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Founder & Managing Director, AIR Control Tower, AIR Control Tower

Neil Glynn

Founder & Managing Director, AIR Control Tower

AIR Control Tower

AIR Control Tower is an independent research and analysis platform. Its mission is to provide impactful insight and analysis across the global airline industry at a company and market level via detailed financial models to aid decision making for key stake holders at a time when risks have seldom, if ever, been higher and the global sector grapples with the imperative of funding de-carbonisation. Unique analysis forecasting global carrier-level earnings/cash flows, and restructuring/de-leveraging prospects, is designed to dynamically assess the health of the industry, predict surprises and identify potential requirements for third party support.

Insights on the global airline industry

Equity Bottom-Up

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<li>WSJ reports Spirit is exploring a Chapter 11 filing, with this risk apparent since the collapse of the planned JetBlue combination in January.</li>
<li>We highlight detailed analysis comparing the economics of airline recoveries across the US, illustrating Spirit lags on commercial performance and cost control.</li>
<li>With labor costs up from 21% of revenue in 2Q19 to 33% in 2Q24, compared to a pre-tax match of 12% in 2019, Spirit needs to address this labor-pricing mismatch.</li>
</ul>


WSJ reports Spirit is exploring a Chapter 11 filing, with this risk apparent since the collapse of the planned JetBlue combination in January.
We highlight detailed analysis comparing the economics of airline recoveries across the US, illustrating Spirit lags on commercial performance and cost control.
With labor costs up from 21% of revenue in 2Q19 to 33% in 2Q24, compared to a pre-tax match of 12% in 2019, Spirit needs to address this labor-pricing mismatch.


Spirit Airlines Needs to Address Labor Cost-Pricing Mismatch with or Without Chapter 11