Shares of Spirit Airlines fell 2% in premarket trading Thursday, after the discount air carrier reported a wider-than-expected loss and detailed some cost cutting measures including pilot furloughs.
Net losses widened to $192.9 million, or $1.76 a share, from $2.3 million, or 2 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted per-share losses of $1.44 compared with the FactSet loss consensus of $1.36. Revenue dropped 10.6% to $1.281 billion, in line with the lowered estimate provided by Spirit in mid-July but below the current FactSet consensus of $1.298 billion.
"Summer demand remains robust and load factors have been strong; however, significant industry capacity increases together with ancillary pricing changes in the competitive environment have made it difficult to increase yields, resulting in disappointing revenue results for the second quarter of 2024," said Chief Executive Ted Christie.
Spirit said it was on track to achieve $100 million in annual savings with its cost-cutting plan, which includes furloughing 240 pilots, downgrading 100 captains and offering voluntary unpaid leaves of absences to flight attendants. The stock has plunged 81.6% year to date through Wednesday, while the S&P 500 has rallied 15.8%.
