Frontier Group Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Frontier Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.31
• Consensus EPS: -$0.28
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.14

Frontier Group Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $929.00 million
• Expected Revenue: $951.92 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$22.92 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: -4.50%

Frontier Group Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 8/5/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, August 5, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Frontier Group (NASDAQ:ULCC), provides low-fare passenger airline services to leisure travelers in the United States and Latin America. The company sells its products through direct distribution channels, including its website, mobile app, and contact centers. As of December 31, 2023, it had a fleet of 136 Airbus single-aisle aircrafts. Frontier Group Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

Frontier Group Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Frontier delivered second quarter results within its guidance range despite significant weather and air traffic control delays, demonstrating operational resilience.
• Positive Sentiment: Forward bookings for August and beyond improved, aided by a 3-point reduction in competitive capacity in Frontier markets, supporting mid- to high-single-digit stage-adjusted RASM growth in Q3.
• Positive Sentiment: Enhanced loyalty and premium initiatives fueled ancillary revenue growth, with co-brand loyalty revenue per passenger up over 40% and cardholder spend rising nearly 20% year-over-year.
• Negative Sentiment: The company recorded a second quarter pretax and net loss of $70 million (−$0.31 per share) and saw total revenue decline 5% year-over-year to $929 million.
• Neutral Sentiment: Third quarter guidance anticipates an adjusted loss of $0.26–$0.42 per share, fuel costs of $2.51 per gallon, capacity down 4–5%, and mid- to high-single-digit RASM growth.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Frontier Group Holdings, Inc. Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please note, this event is being recorded.

[Operator]

Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to the Senior Director of Investor Relations, David Erdmann.

[David Erdman, Senior Director - IR at Frontier Group Holdings]

Thank you, and good morning, and welcome to our second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. On the call with me in speaking order are Barry Biffle, Chief Executive Officer Jimmy Dempsey, President Bobby Schroeder, 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.

[David Erdman, Senior Director - IR at Frontier Group Holdings]

Additional information concerning risk factors, which could cause such differences are outlined in the announcement we released earlier along with reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During this call, will be discussing non GAAP financial measures, actual results of which are reconciled to the nearest comparable GAAP measure in the appendix of the earnings announcement. We'll also be referencing stage adjusted unit metrics, which are based on 1,000 miles. With that, I'll give the floor to Barry to begin his prepared remarks. Barry?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone. Our second quarter results were within our guidance range, overcoming significant weather and extensive air traffic controls delay in late May and June, which we estimate to be two to three points on the quarter. Our third quarter guidance incorporates a similar impact for July. Proud of Team Frontier for the contributions during the quarter as we navigated through this environment and for remaining focused on our top priority of delivering a safe and reliable experience to our customers. We're seeing an improvement to our forward bookings for August and beyond as the industry adjusts capacity.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Encouragingly, in frontier markets specifically, we're seeing a greater reduction in competitive capacity than the average in the industry by about three points, which alongside with our commercial initiatives is expected to support mid to high single digit RASM growth in the third quarter on a stage adjusted basis. I'm confident in our ability to generate incremental RASM benefit from our enhanced loyalty initiatives and our additional premium product offerings. For example, our cardholder spend is up nearly 20% year over year. These products and loyalty enhancements, combined with our industry leading total cost advantage, are expected to provide a solid foundation for profitability in 2026. I'll now turn the call over to Jimmy for a commercial review. Jimmy?

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

Thanks, Barry, and good morning, everyone. Briefly recapping our revenue performance. Total revenue in the second quarter was $929,000,000 down 5% on 2% lower capacity versus the prior year quarter. RASM was $0.09 $01 while RASM stage length adjusted to 1,000 miles was $0.08 $74 slightly higher compared to the same period last year. As Barry mentioned earlier, our performance incorporates the revenue related headwinds from ATC and weather related operational challenges and the impact of weak consumer sentiment in the early part of the quarter.

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

Total revenue per passenger was $109 flat to the prior year quarter on a 79% load factor, up 1.2 percentage points. We launched 35 new routes in the second quarter, primarily from existing crew bases, including our first ever service to Seattle's Paine Field and Puerto Plata in The Dominican Republic. We also announced an expansion of service across the Eastern And Midwestern United States to include nonstop connections between Baltimore and Chicago O'Hare, Myrtle Beach and Trenton, and nine new routes from Atlanta. These new routes are consistent with our strategy to penetrate large markets with limited or no ULCC service that expand our revenue pool and support growth. Looking ahead, we expect Stage adjusted RASM to be up mid to high single digits in the third quarter year over year, supported by an improving industry capacity backdrop and tailwinds from normalizing exposure to immature markets.

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

Based on our current selling schedule, which extends through January 5, immature market concentration is expected to trend toward low teens over the next six months, roughly half the level it was in the prior year. Capacity in the third quarter is expected to be down 4% to 5% year over year on an average stage of approximately nine fifteen miles, while fourth quarter capacity is expected to be relatively flat year over year on an average stage of approximately 900 miles. I'll now hand it over to Bobby to provide an update on our enhanced product and loyalty offering.

[Robert Schroeter, SVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Frontier Group Holdings]

Thanks, Jimmy. We're pleased to have achieved an increase of over 40% year over year in the second quarter in our co brand loyalty revenue per passenger, driven by greater card acquisition and spending. Our current momentum coupled with the introduction of first class seating, mileage burn for ancillaries and additional product features such as our companion pass give us confidence in achieving our target of $6 per passenger by the 2026 and $10 by the 2028. We're also continuing to invest in the onboard experience. Our fleet wide installation of first class seating remains on track for completion by next spring, expanding on the strong response to our upfront plus product.

[Robert Schroeter, SVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Frontier Group Holdings]

And shortly, we're rolling out additional rows of UpliftFront Plus, enabling us to serve high premium routes more effectively while maintaining flexibility elsewhere. From a digital perspective, we're making major strides across all our distribution channels. We launched our new iOS and Android mobile apps, featuring an improved interface and expanded self-service tools, and we'll launch our newly redesigned website later this year. Our NDC transition accelerated this quarter with key partnerships signed with Amadeus, Fare Portal and Hopper, with more to come. These agreements will allow us to revenue manage in real time, deliver more relevant personalized offers and provide a seamless booking experience while also significantly reducing distribution costs.

[Robert Schroeter, SVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Frontier Group Holdings]

In short, we're modernizing every part of our commercial offering from digital tools and distribution to loyalty and onboard experience with a focus on premiumization, which supports a better revenue outcome. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark for the financial update.

[Mark Mitchell, Senior VP & CFO at Frontier Group Holdings]

Thanks, Bobby, and good morning, everyone. Our adjusted nonfuel operating expenses in the second quarter were $774,000,000 or $0.75 per available seat mile. The increase over the prior year quarter was largely as expected and was mainly due to a 13% reduction in average daily aircraft utilization related to our disciplined capacity deployment, fleet growth and lower sale leaseback gains from less inductions than the prior year quarter. Fuel expense totaled $230,000,000 20% lower than the twenty fourth quarter, driven by a 17% decrease in the average fuel cost, 2% lower capacity and a 2% fuel efficiency improvement over the twenty fourth quarter. Second quarter pretax loss and net loss were both $70,000,000 resulting in $0.31 of net loss per share with the tax benefit generated from the pretax loss offset by a corresponding valuation allowance.

[Mark Mitchell, Senior VP & CFO at Frontier Group Holdings]

We ended the quarter with $766,000,000 of total liquidity comprised of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of $561,000,000 and $2.00 $5,000,000 of availability from our undrawn revolving line of credit. We have committed financing, which is expected to boost liquidity by over $200,000,000 by year end. We took delivery of three A321neo aircraft during the quarter, all financed with sale leaseback transactions and returned two A320ceos, bringing our total aircraft fleet to 164 at quarter end. As previously disclosed, most of our planned inductions for this year are scheduled to occur in the second half of the year with 13 aircraft deliveries expected in the next six months, including two A321neo aircraft in the third quarter and 11 in the fourth quarter comprised of seven A320neos and four A321neos. All remaining twenty twenty five deliveries and all planned deliveries through the 2026 have committed sale leaseback financing.

[Mark Mitchell, Senior VP & CFO at Frontier Group Holdings]

Turning to guidance. As provided in this morning's announcement, we expect the third quarter adjusted loss between $0.26 and $0.42 per share and fuel at an expected average all in cost of $2.51 per gallon based on the jet fuel curve as of August 1, which is $0.15 higher than the second quarter. Third quarter nonfuel costs include some transition costs due to the timing of our capacity reductions and higher expected maintenance related costs. Our capacity for the third quarter is expected to be down 4% to 5% to the corresponding prior year quarter, and we expect mid to high single digit RASM growth on a stage length adjusted basis in the third quarter. Lastly, we expect tax expense in the range of 2,000,000 to $4,000,000 due to the anticipated recognition of a non cash valuation allowance.

[Mark Mitchell, Senior VP & CFO at Frontier Group Holdings]

Thanks for joining us this morning. Operator, we're ready to begin the Q and A segment.

[Operator]

Thank you so much. Our first question is from Ravi Shankar with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

[Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Great, thanks. Good morning, everyone. So understanding that it is a pretty challenging environment out there, Barry, can you just help us with what does the path back to positive margins look like and then eventually to double digits over time? Like apart from just industry kind of tailwinds, what are some of the big moving blocks to get you there?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

I mean, one of the big moving blocks we're already kind of in it. And this is one of those where I almost wish we would report by month rather than quarter, because you don't see the kind of the trends. Think if you take a step back, let's talk about just underlying baseline and then we can talk about the building blocks from there. So if I go back to April, we had pretty big challenges. Everybody's well aware what happened.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Things stabilized. Actually, we saw really good bookings. Fares were going up and demand was really good. It wasn't clear there was some challenges. We started seeing a lot more weather ATC in late May and into early June.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

But then it became clear in mid June that there was kind of a setback, kind of a slowdown, if you will. And it's hard for us to tell was that demand or was it just oversupply in the summer. And then we went kind of negative year over year on sales against, in our case, flat to down capacity. And then now in the last few weeks, it's been widely reported, we've seen significant jumps. In fact, we're running double digits sales year over year for all forward sales against capacity that is actually down year over year.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

So you take that trend and you roll that out and that puts pretty good RASM trajectory for the balance of the year. So that gets you much closer to breakeven just on a sales trend basis. And then you start adding all the incremental things that we're doing that are specific to Frontier. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we see when we look at forward capacity, the industry capacity is getting better domestically. But in frontier markets specifically, we're seeing about a two to three point better just in September alone, and we expect that to continue.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We see a certain carrier getting out of a lot of our routes. Suspect they're going to continue to do that. So we think that's unique to Frontier. And I think broader, it's very clear with the majority of all domestic capacity losing money at this point, I think you should expect continued capacity reductions. But we're not counting on that and we don't need it specifically, but you're going to get several points in RASM just from kind of the competitive capacity coming out of our markets.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We also then as we move into the fall, we move out of having a lot of new capacity. So I think we get that down to much more manageable number, a little bit of redistribution. I mean, we were running over 20% new flying in the fourth quarter last year. This year, it's down at 10%. So that alone is just math.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Brand new flying is about a 30% discount. You have 10% less of it, that's three points right there. So you get several points from the less new flying, and then you actually get several more points just from our slowing our overall growth rate. So you actually get a RASM bump there. And then lastly, you get into kind of the product side and loyalty.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We've got several points, as Bobby mentioned a moment ago. We've got 40% up year over year. Know it's on a small base, but that's a huge improvement. Our credit card acquisitions are up materially. Our spend is up.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

People are liking the new frontier. We're finally starting to see some maturity of that pay off. So that's another couple of points. Then lastly, I think you get into the premiumization with the first class seating that will be introduced late this year, but fully rolled out by spring. We've also got an expansion of Upfront Plus that we're going to be continuing to do based on the success of that.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And so that's another couple of points there. You add all these things up and we believe we're more than back to profitability and you're back on track to hit our targets.

[Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Very helpful. Thank you. Maybe as a quick follow-up there. Do you have an early view on your capacity plans for 2026?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We have not put that out. I think as we have said, and I think as we have reacted, we said this earlier in year, we will be the first probably to react to any changes. But, we have and we've reduced capacity. We need to wait and see what, the rest of the industry does. But, the trends suggest and again, I think the overall financial, situation of most of the domestic market suggests that you'll continue to see less capacity in industry.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

But until we see that, it's hard to gauge what we're going to do for 2026.

[Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Understood. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Savi Syth with Raymond James. Please proceed.

[Savanthi Syth, Managing Director at Raymond James Financial]

Hey, good morning. Just on the cost side, I was kind of curious if what the capacity you're thinking about with flat here in the fourth quarter and kind of down still in the third quarter, what does that mean from a utilization evolution? And is there anything else that we should consider in terms of year over year on the CASM Ex side that might drive things?

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

Maybe I'll talk about utilization and then I can kick it off to Mark from a cost perspective. Savi, we're looking at we've reduced utilization quite meaningfully on Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, more pronounced on Tuesday, Wednesday, particularly in the off peak periods, which is really driving the year over year flat capacity. That'll take some time to lap, right? If we maintain this level of lower utilization on the off peak days of the week. And as Barry mentioned, this is dependent on what we see going forward in the marketplace.

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

Our expectation is that we stay around flat, maybe slightly positive in certain months, slightly negative in other months as you progress through the first six months of next year. And that's what we've put together in terms of our hiring plans and the productivity that we expect to come from the business. I'll just hand it over to Mark in terms of

[Mark Mitchell, Senior VP & CFO at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes. I mean, I think beyond what Jimmy mentioned, I mean, those capacity adjustments, I mean, you're naturally going to have some transition costs tied to those where as you're working to best align the resources to the capacity that you're putting forward, there's just some timing nuances there. And then as we've talked about before, our inductions our aircraft inductions are heavily weighted, as I mentioned in my remarks, to the fourth quarter. So you have 11 aircraft planned for delivery in the fourth quarter. And so you just need to bake that nuance into your expectations.

[Savanthi Syth, Managing Director at Raymond James Financial]

That's helpful. And just on the maybe to follow-up just on the capacity. I'm curious, as Barry mentioned, you want to be flexible to the environment. Just curious how much you can flex up, flex down. I'm guessing a fair amount just from the aircraft availability, but perhaps maybe not from some of the other kind of staffing levels.

[Savanthi Syth, Managing Director at Raymond James Financial]

Just curious how much you can flex that up depending on the or down, but depending on the environment.

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes. I mean, sit in a surplus pilot situation at the moment, given the adjustment to capacity earlier in the year. So we can move capacity in relatively quickly. I mean, if you're talking about meaningful capacity increases from where we are today, you really have a six to eight month lead time for that. So it really depends on what happens in the industry as to whether we deploy that and activate a training program to support meaningful capacity increases.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yeah, actually I would add, in fact, I answered the question just on a RASM basis, how you get back to double digit margin, but on the cost side, we're carrying several points just this quarter, right, of cost and that translates straight to margin. Because of the excess pilots, because of excess flight attendants, we've got too many staff right now because we plan to be larger close in, and this is a significant drag on our chasm at the second. To answer your question, flexing up or down, you can always flex down, but you end up in in a situation like this, where if you do it close in, as we have done, then you carry all that extra cost. And so I can tell you that we are not going to be hiring and adding to that problem, we will bring in some aircraft, not increasing day two thirty six, but increasing the peak days of flying, and use that excess over the next year. And so you will get to the point where we will have plenty of aircraft to add capacity.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

But if we needed to increase capacity, the lead time on that, once we get properly staffed and right size on the staffing, is probably in the six to eight month range. And the reason for that is flight attendants are much faster, but the long pole in the tent on growth to increase utilization is on the pilot side, and it's just a simple cycle. You have to hire a first offer, you have to bring them in, get them trained, get them on the line. That then pops a spot, if you will, to upgrade an existing first officer to a captain, and that cycle takes between six and eight months from recruiting, making the decision and so forth. It's probably a two quarter decision in the future if and when we see demand come back, but we're not planning on an improvement in demand to get back to our profitability.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We're planning for what it is, and we're planning for a similar utilization for right now unless we see things change.

[Savanthi Syth, Managing Director at Raymond James Financial]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And it comes from Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI. Please proceed.

[Duane Pfennigwerth, Senior Managing Director - Equities at Evercore]

Hey, good morning. So you talked about sales up double digits for future periods. I wonder if you could speak to book yields and if you're seeing an inflection or maybe that's not the right word, maybe acceleration in yield improvement and how you think about that in the months going forward?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes. Thanks, Duane. We're seeing and part of this is because we've I think we've right sized our capacity probably more than most and probably got it nailed down. We're seeing increases in load factors. You saw that in Q2.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We're seeing that materially now. We are consistently on peak days, booking to the high 80s, low 90s. And so we've seen it in load factor, but what's driving the double digit actually as we look forward, and I'm actually staring at a report for this morning and for today's sales and yesterday, it's actually the yield. The yield is what's driving the biggest part of that. So we're seeing a few points of load factor, but what's driving double digits is actually you're seeing more than double digit jumps in revenue per passenger. And by the way, would include fare and ancillary.

[Duane Pfennigwerth, Senior Managing Director - Equities at Evercore]

And just to put a finer point on it, I assume that's not a July comment. Is that a September comment? How far out are you seeing that?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes. So this started mid July. We got about three weeks into it. This is for all future sales. So total sales for the last several weeks for all future periods, so yes, July was gone by that point.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And that's why I made the comment earlier, I wish we could report by month. I think everybody would see what we're seeing, which is now that we're starting to get to fall and starting to see the benefits of all these capacity reductions, is rightsizing demand with capacity is actually really starting to bear fruit. So yes, it's all periods. And so in our particular case, with our capacity down for all future periods to see sales up year over year, that kind of numbers, it's meaningful. Again, it's a new trend and it's been a challenging year, but we're cautiously optimistic when you see these kind of numbers in the last few weeks.

[Duane Pfennigwerth, Senior Managing Director - Equities at Evercore]

Thanks, Barry. And then if you look at relative performance within your network, are there any themes or maybe characteristics of markets that are working better than others?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes, I think it's been widely reported, but Las Vegas seems to have had some challenges, and it's probably the most pronounced on a leisure basis. I think conversely, we're seeing obviously your VFR markets and maybe their business markets, depending upon the airline, the big guys might call it a business market, we're seeing a lot of VFR traffic being very strong. So kind of tough in Vegas, and I think everywhere else is actually really, really doing well.

[Duane Pfennigwerth, Senior Managing Director - Equities at Evercore]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

[Michael Linenberg, MD & Senior Company Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Yes. Hey, good morning, everyone. Hey, Barry and Mark, if you could just speak to the guidance range, it just it seems unusually wide. I mean, July is in the bag. You probably have half of August already a good view.

[Michael Linenberg, MD & Senior Company Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

So we're talking about, call it, forty five days left in the quarter. And yet on a pretax basis, it's about five points of margin for the quarter. Are you just concerned that the price sensitive traveler is not going to show up in the month of September? What's the rationale behind that wide range?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Well, is in, but and the August is in, but we still have a decent amount of sale in the back two weeks of August and a lot to sell in September. Obviously, with the trends we're seeing, that's why we said, if this holds up, we could clearly be to the high end of that guidance. Mhmm.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

But to your point, like, we've been burned in the last six months in this in this industry in the domestic market. And so while we're optimistic, yes, we could hit I mean I mean, obviously, when we when we put out a range like that, we all get together.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And and Mark and Jimmy and Bobby and all this look look at this, and we are we are we are staring at some some just big numbers. You know, like, when we look at the yield right now for August, the yields for August are up 5%, but the yields for September are up 15% right now. If that holds up, fantastic, Michael. But I mean, it's still a little early, and so that's why you get a larger range. And, yes, I could have told you five to seven, but I mean, I've heard in the last six months.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

I saw a dip in June, didn't expect. And so I'd love for it to be towards the higher end, but I've got to be realistic on recent history. When we saw the Gaza and we saw Israel and there was consumer sentiment and things changed in the June, you know what? It kind of corresponded with sales in

[Michael Linenberg, MD & Senior Company Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Yeah.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

No, that makes We see it come back, now it's doing great. So we're in a month to month consumer sentiment game, I think. But right now, consumer sentiment is good. And I think where I'm a little more optimistic even than just the demand environment is I think we're finally starting we're going to see the benefits of the competitive capacity coming out. Mean, we're finally starting to see I'll give you an example.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

You know, South Florida, I mean, we opened a base kind of pre COVID in Miami, and then in the middle of COVID, everyone decided Southwest Jet Blue Spirit, they all decided to all start flying in Miami. I mean, we're finally now seeing that kind of little battle all unwind, you're starting to see all of these little battles across The US that took place. We're seeing all these competitive dynamics. Everybody's finally realized that things are going to get back to normal, but we need to get capacity right sized with demand. So we're really encouraged, we're just giving you the actuarial range based on history in the last six months.

[Michael Linenberg, MD & Senior Company Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Okay, great. And that sounds good. And then just one other quick one, I know you said this and it was sort of it may have been off the cuff. You sort of threw out the fact that with all domestic capacity losing money, is that Frontier specific? Is that low fare carrier specific?

[Michael Linenberg, MD & Senior Company Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Or are you just saying that maybe everybody's been losing money domestically this summer?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We believe, looking at everyone's numbers and unpacking that, that everyone right now is losing money domestically. There are two carriers that are subsidizing it significantly with international. But I think as you have seen, the domestic marketplace without international or international codeshare or other benefits, they are not trending well. So history shows that this will not continue. That's why we look at this and we say we've got one of the cleanest balance sheets in the industry.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And so we see plenty of opportunity for the carrier like Frontier to come out the other side of this because there's going to be a huge opportunity for the lowest cost provider. And I think there's going to be a lot less low cost capacity competing with us. And I think there's going to be a lot less even legacy capacity in The United States because there is domestically too many narrow bodies in The United States, period.

[Michael Linenberg, MD & Senior Company Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Great. Thanks for the great answers, Barry. Appreciate it.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Group with Wolfe Research.

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Hey, thanks. Good morning. I want to start with a big picture question, Barry. So capacity this year is going to be flat to down a little bit. Obviously, a big change versus your history and it's gonna be a pretty unprofitable year. I get it's a very tough backdrop, but do you feel like are the pieces there or that you can see that we can't see in the numbers yet? Ultimately, you think that this model really need growth to work?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

I believe this model needs growth to work. I think it works a lot better with growth, obviously. The whole airline industry has shown that forever. But I think I'm gonna go back to before kind of the crisis that hit The United States earlier this year, we were up 20%. Our RASM was up 20% year over year in January.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

20%. That fell to almost flat by the time we got to the fair. Mean, was a precipitous drop, went negative year over year in March, went negative year over year in April, went back, say, adjusted positive. Then in May and June, slightly positive in July, now wildly positive in August. And sequentially, as I just mentioned, we're staring at about 15% yields in September right now in advanced sales.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

So I think once you get past the economic shock that we had and the excess capacity, we think that we're going to be probably the best position in this marketplace. Because again, just like the last question, we believe that the domestic flying for everyone is not producing positive margins today. Can't count the international flow. I'm talking about on domestic fares in the domestic marketplace, we believe that the entire industry is not making money. You can't if you take out your codeshare, take out your international flow, all that, the domestic is not making money.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And that's because there's too much supply relative to demand. However, as we have seen, the industry keeps as it always has, it will react to this. And unless you see a meaningful jump in demand, there's going to continue to be reductions in capacity in this industry.

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

And maybe it's a dumb question. Maybe I'm missing something. But if we're seeing this big improvement in August and September, why do we not see that in the actual earnings guidance for q three versus q two?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Because July was not. Sales fell off in June for June and July, but it hit July the most. In fact, the first week or so of July, our sales were down year over year. July was kind of the month that didn't happen this year. Now again, unfortunately, there plenty of things.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

There was a war breakout in The Middle East and all kinds of other things, and consumer sentiment fell in June. It was probably the worst time ever, but this is why I said a moment ago, I'd love to report monthly instead of quarterly, but also you're looking at revenue not sales. Think oftentimes there's not a great understanding of revenue versus sales. Revenue is what you sold maybe six to twelve weeks ago and what you're flying now. Sales are a predictor of the future, And so as long as the sales trends hold up, as the whole industry has reported over the last several weeks, we have seen the same thing.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And actually, I guess we're one of the last ones to report, so we can put a punctuation point. Yes, starting in mid July, now for several weeks, sales are up materially year over year. If that trend were to continue, you're going to see a meaningful jump in RASM year over year. As I said just a moment ago, our yields for September on a forward basis are up 15%. But we haven't booked that much September yet.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

There's still a lot of September to go. But if these trends hold up, we're going to have a great remainder of the year.

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Okay. If I can just ask one more. In my freight world, we've got the biggest rail merger announcement ever, and I think there's a chance we could go from four rails in The US to two. And that's at least how maybe the rails are thinking about maybe what's going on with the change in administration. What does this mean?

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Is it the time to be revisiting airline M and A? Does the administration more supportive? What are your thoughts?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

I don't know. I haven't followed the M and A across industries. I have to believe they're, from what I understand, more accepting than the last administration. Setting that aside just in our industry, yes, I think if you look in history, there's going to be and continue to be, there's already is, and there's going to continue to be reductions in capacity. And one of the mechanisms that helps make that easier to do is consolidation.

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

All right. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Atul Maheshwari with UBS. Please proceed.

[Atul Maheswari, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Barry, last quarter, talked about a profitable back half. That's not something you reiterated today. So I assume that's no longer an expectation.

[Atul Maheswari, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

A, could you confirm that? And B, if that's no longer an expectation, why is that the case? Like, what has changed versus three months back that's driving this lower expectation? Because on the outside, it could appear that the demand is probably a better place today than where it was three months ago.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

It is. It's absolutely is. I'm gonna repeat kind of what I said a moment ago. If I look at the sales trends through the year and the revenue trends, we started off the year fantastic. We had the episode in the spring, then it recovered late April into the May, early June. Then much I think it was around the June 10 or so to kind of the July 10, really that thirty day period, we saw a significant sales slump. And that hit July, which is I don't know the exact number, 6%, 37%, it's over a third of our quarter and on a capacity basis. And then on a revenue basis, it's closer to half. So we took a significant hit to sales in one of our best months of the year. And I'm not ruling out making money in the second half, but when that happened, while we now are seeing huge improvements in sales, and as I mentioned, I mean these are staggering numbers for our yields to be up 15% in September, these are big numbers.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Obviously, if that trend goes through the fourth quarter, we are going to make money through the second half, but we're just cautiously optimistic. As I said a while ago, we gave a four point range because if I actually look at this year and the volatility we've seen, that is a more accurate range. If I had to give you a range for the full balance of the year, it would be even wider than that because of the variations. But again, I'll say this, I agree with you. Given the current trends, barring any other major exogenous event or economic slowdown that we hadn't already seen and continuing to see a favorable capacity backdrop, yes, it's still on the table. We're just not guiding the fourth quarter yet.

[Atul Maheswari, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

Okay, that's fair. And then just a quick follow-up on the third quarter RASM guidance mid to high single digit state adjusted. Could you maybe give us a number that's not adjusted or maybe give us stage so that we get back into a non adjusted RASM?

[Mark Mitchell, Senior VP & CFO at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yeah, the stage as we highlighted on the remarks for the third quarter, I believe was nine fifteen.

[Atul Maheswari, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

Okay. Thank you and good luck for the rest of the year.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yeah, thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Andrew Didora with Bank of America. Please proceed.

[Andrew Didora, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Hey, good morning, everyone. Barry, kind of want to go I mean, second quarter obviously continued to trend higher here. Just curious, if you look at that monthly, did you see steady progression throughout the quarter? Or was it more like back half weighted?

[Andrew Didora, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Just curious, like especially given after a big competitor change its bad fee policy. Just curious what you saw around that.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes, it continued to improve through the whole quarter. In fact, one of my directors in revenue management one day, I was walking through there, and he was just so he was glowing. I think this was early June, late May, early June. And I said, what's going on? I think it was the Sunday after Memorial Day.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

So it wasn't even a great period. He's like, we booked a 94. We haven't booked to a 94 on a non holiday in long time. So yes, we're seeing really good momentum and traction for our product. If I take out kind of the slump for July, yeah, we're seeing good results.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We said this earlier, but in the year when it happened, one of the largest carriers in The United States is now charging for bags on a check bag basis on on its primary product. So now the new frontier in our product lineup of how we sell of having a basic product, an economy product and some premium options, we're on a level playing field, and customers are figuring that out. And so we're seeing greater demand for our product as our product mix and what we charge for those relative products is the best value in the industry.

[Andrew Didora, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Thanks for that. And just curious as you head into kind of 4Q and peak holiday, obviously, you're going from kind of down, call it mid single digit capacity to flatten your guidance. I think your schedules are up a little bit. Just curious, Barry, how you're what you are assuming for demand over that period given that inflection in capacity? Thank you.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes. So I think one of the things that we have is a tailwind for us. I mean, That shape of capacity, even flat capacity, is actually better seats. So what you have to remember, we're using lower utilization with more flying on the peak days. So what that enables us to do is to command a lot better load and a lot better yield.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And so that's why I think we will be an outlier on a performance basis because of what we've done and the actions we've taken to get rid of our own excess capacity.

[Andrew Didora, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Brandon Oglenski with Barclays. Please proceed.

[Brandon Oglenski, Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays]

Hey, good morning everyone. Thanks for taking the question. And Barry, I ask this with the most respect, but I guess it's been two or three years now where we've seen a clear divergence in profitability between those that maybe have transatlantic routes and those that don't. But there's a narrative that there's a structural shift happening. I guess, what's gonna change looking forward?

[Brandon Oglenski, Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays]

Because you guys have a huge order book. You're taking deliveries, yet shrinking capacity. So how do we reconcile the outlook here versus an order book and an industry that needs to shrink? And I guess, where do you fit into that? And how do we hit that ever elusive double digit pretax margin?

[Brandon Oglenski, Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays]

And I mean that with respect, Barry, I know you guys are working hard.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yeah. Look. I I don't take offense. I mean, I didn't buy wide bodies ten years ago, and maybe I'd love to have them. But I I think history shows that, you know, there's there's periods of time where international is really good.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

I go back to late nineties. The legacies were minting money on international. It really helped, really helped. Their corporate was really good, and low cost actually underperformed. You flipped a few years later, well, those fortunes change.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

I think what's become clear, and we actually think the model is now vindicated, is this is not a model issue. If you go look under the hood, this is a domestic oversupply issue, period. And what we now see is that these larger carriers and small, in some cases, competitors will be reducing capacity in The United States. Full stop. And we then, with the lowest costs and one of the cleanest balance sheets, will be a huge beneficiary of that.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

So I think it's always darkest before the dawn. It's been a very difficult year, but it's starting to become clear that Frontier will be the winner when we move into 2026. There's no one in the ultra low cost space that is going to be our size, scale, our cost structure on a relative cost advantage. There's going to be no one that can win in the domestic like us. And I'm just telling you, history shows you will not see this oversupply for a long time, and we'll want every one of those airplanes when it starts to become our turn.

[Brandon Oglenski, Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays]

Barry, I appreciate that answer. I mean, you think the market is still stimulative though? Or have we reached more maturity of travel demand in The U. S? Is that a possibility?

[Brandon Oglenski, Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays]

And I guess, looking forward, are there any strategic actions that you think you can make to help drive outcomes in this direction? And thank you.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yeah, I think I answered what you're hinting at last one a moment ago. But look, I think there are strategic things that others may do. I think there's been moves by some others, the kind of precursor for some potential consolidation opportunities. But ultimately, I think this is a situation where supply is going to come out. Are we fully stimulated?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Funny to mention that. I mean, we went through all the places we're not flying, and we're kind of filtering through today places we're not flying. We're not chasing places that have ultra low cost carriers in them where we can stimulate. And yes, there is a significant part of The United States and near international that is still kind of untapped, if you will. And so there's more than enough, we believe, for our growth.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We don't think that anyone else in our space is going to be growing to fill that void. And I think it's going to be, again, against a backdrop where fares are going to go up across the industry because everyone's going to be chasing margins, and that is going to give us more room to move our fares up as well.

[Brandon Oglenski, Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays]

Thanks for the candor, Barry. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question. That comes from Jamie Baker with JPMorgan Securities. Please proceed.

[James Baker, MD & Boston Head - Investments & Advice at JP Morgan]

Oh, yeah. Good morning, everybody. So, Barry, one of the themes that emerged on some of the aircraft leasing conference calls this earning season was that the sale leaseback market right now is pretty competitive. There are not a huge number of transactions. There's a lot of capital chasing the space.

[James Baker, MD & Boston Head - Investments & Advice at JP Morgan]

And therefore, the economics of sale leasebacks have been skewed in favor of the airlines. So first, I'm curious if you happen to agree, but more importantly, the view articulated by some of the lessors is that as production rates gradually rise from here and there are potentially more transactions to get done, that could actually drive economics to move in favor of the lessors. I know it sounds a little counterintuitive, more supply leading to better pricing, but just wondering if there's any sort of read through to Frontier in this regard.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes. So thanks. Good question. Look, there are plenty of other airlines, one based in Dallas. There's one based in Atlanta and ourselves that probably buy airplanes, probably one of the best in The United States.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And components and engines and all the things that go with them, and we tend to probably be on the tighter end of what we pay. And that's what drives the sale leaseback gain. And in other cases, other airlines, it's embedded in a lower cost of ownership. We have spent significant amount of time illustrating this, that whether we did sale leasebacks or whether we did debt finance, we would have an advantage because we buy everything lower than we believe on a benchmark basis. And so I don't believe because we didn't see in recent years the ability to raise that because of I mean, market prices haven't gone up that much.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

So I don't know I I would take exception to that comment. We are, however, having said that, we are always concerned about things in the future. And that's why Mark made a point to explain how far out we are now in committed sale leaseback transactions. We tend to stay twelve to twenty four months way ahead of the airline. We have firm commitments on all of those.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

So we don't see a challenge in that regard. And so if there's any kind of slump, I think we've got committed financing through it. And then quite honestly, might be a bank, possibly yours, Jamie, that if the market wasn't there, we could flip to a financing world. So if that were to happen, we would potentially go the other way. We're going to have the lowest cost of aircraft ownership on a per seat basis of anybody in the industry, period.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We will achieve that through whatever financing is available in the marketplace, but we do kind of hedge, if you will, by staying ahead way in advance on committed transactions.

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

Jamie, this is Jimmy here. One of the things that the leasing companies watch, obviously, in their markets is the cross currency to the dollar and the interest rate world. Say the yen gets stronger against the dollar, that hurts them, right? And so we have seen over time pockets of financing ability in various different parts of the world dependent on exchange rates and obviously the core dollar interest rates. And so, I mean, we're pretty calm about what's happening in the leasing world.

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

We've had no problem financing our fleet for a long period of time and our aircraft or the appetite for exposure to frontier assets and through sale and leasebacks has been really, really strong and continues to be so. So we're not concerned about it at all.

[James Baker, MD & Boston Head - Investments & Advice at JP Morgan]

Okay. That's very helpful.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

The only thing I would say on the aircraft, I mean, Jamie, we've seen in the past, right, when these kind of situations and we don't have to debate which one of us has been around longer in this industry. But what typically happens is that in one of your competitors puts out a chart every now and then shows, I think it's 17 the value of a 17 year old aircraft. That's where the market if you want say something's gotten frothy, I think that's where it's frothy, right? The values of these end of life aircraft has gotten very high. I do think you're going to see a lot of those parked or parted out or moved out.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And I think if there's a change in residual value or financing abilities, it's probably on that end, not on the new stuff. Because typically what happens is when people are skinny and down, they're going to want the most fuel efficient stuff. And so if you've got the latest next generation, that's what people want.

[James Baker, MD & Boston Head - Investments & Advice at JP Morgan]

Yeah. All right. And then quick and thanks for that, Barry and Jimmy. And just a quick follow-up. You mentioned, I think, three or four times that you wish you could report by month.

[James Baker, MD & Boston Head - Investments & Advice at JP Morgan]

Is there anything to preclude you from disclosing monthly RASM? It used to be a thing.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yeah, it did actually. It could cause other volatile craziness, but yeah, we I thought about think what's happened this year, we've talked about it. We don't want an overreaction up or down. I think it's, again, I'm going say it again, probably the best way to say this, we're cautiously optimistic. Jamie, the numbers, I mean, we just gave you the facts.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Interpret them how you want. But we're staring at these massive double digit yields over the next thirty days or so, and we're like, wow, if holds up, we're starting to see a change. I think the other thing that's happened too, Jamie, just to kind of put a footnote to this, is what we're finally seeing, and there was a question about stimulation a moment ago, what we're finally seeing, I think the industry has figured out that '79 is the new 49 and '99 is the new 79. There's really no need. I mean, we've seen the data on this.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

In fact, we ran a sale, I think it was about a month or so ago, maybe six weeks ago, and we dropped the fares, and the total dollar stayed the same. Yeah, you got some more volume, but it's just you get so low. And I think that's what happened over the last few years. I'm not going to name names, but I think the levels have just gotten silly. I mean, when you've got a $29 fare, by the time I take out PFCs and I take out taxes, that's only $15 to the airline.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

You don't make it up in volume. You don't make it up on $49 fares. And so when the big airlines are running $49 sales every I think you've seen those slow down because I think they've discovered the same thing as us, is they're not actually accretive. You you can't make it up in volume. And so that's why you've seen, I mean, you go out and look, mean, a year over year basis, for those of you that kind of watch scrapes and so forth, that's why you're seeing the fares come up because you don't make it up in volume.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And that's one of the big things that I think is benefiting the industry. And I think as you clean up the capacity, then you clean up the pricing. And that's how this works.

[James Baker, MD & Boston Head - Investments & Advice at JP Morgan]

All right. Thanks so much for your thoughts. I appreciate it, Barry. Take care.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Talopoulos with Susquehanna. Please proceed.

[Christopher N. Stathoulopoulos, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna International Group]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Barry, appreciate all the color on The U. S. Domestic market as it relates to profitability, particularly ex code sharing international benefit.

[Christopher N. Stathoulopoulos, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna International Group]

Certainly a point of debate here. But the first question here, three parts on the capacity piece. You mentioned in your prepared remarks, there are certain markets where there's a you're seeing a three point reduction in competitive capacity. Wonder if you could elaborate on that. And then how you're thinking about peak versus off peak capacity for the second half?

[Christopher N. Stathoulopoulos, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna International Group]

And next year, I realize you're not ready to give an explicit guide, but you have your order book out there. You've given us stage numbers for the second half. Maybe if you could help us think about stage, engage for next year. I realize you're keeping the departures piece sort of optionality there as you look to respond to demand? Thanks.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes, so a couple of questions there, guess. So first on the three points, it wasn't certain markets. That is all of our markets. So if you go look and you do a capacity weighted industry capacity in frontier markets, so I recognize that the industry is closer to flat or slightly down. Our markets, it's actually down almost three points going into the fall.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And we expect that to accelerate as we get into winter with kind of the tea leaves of what kind of we've seen, if you will, from the competitors that are making those changes and so forth. As far as the shape of the capacity, we flying down, we are now down on Tuesday and Wednesdays going into the fall. We're only going to be flying around three or four hours on Tuesday and Wednesdays, And that's all the way down to maybe an Allegiant level. But at the end of the day, the best way to stop losing money is stop doing things that lose money. And the things that we've been doing to lose money, quite honestly, is flying on Tuesday, Wednesdays and not covering our variable cost.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And this has gone on for a while and we kind of keep chasing it, but we finally think we've gotten to that level. I'm sitting here today, I mean, on a Tuesday, and I looked at the report this morning, we're booked to eighty eight. So did we go a little too far? Maybe, I don't know. But a year ago, were at seven or eight hours, and all I know about picking the forecast, know you're going be wrong, three or four hours may be too low, maybe the answer needs to be closer to five, maybe six, I don't know.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

But as I've joked with everybody, when you show you can fill up airplanes on a Tuesday, I'll let you add some more. And so if we continue to run-in the mid to upper 80s on Tuesdays, we might add a little bit more. But my commitment, as I've said before, is we are going to match capacity to demand, and we're going to get back to profitability. And that right now means flying maximum on the peak days and on the off peak days, less. And we've got to figure out.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We've got to dial in what that is because when you go too low, it's probably going to impact our chasm too much. If we can cover the variable on Tuesday, Wednesday, we probably should do it. So I think it'll probably take us a quarter or two to get dialed in, if you will, and what the number is going to be. But it's probably north of where we are now, but still south of seven or eight hours. So I'm guessing the real answer is probably gonna be in the five to seven hours.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

But as far as next year, again, it's it's too early to say on next year.

[Christopher N. Stathoulopoulos, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna International Group]

Any color at all? Yeah, because you had

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

the order of Sorry,

[James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings]

I think it's reasonable to assume that given the fleet order that we will grow, but the growth will be on peak days of the week or peak periods of the year, as opposed to the off peak days of the week. And we manage that capacity, as Barry mentioned, on the off peak days of the week to ensure that it's cash positive for the business.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes. On the fleet, it's Mark, we've got Yes. Yes.

[Mark Mitchell, Senior VP & CFO at Frontier Group Holdings]

On the fleet, I mean, you look our remaining order book, right, I mean, most of what's coming are 321s. And so as you look at that mix playing forward, and so you're going to see just a continued steady increase as you progress year to year in the gauge.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

But we do take a step back a little bit shortly because we're taking a higher mix of 320s over the next

[Mark Mitchell, Senior VP & CFO at Frontier Group Holdings]

In the very short term, yes. In the fourth quarter, the 11 aircraft we're taking delivery of, seven of those are 320s, and then the balance are 321s. But I think broad strokes, you've got more 321s coming than 320s.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

But in the near term, that will be accretive for load factors as we kind of take our foot off the gas, a little bit on the gauge. We'll continue to drive the loads higher and higher with the other commercial things that we've done. So but yes, in the out years, will be more through 2021.

[Christopher N. Stathoulopoulos, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna International Group]

That was actually a good segue into my second question. So I just wanted to understand, there was a question earlier around, I guess, the dynamic between load factors and yields. You mentioned the double digit bookings. I'm guessing April, May and perhaps part of June, you were more load factor focused here. For the second half here, given with what you're seeing with respect to demand and the oversupply here, is it fair to assume that you're emphasizing yields over load factors?

[Christopher N. Stathoulopoulos, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna International Group]

Are there any markets where that dynamic isn't flipped? And I think you also mentioned that there's a certain carrier. I think we can all figure out who that is, who's continuing to retreat from certain markets you serve. So I just wanted to understand that dynamic in the second half. Thanks.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yeah. Look, I mean, if you've got higher cost than us and you're and you're in a similar business model, that's probably, you know, Kmart didn't do itself any favors opening stores next door to Walmart, right? So that's not a really good strategy. So I suspect that we'll continue to see that improve. But on the revenue management side, I think it's very clear.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Classic PRM. You got to get full to drive yield, generally. There's examples and there's markets that do well at a 60% to 70% load and really high yield and so forth. But those are, in our business, very small percentage, I mean, than 5% of the system. The majority of the time in our business, we tend to find that we stimulate enough to get full.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And then once you're full, start to work on the yield. And the challenge we ran into in April as we ran some of the lowest load factors, I think since COVID actually. And so it took a few months to kind of repair that. By the time we got to early June, we had done that. And in fact, we're running some of the highest loads, as I mentioned earlier, some of the highest loads we've run-in years.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We then were able to start translating that into yield, saw again, as widely reported by everyone, saw a little bit of slump in sales in mid June to mid July. That has now reversed and actually come back even higher than we were on a trend basis before. But when you look at the RASM benefit that we're seeing and we put out a guide that is up to high single digits, that is a couple points in load, but the majority of that is yield. And in this particular moment, what we're seeing is a couple of points in load. And as I mentioned a while ago, the August yields are up 5% year over year. September forward yields are up 15%.

[James Baker, MD & Boston Head - Investments & Advice at JP Morgan]

Okay. Great. Thank you.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

And by the way, I think that's to roll through to the fourth quarter. But in the fourth quarter, you'll get kind of the full benefit of it, right, because we didn't change the capacity meaningfully until kind of actually next week. So the back half of this quarter is finally seeing the benefit and the fourth quarter will get all that benefit.

[James Baker, MD & Boston Head - Investments & Advice at JP Morgan]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our final question comes from the line of Tom Fitzgerald with TD Cowen. Please proceed.

[Tom Fitzgerald, VP - Equity Research at TD Cowen]

Hi, thanks so much for the time. Quick question here just on other revenue. Is that $31,000,000 is that a good run rate to use for the rest of the year? Or do you expect another step up with the growth in the loyalty program?

[Robert Schroeter, SVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Frontier Group Holdings]

So when we get to other revenue, mean, Barry talked about this earlier. There are a lot of initiatives that we have that we believe create steps up in terms of where we're headed on this. So loyalty, one of the things that we discussed, we've already got that up 40% year over year and we anticipate seeing continued growth on that similar growth percentage wise as we cut through to even next year.

[Robert Schroeter, SVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Frontier Group Holdings]

The seat side of things, on the product side, there's a lot of opportunity there that we have that will be incremental. One of those is the first class seats coming in early next year. We'll obviously start selling that earlier than that as the schedule is out for that. But beyond that, we have flexibility that we're providing and actually is launched from a sales side perspective, but it'll be the flights will be taken off with that where we're able to increase our upfront plus rows compared to what we have today. So that'll allow us to have flexibility within that.

[Robert Schroeter, SVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Frontier Group Holdings]

That'll also add to the revenue side of things. Other than that, there's also some PRM initiatives, but also frankly on the NDC side some opportunity when we fully cut over to that. So we talked about some of the things that we've done in that space as it pertains to some of the OTAs that we've already connected with and launched. When we get a the course of the next month to two months, we'll have much more capacity going through or much more sales going through NDC as we add more OTA partners. And that actually creates another benefit from a revenue perspective as well.

[Robert Schroeter, SVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Frontier Group Holdings]

So quite a few things as we get into how we are projecting in our initiatives, our commercial initiatives, some of which go into other revenue, some are on the fare side as well. But a lot of opportunity there that exists that ties to what Barry had brought up earlier around not only are the opportunities in the environment and capacity reductions, but a lot of the initiatives that we have that we have already seen good results and expect to continue those add incremental revenue throughout this year and into next.

[Tom Fitzgerald, VP - Equity Research at TD Cowen]

Okay, great. That's very helpful. And then just look, I get the confidence 26.

[Tom Fitzgerald, VP - Equity Research at TD Cowen]

I get the thesis on the competitive dynamic. But just in the event that it takes longer to play out than you'd ideally like and we're in we have deja vu again next spring and there's another glut of domestic leisure capacity. How do you think about managing through that and just the risk of another year with significant cash from operations burn? Thanks again for the time.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Yes. Look, mean, we're always we're paranoid people. We're always looking at the downside. I think you almost have to think about this as a flow chart. If this happens, then what?

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

If this happens, then what? What we're excited about is that that could happen. Let's say that does. Do you realize how much domestic capacity is then going to come out? And so I'll just point out again, we've got one of the cleanest balance sheets in the industry.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

We are going to be last man standing in the low cost space when you get to next year. No one's going to have our cost structure. No one's going to have our balance sheet. And we see that the capacity, it may not come out by next spring, but it's coming out. And history shows it actually will be out by next spring.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Maybe it goes a little further, but I can't imagine that. I just don't believe that the balance of the industry is going to accept money losing flying for a full another year.

[Operator]

Thank you. And this concludes our Q and A session. I will turn the call back to Barry Biffle for closing remarks.

[Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director at Frontier Group Holdings]

Thanks, everyone, for joining. We appreciate you being on, and we look forward to talking to you next quarter. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day.

[Operator]

Thank you. And this concludes our conference. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• David Erdman, Senior Director - IR
• Barry Biffle, CEO, President & Director
• Robert Schroeter, SVP & Chief Commercial Officer
• Mark Mitchell, Senior VP & CFO

Analysts

• James Dempsey, President at Frontier Group Holdings
• Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
• Savanthi Syth, Managing Director at Raymond James Financial
• Duane Pfennigwerth, Senior Managing Director - Equities at Evercore
• Michael Linenberg, MD & Senior Company Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank
• Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research
• Atul Maheswari, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group
• Andrew Didora, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch
• Brandon Oglenski, Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays
• James Baker, MD & Boston Head - Investments & Advice at JP Morgan
• Christopher N. Stathoulopoulos, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna International Group
• Tom Fitzgerald, VP - Equity Research at TD Cowen