Frontier Group Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULCC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 5 of 5

Barry Biffle: We’re less convinced of the overall capacity and we’ll let those bigger airlines decide what they think is the right amount of deployment. What we’re seeing week after week in the schedule change adjustments and some of the most recent commentary is expectation for their capacity deployment is coming down, down, down. And we’re seeing it, for example, we’ve seen attrition in pilot rates slowing down as a result because they’re slowing down their hiring of pilots. So evidence that the big airlines are actually slowing down their capacity. What I was really more referencing was not the total capacity, however. And I was talking about the unevenness of the capacity deployment. And ultimately, if everyone showed their cards, I think you would find that some of the oversaturated Las Vegas and oversaturated Florida markets, it doesn’t matter who you are.

The route P&Ls on those routes, regardless of airline, are probably a little bit under pressure. And so we see that capacity being redeployed at a minimum, and possibly in some cases, just eliminated. So at best, they maybe retire the aircraft, but at worst, it’s just get redeployed. So that unevenness will get itself sorted out, and that’s really what I was referencing, not total capacity.

Christopher Stathoulopoulos: Okay. Thank you. And then the comments for next year, and thinking about capacity allocation, to be clear, you’re not arguing around a wholesale change here to some of your core markets and you’re looking at some of these underserved markets, which to the earlier question comes with its own set of challenges. But if we take a step back and think about your net route growth next year, so with no wholesale change to markets like Vegas and alike, and these new underserved markets, just if there’s a number of, or kind of directionally how we should think about your net routes for 2024? Thank you.

Barry Biffle: I don’t think that the overall routes is going to change that much. And I think when you look at, the percentage of our capacity that’s in immature markets, it’s hovering around 10%, and it could go a little closer to 12% with some of the new markets. But when they’re in underserved markets, we think that that’s going to do really, really well. But it probably wants to be a little more when we look at, kind of the underserved places.

Christopher Stathoulopoulos: Okay, thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And this concludes our question-and-answer session for today’s conference. And I would like to hand the conference back over to Barry Biffle for any closing remarks.

Barry Biffle: Yes, well, thank you everybody for joining and we look forward to updating you at the next quarterly call. Thanks everyone.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Follow Frontier Group Holdings Inc.

Page 5 of 5