Spirit Airlines has continued its upward swing in momentum, with its revenue again increasing in the first quarter of 2019.
The airline reported a total operating revenue of $855.8 million up from $704.1 million, which while seeing an increase of 21.5% compared to the first quarter 2018, was slightly down from initial expectations.
The company has said the increase was driven by a 16% increase in flight volume and increases in both passenger yields and load factor.
Spirit's total operating revenue per available seat mile (TRASM) for Q1 2019 increased 4.1% compared to the same period last year., this the company believes is benefitting from its ticket and non-ticket revenue initiatives.
“Passenger yields softened at the end of March and through first half of April, except during Easter,” said Spirit Airlines CEO Ted Christie. “We believe pricing softness is largely transitory, and May will be as expected, and June looks encouraging.
"We acknowledge that there’s room to continue to improve. For example, the storm we went through, we haven’t seen that level of ground stop in Florida except for a hurricane. It took us a day longer to recover than we needed to.