twenty-nine A321-200s (228 seats), and thirty-two A321-200NXs (229 seats), all of them in a single-class configuration.
United has 1,051 aircraft in its fleet, both Airbus and Boeing, including eighty-one A319-100s, seventy-three A320-200s (150 seats), and forty-six A321-200NXs (200 seats), all in a three-class configuration.
Since Spirit Airlines filed for a new Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late August (the second in less than a year), United’s Kirby has been vocal about Spirit’s struggles and has prophesied that the ultra-low-cost operator may not survive for long, plunging both companies into a war of words. United has even positioned itself for this potential outcome, increasing capacity in 15 cities where Spirit operates.
In its current reorganisation, Spirit is aiming to renegotiate the lease terms of its fleet, potentially rejecting a still undisclosed number of aircraft. It recently announced its exit from 11 markets as it focuses on more profitable cities.
ch-aviation reached out to Spirit Airlines for comment, but it was not immediately available.
