economie

Budget airlines like Spirit and Southwest are getting more desperate. You’re going to hate it.

JetBlue will defer upcoming deliveries of Airbus A321neos like the one pictured until beyond 2030.

Spirit is completely revamping how it sells tickets

The Florida-based carrier recently announced plans to bundle together previously à-la-carte items like free snacks and checked bags into categories that would make the budget airline look more like its competitors.

Among the new premium perks announced are priority check-in and boarding for premium passengers, Spirit credit card holders, and Gold-level frequent fliers.

Spirit’s new ticket bundles go on sale August 16 for flights starting August 27.

Frontier is cutting flights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Jetblue is saving cash by delaying delivery of new planes

Jetblue announced in July that it would delay the delivery of more than 40 Airbus A321neo jets that were expected to join the airline’s fleet over the next few years.

“We are setting ourselves on a path to restore our balance sheet health, and in support of securing our financial future, we are announcing an incremental aircraft deferral of approximately $3 billion of planned capital expenditures,” CFO Ursula Hurley said in a press release.

Instead, delivery of the aircraft has been pushed into the next decade, with no planes expected to arrive until 2030 or later.

Low-cost carriers flooded the market with too many cheap tickets

Airlines across the industry have had to deal with escalating costs and thinning margins over the past year.

However, unlike mainline carriers, low-cost airlines do not have the benefit of high-margin business and first-class cabins to lean on for extra cash.

As a result, they’ve resorted to flooding the market with cheap seats to generate revenue and fill planes.

It’s a strategy that rival airlines, like United and Delta, have called unsustainable.

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://www.businessinsider.com/airlines-spirit-southwest-jetblue-struggle-profit-scrambling-changes-tickets-seats-2024-8