Spirit Airlines began service at DFW about 1 year ago and really began to amp up its service at DFW just after American Airlines entered into bankruptcy.  They’ve announced the addition of 5 new cities from DFW including Baltimore and Houston in September and Oakland and Los Angeles next April.  They’ve also filed paperwork to serve Cancun from DFW.

This would bring Spirit’s service at DFW to 25 daily flights to 20 destinations in just over a year.  Not bad.

Proof that the DFW market is *not* a low fare market.  Spirit is seeing load factors close to 90%.  JetBlue and Virgin America have discovered opportunity here as well.  Delta has started flying into DFW right on top of American Airlines turf.

This isn’t just an incursion against American Airlines.  It’s an incursion on Southwest Airlines turf as well.  Both of these airlines have been fat, happy and sassy with their respective domains here in the DFW area.  Each has enjoyed a kind of monopoly on their services in and out of the DFW metroplex area.

As a resident of the area, I’m glad to see the competition and particularly glad to see Spirit’s competition.  The truth is that it is unlikely that I personally will ever fly Spirit.  I’m 6’2″ tall and a big man.  Spirit’s 29″ seat pitch isn’t exactly my idea of even a leisure flight at a low price.

I expect we will see even more competition in the area and particularly so at DFW.  DFW airport isn’t an expensive airport to fly into and with AA’s bankruptcy, I expect we’ll see some terminal consolidation over the next year freeing up more gate space for more airlines.

Competition is good.

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I am officially sick of American Airlines bankruptcy and happy to talk about another airline:  Delta Airlines.

Delta Airlines pilots have ratified a new contract that should put Delta in an excellent position to be the dominant SuperLegacy carrier in the United States.  The new contract allows Delta to shift its flying from loss-making 50 seat regional jets to larger, profit-making regional jets over the next few years.

Part of this contract is what allows Delta to take on the Boeing 717 jets from Southwest Airlines.  Those jets will be flown by Delta pilots and now doubt represent how Delta intends to provide more jobs for its union pilots.

Interesting to me is that 62% of the pilots said yes to the contract.  I suspect this is representative of the former Northwest pilots at the company who are more strident and wish to see more of the flying being done by Delta done by Delta pilots.

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Bloomberg Business Week says that American Airlines will be seeking an extension (90 days) to have an exclusive right to present a reorganization plan to the court.   This would nominally prevent US Airways from making its own proposal in late September.

It’s quite likely that this extension will be granted given what has been going on with the Section 1113 hearings in that a ruling on abrogating the union contracts has been extended to August.  The bankruptcy judge is likely to cooperate with American Airlines on this extension as it grants American the reasonable opportunity to put its plan together once it knows what its labor costs are likely to be.

Expect to see many unsecured creditors (unions in particular) object to this extension.

To a degree, this works in US Airways favor.  It allows them to make their case stronger with unsecured creditors and point to AA’s inability to get its house in order.

I think this a mistake on AA’s part as it signals that it is now reacting to US Airways instead of its own problems.  To creditors, directors on its board and others, this isn’t what you want to see in a bankruptcy.

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