Spirit Airlines narrows 2023 net loss to $447 million

Spirit Airlines full year 2023 net loss has narrowed to $447.46 million from 2022's full year net loss of $554.15 million, marking a 19.3% increase. Furthermore, the airline has made a significant 32.1% increase for its fourth quarter net loss with it narrowing FY23 net loss to $183.65 million, with 2022's Q4 net loss being $270.66 million. ""The Spirit team is 100% clear and focused on the adjustments we are currently deploying and will continue to make throughout 2024 to drive us back to cash flow generation and profitability,"" said Spirit president and CEO Ted Christie. The carrier suffered a failed merger with JetBlue in January, 2024 after the US Justice Department blocked it, deeming it anti-competitive. Both JetBlue and Spirit are trying to appeal the judge's decision. The report said that both companies expect to complete regulatory process and close the transaction ""no later than the first half of 2024."" ""While Spirit remains focused on consummating the merger with JetBlue and is looking forward to prosecuting the expedited appeal of the US District Court’s order,"" said Spirit CFO Scott Haralson, ""the company is aware of its 2025 and 2026 debt maturities and is assessing options to address those maturities when the time is appropriate."" Operating loss for the fourth quarter of 2023 was at $214.81 million with the fourth quarter of 2022 seeing an operating loss of $305.72 million. For the full year of 2023 operating loss was narrowed down to $495.76 million from $598.91 million a year prior. Total operating revenue for the year was up 5.8% to $5.36bn from $5.07bn in 2022. For the fourth quarter, operating revenues in 2023 fell 5% YoY at $1.32bn from the fourth quarter of 2022 reporting $1.39bn. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) were narrowed to a loss of $1.68 in the fourth quarter of 2023 with the fourth quarter of 2022 seeing EPS at a loss with $2.49. For the full year of 2023, Spirit's diluted EPS was again narrowed to a loss of $4.10 while a year prior the loss per share was $5.10. Load factor decreased 0.9 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2023 down from 81% to 80.1% YoY. Full year load factor decreased 0.6 percentage points down from 81.9% in 2022 to 81.3% in 2023. After the guidance, Spirit saw gains in early trading.