Spirit Airlines, Inc. (NYSE:SAVE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Stephen Trent: Hi. Good morning everybody and thanks for taking my question. Several of mine have been answered, but I did want to follow-up on the improvements you guys mentioned with extra crew and you mentioned you have got some infrastructure help those whether they are runway stuff is out of the way. And when I think about how well you guys handle the December storm. Could you kind of give us any color regarding what other strategies you may have employed such as maybe investments in flight op software or something along those lines?

Ted Christie: Sure, Stephen. So, over the course of last year, we did discuss a number of the initiatives that the company had launched since 2021 to improve reliability across the network. And obviously, some of those are notably our crew-related reliability items. We opened three new crew bases last year, which is a pretty significant move for us and has had the expected effect. We are more targeted with the buffers we use around the network, both crew-related buffers as well as aircraft time-related buffers. Matt mentioned that the network is more stable throughout the course of the week and throughout the course of the month. That is a reliability enhancer also. Most of our flying today comes from our lands and a crew base, which is a change in the network.

And then we have deployed a number of initiatives around crew services that help our crew scheduling team react to and deal with interruption when it happens and our crews have noticed. They are able to get their issues resolved much faster, and that helps our crew scheduling team repair the network faster. So, those are all kind of like the lessons €“ we are not done, by the way. There is still quite a bit of work to be done to finalize where we want to land. But I would tell you that it was not a seamless operating fourth quarter. We had the late hurricane activity, the Winter Storm Elliott, it was messy. And we saw that across the industry, but I am proud of the way our network responded and our group responded. And I think that just gets further enhanced from here.

Stephen Trent: Super. Appreciate that. And as my follow-up, just very quickly, when I think about you are soft on international flying, over the last 3 years to 4 years, Mexico’s practically hasn’t slowed down at all, never shutdown with the pandemic. Are you seeing any sort of shifts in terms of maybe one market growth moderating as it hits harder comps and other places starting to open up, or is it still about the same as it’s been in the last several quarters? Thank you.

Matt Klein: Yes. Stephen, it’s Matt. Our Latin America and Caribbean network continues to build well, continues to see strength. We have had €“ like any part of the network, there is always a route here or there that needs to be adjusted or re-timed. Generally speaking, I would tell you that some of the issues that we saw in the early part of last year, when it had to do with some of the international VFR routes. They have all recovered well. We had a strong holiday period. And we are anticipating, and expect to see a strong spring, spring break here as well as we head towards the summer. I don’t know specifically that I want to talk about headwinds that we may see on year-over-year comps. Right now, we are really focused on just the absolute and maximizing what we see out there.

And when we talk about ancillary products and services, the take rates and the rates that we are seeing are €“ continue to do well and perform there. So, nothing that I would say is slowing down at this point.

Stephen Trent: Okay. Very helpful Matt, and thanks for taking up the time.

Matt Klein: You’re welcome.

Operator: We will take our next question from Scott Group with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.