Frontier Group Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 1, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Our Q1 results missed expectations due to a sudden March travel demand shock and aggressive industry-wide pricing driven by macro uncertainty.
  • We will reduce capacity by low single digits in Q2 and H2, focusing on off-peak days, targeting over $300 million in combined cost and capex savings.
  • Frontier is targeting profitability in the second half of 2025, backed by stabilized bookings, industry capacity moderation, and self-help measures.
  • The company expects a Q2 net loss of $0.23–$0.37 per share, reflecting softer travel demand, timing of fleet deliveries, and sequentially higher non-fuel costs.
  • Frontier ended Q1 with $889 million in total liquidity—$684 million in cash and $205 million available on its revolving credit line—providing financial flexibility.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Frontier Group Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

Skip to Participants
Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Frontier Group Holdings Q1 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one, one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one, one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, David Erdman, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

David Erdman
David Erdman
Senior Director of Investor Relations at Frontier Group Holdings

Thank you, and good afternoon, and welcome to our first quarter 2025 earnings call. On the call with me in speaking order are Barry Biffle, Chief Executive Officer; Jimmy Dempsey, President; Bobby Schroeter, Chief Commercial Officer; and Mark Mitchell, Chief Financial Officer. Each will deliver brief prepared remarks, but before they do, I'll recite the customary safe harbor provisions. During this call, we will be making forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those predicted in these forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning risk factors which could cause such differences are outlined in the announcement we released earlier, along with reports we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, actual results of which are reconciled to the nearest comparable GAAP measure in the appendix of the earnings announcement.

David Erdman
David Erdman
Senior Director of Investor Relations at Frontier Group Holdings

I'll now yield the floor to Barry to begin his prepared remarks. Barry.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Thanks, David, and good afternoon, everyone. Our results for the quarter were below our original expectations due to a disruption to travel demand in March. This sudden change in demand was driven by the macro uncertainty that's been widely reported, and it led to aggressive pricing and promotions across the industry. We experienced an outsized impact given the domestic leisure concentration of our business. However, current booking trends suggest demand for May and early summer travel has stabilized, supported by our recent revenue and network enhancements and capacity optimization. Further, planned capacity moderation across the industry is constructive. In this environment, we're focused on the elements of our business that are within our control, primarily capacity and management of our costs and capital expenditures, while continuing to provide our customers with what we believe is the best overall value in air travel.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Jimmy and Bobby will discuss our commercial initiatives in more detail during their prepared remarks. We have significantly reduced capacity through our mid-November selling schedule, with the adjustments focused on the off-peak days of the week. We expect capacity to be down low-single digits in the second quarter and a similar reduction in the second half of the year based on current conditions. Capacity reductions are expected to reduce costs and capital expenditures by over $300 million combined, compared to previous expectations. Mark will provide context in his remarks. Accordingly, we are targeting profitability in the second half of the year based on a stabilized demand outlook, supplemented with our self-help measures in moderating industry capacity. Before concluding, I would like to thank Team Frontier for all their contributions during the quarter and for remaining focused on our top priority of delivering a safe and reliable experience to our customers.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

I'll now turn the call over to Jimmy for a commercial overview. Jimmy.

Jimmy Dempsey
Jimmy Dempsey
President at Frontier Group Holdings

Thanks, Barry, and good afternoon, everyone. Briefly recapping our revenue performance, total operating revenue in the first quarter increased 5% versus the prior year quarter to $912 million on 5% higher capacity. RASM was $0.0917, roughly in line with the prior year quarter, and total revenue per passenger was $116, down 6% but below expectations despite a strong start to the year. Economic uncertainty weighed heavily on demand, most notably in March, and it was met with aggressive pricing and promotions across the industry. Employments were 12% higher, and departures were up 6% on an average stage length of 925 mi, 3% below the prior year quarter. As we enter 2025, our forecast capacity deployment matched the improving demand backdrop. As we experienced changes in the demand environment, particularly in March, we reassessed our capacity deployment from May forward with the resultant reduction focused on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.

Jimmy Dempsey
Jimmy Dempsey
President at Frontier Group Holdings

Our expectation is that the adjustment in capacity will continue for the remainder of this year, such that off-peak flying in summer will now be approximately half of our peak-day flying. Our simplified out-and-back network provides three key benefits to the business as we navigate the current environment. It enables flexibility and changes in capacity deployment, both additions and reductions. It provides reliability and operational recovery benefits, and it lowers our costs. Our simplified network and presence in 13 bases across the country enables us to provide our customers with more for less. This value proposition is clear with the introduction a year ago of the new Frontier, which in this environment takes on heightened importance and is strengthened by our enhanced product offerings and loyalty upgrades.

Jimmy Dempsey
Jimmy Dempsey
President at Frontier Group Holdings

For example, our economy bundle provides customers with a direct comparison to other airlines' economy fares by offering a carry-on bag, seat selection, and no change cancel fees. The economy bundle provides a standardized product, enabling us to compete and win on costs. Moreover, our cardholders get two free checked bags when they book with us. Our merchandising improvements introduced with the new Frontier will be enhanced shortly on our website and with the introduction of new Android and iOS apps. I'll now hand it over to Bobby to recap on our enhanced product offerings.

Bobby Schroeter
Bobby Schroeter
SVP and CCO at Frontier Group Holdings

Thanks, Jimmy. The new Frontier has reshaped our commercial strategy across product, network, and digital. A major part of the transformation is the work we're doing to elevate loyalty and customer engagement, ensuring Frontier is not only the lowest fare but also the best overall value in air travel. Since last year, we've implemented a number of meaningful enhancements. We transformed our product and bundle merchandising while removing change fees from our bundled products. We added free checked bags for co-brand cardholders and simplified the path to elite status. Additionally, elite members now enjoy complimentary seat upgrades, providing real, tangible benefits that we are able to provide even at lower status tiers, something that's increasingly rare in other airline programs.

Bobby Schroeter
Bobby Schroeter
SVP and CCO at Frontier Group Holdings

We previously announced that Frontier Miles will soon be redeemable for bundles and that an unlimited Companion Pass benefit is coming as well for our top-tier elite members, both of which will further strengthen the appeal and competitiveness of the program. We also launched UpFront Plus early last year, which has performed well and sets the stage for our rollout of first-class seating later this year. Platinum and Gold elite members will be eligible for complimentary upgrades to these new premium products prior to departure. Over the past several weeks, we've launched a series of targeted promotions aimed at travelers who feel underserved by traditional airline programs. One of the key advantages of Frontier Miles is that it delivers benefits faster than other frequent flyer programs, where customers actually realize real value in the form of seat upgrades and added perks even at the lowest tier levels.

Bobby Schroeter
Bobby Schroeter
SVP and CCO at Frontier Group Holdings

We're seeing strong momentum and are tracking well against both our growth and financial expectations across Frontier Miles and our co-brand credit card program. As we've previously outlined, we believe there is significant long-term financial upside in transforming this platform, and the early results are encouraging. On the digital front, we launched our new Android app, which is already showing stronger performance than the previous version. Our redesigned iOS app is on track to roll out in the coming weeks, followed by a new website later this year. Together, these upgrades will significantly improve the customer experience with more intuitive design and expanded self-service tools. In February, we introduced Frontier Vacations, a bundled product that makes trip planning easier by combining flights, hotels, and ground transportation in one streamlined Frontier-branded booking experience.

Bobby Schroeter
Bobby Schroeter
SVP and CCO at Frontier Group Holdings

Compared to a year ago, Frontier now offers more product choice, more destinations, and a stronger overall experience, reinforcing our position as the best value in air travel. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark for the financial update.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

Thanks, Bobby, and good afternoon, everyone. Briefly recapping the quarter, results were largely in line with our pre-announcement on April 10. Total revenue was $912 million, 5% higher than the 2024 quarter. Fuel expense totaled $238 million, 10% lower than the 2024 quarter, driven by a 13% decrease in the average fuel cost, partially offset by 5% higher capacity. We generated a record 107 ASMs per gallon during the quarter, just above a 1% fuel efficiency improvement over the 2024 quarter.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

Adjusted non-fuel operating expenses were $720 million, or $0.0724 per available seat mile, 8% higher than the 2024 quarter, mainly due to lower average daily aircraft utilization related to our disciplined capacity deployment, an increase in station costs, fleet growth, and lower sale lease-back gains from two fewer aircraft deliveries. Partly offsetting these items was a lease return benefit in the quarter resulting from the extension of 14 aircraft leases that were otherwise set to be returned in 2026-2027. These lease extensions support our mid-to-long-term fleet strategy. We took delivery of four A321neo aircraft and two spare aircraft engines during the quarter, raising our total aircraft fleet to 163 at quarter end. We expect to take delivery of three A321neos in the second quarter, one less than previously expected, all of which have committed sale lease-back financing.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

We currently expect another 13 aircraft deliveries in the second half of 2025, all of which also have committed sale lease-back financing, along with approximately 40% of our 2026 deliveries. First quarter pre-tax loss was $40 million, yielding a 4.4% loss margin, and net loss was $43 million, or $0.19 per share. Our net loss includes a $3 million income tax expense primarily relating to a non-cash valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets. We ended the quarter with $889 million of total liquidity, comprised of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of $684 million and $205 million of availability from our undrawn revolving line of credit. As highlighted earlier, we have significantly reduced our planned capacity for the balance of the year to address the macro uncertainty.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

We expect the capacity reductions to support over $300 million of combined cost reductions and capital spending deferrals over the balance of this year, which includes a mix of benefits from lower capacity and other opportunities to reduce cash outlays across the business. Most of the benefits are expected to be realized in the second half of this year, in line with the progression of the capacity adjustments. The loss of $0.23-$0.37 per share expected in the second quarter, per the guidance we provided in our earnings release, is based on approximately 228 million shares outstanding and the jet fuel curve as of April 29th, which yields an expected average all-in cost per gallon of $2.38.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

It largely reflects softer travel demand in April, with current booking trends suggesting demand for May and early summer travel have stabilized and the normal lead time to align costs with capacity reductions. The guide also reflects the expected sequentially higher non-fuel costs, which are primarily related to the timing of fleet deliveries and the impact of the lease return benefit recognized in the first quarter, in addition to normal year-over-year increases directly tied to our larger fleet and sequentially higher capacity. The per-share loss includes a projected tax expense provision in the range of $2 million-$5 million due to the expected recognition of a non-cash valuation allowance similar to the first quarter. With that, I'll turn the call back to Barry for closing remarks.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Thanks, Mark. Leveraging the investment in our revenue network enhancements and our significant cost advantage, we believe we'll be able to effectively navigate this environment and provide the opportunity to target profitability in the back half of the year. I want to thank everybody for joining us this afternoon. Operator, we're ready to take questions.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press Star one, one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press Star one, one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Michael Linenberg of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Michael Linenberg
Michael Linenberg
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Oh, hey. Good afternoon. Just a couple of questions here. Just looking at your average fare being down, I think it was like 6% or 7%. I realize that there is a lot of promotions out there and there's a lot of pressure on pricing. I believe the first couple of months of the year were fine. Maybe March was maybe that's dragging it down. I would have thought that you are launching a lot of premium-type products or you've been doing a lot more upselling. And so I guess the question is, is it the bottom end of the fare structure that's just getting really hit here?

Michael Linenberg
Michael Linenberg
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

I mean, if you could just provide some color about maybe how some of the newer, more premium-like products are doing, what the uptake is, I was hoping that that would have at least mitigated the overall average pricing for the quarters.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah, thanks, Mike. Look, the premium products are actually doing great. The challenge for us is that, one, we had concentrated our capacity in March. We had really pulled down kind of the off-peak. In fact, our RASM and fares year-over-year in January were actually—I do not have it in front of me, but they were up. What you are seeing is reflected as all March because even though it is a third of the quarter, it is more like 40% of the capacity that we had planned for the quarter. When that took place and we sell pretty close in, it just mechanically dragged the average fare down. We did not hit the loads either in March that we would have normally hit. We took a hit to load and we did not sell as much of it, which actually dragged down the average.

Michael Linenberg
Michael Linenberg
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Okay. That's helpful. Just my second question, Barry, as we get to the back part of the year, I mean, I think we were originally working with a capacity increase, I don't know, 3-4-5%, maybe even higher, and now you're going to be down. I think in the past, we've seen something on the order of about 20%-30% of your markets were developmental. New markets, they take time to ramp up. As we get to the back part of the year, the fact that you're shrinking, is that number going to be a lot less? I mean, are we going to see you really focusing more on sort of the core, the core profitable markets of Frontier? Should we anticipate that that percentage comes in? Thanks for taking my question.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah, thanks, Mike. Yes, that's kind of a—we didn't call that out, but thanks for pointing that out. That's a good tailwind for us when we go into the second half of the year. As far as capacity goes, we said it before. We said if there's any challenges, we weren't going to hit our margin targets, we would adjust capacity. We're doing it. We're taking ownership of what we control. We accept that we're at the center of this challenge, which is primarily a domestic leisure situation. The good news is, as we said on the transcript and in our announcement, the good news is we've seen bookings stabilize. In fact, the last couple of days is actually some of the best sales we've had in like six weeks. It feels like the shock that took place is kind of slowly moderating, right?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

I think kind of froze the demand for a while, but it feels like it's finally stabilizing.

Michael Linenberg
Michael Linenberg
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Great. Thanks. Thanks, Barry.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Savi Syth of Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Savi Syth
Savi Syth
Managing Director at Raymond James

Hey, good afternoon. Just around the return to kind of profitability in the second half, is that solely driven by the being able to take some of the costs out, given that you have more time to adjust capacity, or is there kind of something else that you think will kind of drive that improvement as well?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

I think there's several factors, right? I mean, there's things that are finally starting to stabilize, but also we've got the fact that we've reduced capacity. This kind of caught us flat-footed, right? We didn't know this was going to be the environment. We are now changing our schedule for the second half, and you're going to see where the marginal kind of flying, kind of that Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, we're going to be pulling down capacity significantly. That kind of the structure of that helps. Also, the demand environment helps. I think everything else we've done on the revenue side, all of the revenue initiatives with the new Frontier, we're really starting to get traction with our economy bundle now, as that landscape is kind of changing.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

We think it's really benefiting us on a relative basis, kind of once we get past May 28, we see real kind of green shoots there as well. There's just a lot of things coming. Look, I think the reality is that I think there's very few people making money domestically, if anyone. I think there's carriers that are subsidizing their basic economy with international and corporate. To the extent any of that slows down, their ability to actually subsidize that goes away. I think you're going to continue to see capacity moderation until the margins improve. I think that's just a backdrop for we feel like really good once this starts to turn around in the second half.

Savi Syth
Savi Syth
Managing Director at Raymond James

I appreciate that, Barry. If I'm right, if I look at on the product side, some of the changes that you've been making, be it on the loyalty program over the last year, so over some time, be it the loyalty program or even more recently, some of your cheeky promotions, it's really been kind of going after maybe a Southwest customer. I'm curious what you've seen in that front over the last year, and maybe has that changed more recently since they've kind of announced some policy changes.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

I can start off, and then I think Bobby or Jimmy can take it. As a reminder, we launched the new Frontier last May, and it just takes time to get traction, right? We do not have the most frequent travelers, and it takes a while for them to see it. Putting those bundled options upfront where people could see them was really, really critical. We are finally starting to really kind of just in the last, actually, probably a few weeks, really get that dialed in as the maturity is starting to build and the landscape is changing. I mean, I mentioned it a while ago. Now we are all on kind of an equal footing, right? If you think about it, I mean, our product versus everyone else. If you compare what we offer with our economy product, we offer much more than anyone else does.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

You get free changes, you get a seat assignment, and it's not just a seat assignment that is in the worst seats on the plane. It's actually real seat assignments, and you get a carry-on bag. I don't know, Bobby or Jimmy, you want to kind of comment?

Jimmy Dempsey
Jimmy Dempsey
President at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah, Bobby can talk about loyalty in a second. One of the things, Savi, that we've kind of learned ourselves, we launched the new Frontier a year ago, and we launched the economy bundle. We always had bundles in the background, but they weren't pushed as hard on our customers. Our customers are starting to understand the economy bundle, but we're actually starting to really understand how to use it and use it competitively against the industry. That is something that's changed in our business. It's really been accelerated in the last two or three months where we're understanding the power that the economy bundle has in our business. I'll let Bobby talk about the loyalty program.

Bobby Schroeter
Bobby Schroeter
SVP and CCO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah, sure, Savi. Great to talk to you. The loyalty program, we've obviously made a lot of changes. We've talked about those before with regard to Companion Pass with the seat upgrades and a variety of other things that are there. What that does is, again, we talk about equal footing, but the reality is we've leapfrogged in a lot of ways the benefits that you get with this. The Companion Pass, for example, that we have for our elite tiers that get that, you're able to bring a companion each time. You don't have to decide who that is and lock it in for the year. You're able to change that each time. You get to these elite tiers faster than others, and then you get the real benefits.

Bobby Schroeter
Bobby Schroeter
SVP and CCO at Frontier Group Holdings

One of the things that's been missing for some time, especially as you think about some of the maybe lower elite tiers that are very loyal and profitable, but they're promised these opportunities that don't really come to fruition. You hear stories about people being number 72 on the list. You're not going to see that with us. There's opportunity for people to engage with our program, get real benefits, and see those benefits quickly. We think that's a great opportunity. As I said in my prepared remarks, we've seen movement there both on the growth and financial side that lines up exactly with what we talked about previously. We think that's a really massive opportunity for us over the course of the next few years as well.

Savi Syth
Savi Syth
Managing Director at Raymond James

Appreciate it. Thanks.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Atul Maheswari of UBS. Your line is now open.

Atul Maheswari
Atul Maheswari
Equity Research Analyst at UBS

Good evening. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Barry, on the second quarter guidance relative to where consensus is currently, is the swing factor simply on cost due to the lead time to align cost with capacity reduction? Will the second quarter RASM, will that be meaningfully worse than the first quarter despite the lower capacity in the early-summer booking stability? Just wanted to get some sense of what's embedded in the guidance.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah, look, when this started happening in March for us, after a week or two, you finally figure out this is not an anomaly and there's real challenges out there. We were fortunate. We had not closed the May schedule. We started trimming the May schedule. We consequently trimmed the June schedule. That closed in, you've just got too many costs you can't get rid of. That's an impact. I don't know.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Mark kind of talk about this.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah, no, no. In addition to that, when you look from Q1 to Q2, we have one less aircraft delivery planned. There is a headwind there. We also had two spares that we took delivery of in the first quarter on a sequential basis. We did some lease extensions in the first quarter that provided a benefit. I think as you look sequentially, the costs are up a bit. In addition, all the push is very highlighted for the initiatives we have to drive costs out in the balance of the year. It takes a bit of time, right, for those to work their way through the system.

Jimmy Dempsey
Jimmy Dempsey
President at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah. Just to add to that, we think with all the network adjustments we've made, particularly even though it's closed in, that yes, we're carrying costs, but it looks like we've stabilized RASM, and we would expect positive RASM year-over-year in the quarter, albeit on much lower capacity, right? We've managed the network changes, particularly Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, in order to get ourselves into a good position from a unit revenue perspective.

Atul Maheswari
Atul Maheswari
Equity Research Analyst at UBS

Got it. That's very helpful. As my follow-up, the back half expectations of a return to profitability, relative to the internal expectations that you had for back half earlier in the year, how far below that initial plan would you be for the back half, assuming demand does stabilize at current levels? Just some way to dimensionalize that would be helpful. Related to that, what do you expect to be profitable for the full year?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

We're not putting out a guide for the full year, but we are targeting profitability in the second half. I don't think we ever actually put out a guide for the second half. I mean, we will fall short of our original expectations of any double-digit margins this year. Sadly, when we walked into January, in fact, even when we had our earnings call, we thought we were going to wildly blow that out. As I mentioned a while ago, I mean, January fares were up substantially year-over-year. I think let's put all this in context. We know that there are some macroeconomic challenges, and the leisure customer, it's the most discretionary, and they've just paused the last four to six weeks of their travel. Good news is, like I said, actually, our sales in the last few days have been really good.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

In fact, today's even better than yesterday. It feels like because people haven't lost jobs, I mean, unemployment's ticked up a little bit, they still have more money. The savings rates showed that they're actually saving money. I think there is pent-up demand. I think we get past a lot of these challenges that are out there and get out of the headlines every day with all of the kind of uncertainty. I think people return to their normal lives, and that's when I think we'll see travel come in. The good news is I think you're going to see capacity continue to come out because I think there will be some pressure on those unprofitable basic economy seats out there. I think there's a pretty good backdrop. I'm not going to get into how different was this.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

We're dealing with what we can control, and we're changing the capacity to match the demand. We believe it's going to take us into the third quarter to get that done.

Atul Maheswari
Atul Maheswari
Equity Research Analyst at UBS

Got it. Thank you. Good luck with the rest of the year.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Thanks.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brandon Oglenski of Barclays. Your line is now open.

Brandon Oglenski
Brandon Oglenski
Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays

Hey, Barry and team. Thanks for taking the question. Barry, don't take this as condescending at all, but I mean, I feel like you guys have had good quarters here and there, but there's always a setback the past three years. Now it's tariffs and maybe a more broader economic slowdown. I guess in the context of a multi-year challenge to get to that double-digit profitability, I mean, some of your competitors will say structurally the market has just moved on from the low-cost model. Maybe looking internally, do you need to do something structurally? Are you just overscaled and off peaks? Does this have to be more like M&A solutions across the industry to get this right?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Brandon, I appreciate it. Listen, let's just start with what I said a while ago. January, our RASM was up 19% year-over-year. I mean, let that sink in. It was up 19%. We were on a roll. I don't think there's anything wrong with our business, and I don't think there's anything wrong with our relative business. I think that there is a demand shock, and we're dealing with that demand shock in the ways that we can control it. I do think one of the reasons why we were doing so well in January and even into most of February, and in fact, we really didn't see any impact to February. It was March that hit us. If you look at it, the 236 was one of the big drivers of that.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

I think if you say, "What is the structural change?" I do think we have continued to fly too much 236 flying even through the peak periods. We are changing that. That is why I'm confident when we look kind of at the trends now, and I think you couple it with what we believe is going to happen in the rest of the industry, I think we're going to have a pretty constructive second half. Yes, Brandon, no one's more frustrated than me. I used to work with a gentleman at American Airlines a long time ago, and he used to say, "This is the business of once in a 10-year event every quarter." This was quite an event over the last six weeks.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

I do think there's kind of some green shoots out there, and I think that this is going to get passive.

Brandon Oglenski
Brandon Oglenski
Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays

Can I get you to bite on the M&A question?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

No.

Brandon Oglenski
Brandon Oglenski
Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays

Okay. Appreciate that, Barry. Mark, really quick, are you extending leases or actually sending aircraft back off lease? Sorry, because there was a lot in your prepared remarks. I think.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah, no, I was just.

Brandon Oglenski
Brandon Oglenski
Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays

Like.

Brandon Oglenski
Brandon Oglenski
Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays

Wait a minute.

Brandon Oglenski
Brandon Oglenski
Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays

Thank you.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah, no. During the quarter, we had an opportunity to extend 14 eight-year leases. Those leases got extended four to six years as part of our fleet strategy. The economics were attractive for these extensions. These extensions helped to align our planned heavy maintenance checks on the aircraft and enabled us to optimize shop visit timing and related costs. The other thing to keep in mind, the aircraft that these leases relate to are tied to a favorable maintenance contract. Overall, it was something we spent a lot of time on, made sense. I mean, that's the backdrop to those extensions.

Brandon Oglenski
Brandon Oglenski
Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays

All right. Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Fitzgerald of TD Cowen. Your line is now open.

Thomas Fitzgerald
Thomas Fitzgerald
VP and Equity Research Analyst at TD Cowen

Thanks so much for the time. I wanted to ask you about some of the big hub markets you've been growing in, like LAX and JFK. I'm just kind of curious how that's been ramping up versus your expectations. Just how are you thinking about some of those markets in your broader network and if it's more your customers would like you to be there and it's very additive for their loyalty program and maybe strategic flying or if those routes are holding their own just in absolute sense?

Jimmy Dempsey
Jimmy Dempsey
President at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah, we're quite encouraged, actually. It's enabled us to move more capacity into sort of bigger markets like LAX and JFK. We're seeing both leisure traffic and VFR traffic in and out of those markets. That seems very, very attractive and really likes low fares at our low fare level. I mean, it's new. A lot of them are maturing and in their first year of activity. The early results are very, very good. We expect to continue growing in some of those markets where we see big, large traffic volumes to big major cities around the United States.

Thomas Fitzgerald
Thomas Fitzgerald
VP and Equity Research Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay. That's really helpful. I am curious on the loyalty program. You had a nice jump in other revenue per passenger. Apologies if I missed this, but are you able to provide us with just the growth in sign-ups and the growth in spend rates? Thanks again for the time.

Bobby Schroeter
Bobby Schroeter
SVP and CCO at Frontier Group Holdings

We can't get into the details specifically there. What I will say is there has been a very good growth trajectory that we've seen from the introduction of the new benefits and opportunities. I'll give you one stat actually on it. Spend itself, as an example, has been up 30% year-over-year as we progressed through this. You're seeing people sign up at a higher rate. You're seeing people engage at a higher rate. There's a reason for that. We're providing more to those customers. We believe that there are a lot of customers out there that will find that this is the best program out there from a value perspective and the best program for them that may have been engaged with other programs in the past. Again, we're seeing some of that, and we anticipate that growth will continue.

Bobby Schroeter
Bobby Schroeter
SVP and CCO at Frontier Group Holdings

The trajectory, as I said before, hones in on and is tracking with what we've discussed previously around what we need to accomplish over the next few years within this and what we expect to accomplish. That is good news. Again, very positive results overall.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Jamie Baker of JPMorgan Securities. Your line is now open.

Operator

Hey, good afternoon. This is James on for Jamie. Barry, you characterized the driving force of last year's oversupply as low-cost carriers flooding the same leisure markets. I think you called out Florida and Vegas. Where we sit today, is that still ongoing? Just maybe more broadly, do you see any regions that are particularly weaker than the broader market?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah. I think it was not just low-cost. It was high-cost carriers too that had flooded kind of Vegas and Florida. We have seen that moderate. Look, I think Spirit in Florida as an example has cut back capacity. I forget the number, but it is close to 20%. We have seen that moderate. You are starting to see the markets heal from that. I mean, like I said, I think had we continued, and maybe we should have done ourselves some favors to actually just show you almost by month how this all progressed. I mean, basically, this demand shock hit us roughly the beginning of March, took away a lot of bookings in March. We basically did not have a spring break. Our revenues were not that much different than even February. That continued into Easter. We really did not have basically an Easter either.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

That's why I mentioned a while ago that it's improved significantly now. Even just when we look at our sales for May at the beginning of the month compared to the beginning of March and the beginning of April, it's come a long way. I think if you just look overall, you've had just this hit to the last two months, and it's more impactful to the second quarter. Again, I think this does subside.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Got it. For our second question, how do we think about the mechanics of tariffs in a sale lease-back transaction? I'm just not too familiar with kind of the mechanics behind it. I mean, is there a cost that Frontier would bear, or how does that work?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

We have no plans to pay tariffs.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Got it. Okay. Thanks for the questions.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth of Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.

Duane Pfennigwerth
Duane Pfennigwerth
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Hey, thanks. If you can from a high level, can you talk about the profile of new markets? I mean, look, you put in a lot of effort to reconfigure your network to out and back. You made a lot of changes. Everybody was working hard in the planning department. Can you talk about the profile of new markets that are working for you versus the markets that aren't? Are these weaker trends consistent across your network? Just to follow up on competitive capacity, again, with the new restructured network, is there just a different profile of competition in some markets versus other markets? Help us out there.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah. Thanks, Duane. Look, I mean, I know everybody's wanting to try to understand what's going on. That's why we're trying to tell you almost to the minute what we're seeing. The biggest hit is really the Tuesday, Wednesday. It's been a drag for years, but it has dried up. I mean, effectively, the load factors continue to drop on while they're down overall, they were down because of midweek. This is why we're looking at the fall. There's going to be a significant drawdown. I mean, we're talking about a few hours a day of Tuesday, Wednesday. Mechanically, we will address this. We've kind of joked about it, Duane, like when you run an 85% load factor on a Tuesday, I'll let you add some more capacity. It doesn't really matter the route mix.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

It's really more the off-peak that's caused a lot of it. We probably had too much of it. At the same time, there was, and I think it's because of the timing, when this happened in March and April most significantly, Florida and even Vegas were hit pretty hard. I mean, to give you an idea, we were looking at March Madness weekends, and we had flights going out. Maybe we had held out too much before, but we had flights going out 60%-70% load factors inbound to Vegas at March Madness. I mean, basically what happened in March and April, the demand just froze. We just didn't see a lot of incremental demand. In fact, we would lower the fares to see if we would get it.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

We ended up starting to raise the fares back because we figured out that you just did not stimulate demand. People are not behaving as normal stimulation would happen on low fares. We actually figured out the people who were going to travel were going to travel. We actually raised our fares back significantly.

Duane Pfennigwerth
Duane Pfennigwerth
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Thanks, Barry. Thank you. Maybe this is like an off-the-wall question, but would your contracts allow you not to sale lease-back, but to outright sell-down positions from your order book for a period of time?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Not without a negotiation. I mean, the contract does not allow it. We can sublease aircraft, and that is probably the easiest thing to do from the existing fleet.

Duane Pfennigwerth
Duane Pfennigwerth
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Thanks for taking the questions.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah. One thing we can't defer, but it's kind of in the outside 18 months. I mean, that's contractual. No, the easiest thing to do to moderate capacity is all of our fleets are relatively modern. And so we can sublease aircraft.

Duane Pfennigwerth
Duane Pfennigwerth
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Didora of Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Andrew Didora
Andrew Didora
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. Barry, you mentioned your January RASM was up 19. Can you maybe give us some sense of how that progressed in February and March and any way you can speak to kind of where April has shook out at this point?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah. Yeah, look, we saw a little bit down from January to February, but the big drop was March. I think if you graph this out, the way it looks like is that there was a shock that hit the market in March, continued through April. It has put a massive dent into May and even June bookings. We are finally now taking, while we have missed a lot of sales, we are now starting to get back to pacing to kind of a normal sales environment, if that kind of helps think about it. It stands to reason, right? I think there was a lot of uncertainty. People worried about, are they going to lose their job? Is there something wrong in the economy?

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

If you do not lose your job and you save your money and you still want to travel, I think it is just going to delay their purchases.

Andrew Didora
Andrew Didora
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America

Yep. Got it. In terms of what's underlying the EPS guidance that you gave, did I hear you correctly? You're expecting positive RASM in Q2 on the down low-single-digit capacity?

Jimmy Dempsey
Jimmy Dempsey
President at Frontier Group Holdings

That's right. Yeah. We've cut out a lot of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday flying. We did expect RASM to be up meaningfully in Q2. We still expect it to be marginally positive. We'll see how it progresses. We've got a lot of sales to do between now and the end of June. Our expectation is, and based on our guides, that it'll be in positive territory.

Andrew Didora
Andrew Didora
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Trent of Citi. Your line is now open.

Stephen Trent
Stephen Trent
Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks very much for taking my question. Most of mine have been answered, but I was curious about how you were thinking about ancillary revenue per passenger, sort of when we think about sort of your previous strategy before you rolled into premium. That was a big focus, which I totally get. As we move forward from a high level, how are you thinking about sort of RASM for, say, development relative to ancillary revenue per customer? Thank you.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Yeah. Thanks, Stephen. I mean, we can talk about it. We've kind of gone away from the ancillary. The competitive landscape's changed, especially if you take kind of post-May 28, right? We believe with the new Frontier and how we've laid out the bundles, we believe it enables us to really use our cost advantage and give those savings to customers for the products that they want and need. We are less focused on kind of the ancillary and just the dollars per passenger that we get in total.

Stephen Trent
Stephen Trent
Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi

Appreciate that. Just one really quick follow-up. Could we see sort of medium-term more alliances and sort of codeshare agreements as you're doing with Volaris, for example? Do you see room to do something along those lines? Thank you.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Absolutely. We've kind of tested that for a few years now. It's been very successful. Because we focus so much on the loyalty side of our business, we believe that that's an opportunity. We're looking at partnerships as we speak.

Stephen Trent
Stephen Trent
Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi

Appreciate it, Barry. Thanks, guys.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Savi Syth of Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Savi Syth
Savi Syth
Managing Director at Raymond James

Hey, thanks for taking my follow-up. Can I just ask on the fleet side? It seems is there just one less delivery for the full year as a result of this? It seemed like Airbus was catching up and delivering well. I was curious on kind of what you're seeing on the fleet side and what you're seeing on the GTF engine side.

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

Right. No, you're right, Savi. From what we had talked about before, when you look Q2 to Q3, one aircraft shifted. We had mentioned four before. It is three for Q2. For the full year, one aircraft did shift from December to the first quarter. When you look at the year in total, you did have a shift out of one aircraft.

Savi Syth
Savi Syth
Managing Director at Raymond James

On the GTF front, you're still getting enough kind of engines to replace as needed. You're not seeing any impacts there?

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell
SVP and CFO at Frontier Group Holdings

Correct. No significant AOG issues.

Savi Syth
Savi Syth
Managing Director at Raymond James

Makes sense. All right. Thank you.

Operator

I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Barry Biffle for closing remarks.

Barry Biffle
Barry Biffle
CEO at Frontier Group Holdings

Thank everybody for joining. We look forward to talking to you next quarter.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Mark Mitchell
      Mark Mitchell
      SVP and CFO
    • David Erdman
      David Erdman
      Senior Director of Investor Relations
    • Bobby Schroeter
      Bobby Schroeter
      SVP and CCO
    • Barry Biffle
      Barry Biffle
      CEO
    • Jimmy Dempsey
      Jimmy Dempsey
      President
Analysts
    • Andrew Didora
      Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America
    • Duane Pfennigwerth
      Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI
    • Savi Syth
      Managing Director at Raymond James
    • Brandon Oglenski
      Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays
    • Stephen Trent
      Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi
    • Atul Maheswari
      Equity Research Analyst at UBS
    • Michael Linenberg
      Analyst at Deutsche Bank
    • Thomas Fitzgerald
      VP and Equity Research Analyst at TD Cowen
    • Analyst at JPMorgan Securities
Powered by Quartr