Spirit Airlines will reportedly furlough one-third of its flight attendants as the bankrupt budget carrier struggles to cut costs and regain profitability.
Spirit, which entered Chapter 11 for the second time in less than a year, is also slashing flying capacity by 25% in November compared with a year earlier, leaving the airline with more planes and workers than needed.
The carrier said 1,800 of its roughly 5,200 flight attendants will be furloughed, with some voluntary departures determining the final tally, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
“We need to shift our focus to a complete rightsizing of the airline, which means volume-based adjustments to our Flight Attendant group, and across our teams,” Chief Operating Officer John Bendoraitis wrote to employees, according to the Journal. “This is hard news, and we understand it affects not only you and your peers but also your families.”
Spirit’s bankruptcy crisis deepened after the Biden administration, under the guise of protecting budget flight consumers, blocked its proposed merger with JetBlue, but the move only triggered steep declines for both airlines.
The cuts come as Spirit presses pilots to deliver $100 million in annual contract savings, with union leaders warning that concessions are unavoidable and liquidation remains a possibility.
“That is the reality of this bankruptcy,” Bendoraitis wrote last week. “There is no ‘do nothing’ option.”
The Biden administration, at the time, blocked JetBlue merger, the completion of which intended to give Spirit greater scale against larger U.S. carriers, left the airline more exposed to high labor costs, expensive aircraft leases, and shrinking demand, accelerating its financial slide.
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