After 12 years, Spirit is cutting 1 one of the busiest airports in the country
The Mile High City will no longer be home to any yellow Airbus jets.
Spirit Airlines announced this week that it was cutting its flights at Denver International Airport (DEN), the airline shared in a statement with TPG.
The Miramar, Florida-based carrier will pull out of Denver effective Jan. 9, 2024, right after the busy holiday travel period.
This will end Spirit's nearly 12-year run of serving the city, which most recently included routes to Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas and Miami. Over the years, the airline has flown to Denver from various other markets, including Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Detroit, Los Angeles and more, Cirium schedules show.
In the map below, you can see all of Spirit's routes to Denver that have operated over the past 12 years.
Spirit explains that it's making this cut due to the grounding of some of its Airbus jets for engine inspections. That follows the disclosure of a possible manufacturing defect related to engines made by Pratt & Whitney and used by Spirit on a number of Airbus A321neos.
"As we continue to learn more about how Pratt & Whitney's GTF engine availability impacts our fleet and operations, we're forced to make some tough choices," the carrier's statement reads.
Spirit says that these engine issues have created "constraints" and "underperformance" on the Denver routes.
It wasn't clear if Spirit meant that the routes didn't perform well financially or whether there was some other operational restriction on the Denver flights that caused the carrier to end up cutting the service.
Given Denver's elevation (and heat in the summer), aircraft don't always perform as well when taking off from the Mile High City. It's possible that Spirit's jets were subject to some of these issues. However, many of its competitors — including Frontier Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines — all fly hundreds of daily Denver flights without any issues.
Regardless of the reason for the Denver cut, Spirit's move is perhaps the most noteworthy station exit the airline has announced in recent years.
Denver has been growing for years, and there's been an appreciable uptick in demand for flights to and from the city. Airlines have met that demand with increased flights, and this renewed focus on Denver has even led Southwest and United — two airlines that operate big bases in the city — to publicly duke it out.
The move comes as Spirit seems to be struggling to get its house in order. The airline will halt new pilot and flight attendant training later this month for the foreseeable future. Plus, a good chunk of the airline's Airbus A320neo fleet is caught up in Pratt & Whitney's disclosure of a possible manufacturing defect.
Moreover, the carrier's most recent quarterly earnings report was one of the bleakest we've seen this year: It lost $188.8 million in the third quarter, and it posted an operating margin of negative 15%.
Nevertheless, JetBlue is still pleading its case in court to acquire Spirit. If the merger goes through, then you might once again see yellow Airbuses in Denver — only in that case, they'd officially be operated by JetBlue.
Affected travelers will receive refunds for flights that are getting cut.
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