Newly appointed Spirit Airlines CEO Robert Fornaro is
turning his eye to operational improvements and expects the ultra-low-cost
carrier might begin to pick up business travelers in the process.
Fornaro, the former AirTran president and CEO who took over
for departing
CEO Ben Baldanza at the beginning of this year, said during the carrier's
earnings call he does not see a need for "sweeping changes [but] improving
the overall customer experience" will be the top priority for 2016. "This
includes improving our on-time performance and maintaining a high completion
factor, as well as improving our customer service metrics," Fornaro said.
Some of those changes include "slightly reducing utilization in peak
periods, increasing our spare aircraft and increasing crew management staffing
levels."
Cowen and Co. said such improvements have become vital to
Spirit as the larger carriers introduce stripped
down, competitive fares. "In an environment where network carriers are
matching Spirit fares with better products, the company needs to be as reliable
as possible or risk potential book away," Cowen's research note said.
During the earnings call, one analyst compared Spirit to
Ryanair, which has softened its image as a no-frills, passenger-unfriendly
airline over the past few years and has begun
targeting corporate travel. Fornaro said the comparison is apt. "With
an improvement in reputation, you'll see a lot of business flyers or corporate
flyers who pay their own ticket … not necessarily large global companies where
you have to compete with corporate contracts, but there is a high percentage of
the business market where customers pay their own ticket."
The carrier's pricing structure, however, is here to stay. "More
complaints because someone is paying for the bag is a point that we can accept
because that's a part of our business structure," Fornaro said. "The
kind of complaint we want to remove is when we lose that bag or when we have a
four-hour delay and don't get the customers where they need to go."