Frontier swoops in after Spirit fails while rivals cut capacity

While most airlines in the US are cutting back on capacity expansion — or reducing flying overall — Frontier Group Holdings Inc. is going the other way, pumping more seats into the market. The reason is simple: a week after Spirit Aviation Holdings Inc. ceased operations, Frontier is executing on a strategy its CEO said has been in the works for months, pouncing on market share left on the table after Spirit went out of business. The airline is adding capacity into airports such as Orlando, Las Vegas and Dallas-Fort Worth, where Spirit had a large presence, according to a Bloomberg analysis of Cirium flight data. Frontier has added 3 million seats in the last week to its scheduled flying between June and September, the analysis shows. “Spirit’s exit meaningfully alters the supply landscape,” Frontier Chief Executive Officer James Dempsey said on an earnings call last week. “We positioned ourselves over the last six to nine months on launching routes that we thought would be opportunities that come as they reduce their capacity and with the possibility that they would cease operations,” Dempsey said. The strategy is to win market share and achieve economies of scale, but it’s also not without risk. US airlines spent 56% more on fuel in March from the month before, and any missteps are instantly amplified. Read More: Frontier Flight Strikes, Kills Pedestrian on Denver Runway Frontier’s taking a gamble on the fact that the bottom end of the aviation market is underserved and those customers will still want to fly, but don’t have many options available to them, according to Brandon Parsons, an economist at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School. “Frontier operates in a market that’s highly price sensitive, and with Spirit’s exit, that market is underserved at the moment,” Parsons said. “They’re taking a long-term view, although it’s not without risk as you still need to get through the short term to survive long term.” Jet fuel can account for as much as a th