Flight Friday: U.S. LCCs Soar Above Pre-Pandemic Levels In 2024

With all the talk about U.S. low-cost carriers (LCCs) reporting a drop in earnings, this week’s Flight Friday looks at how the largest four U.S. LCCs are faring compared to 2019.

Southwest Airlines is by far the largest of the four, with an in-service fleet of over 800 Boeing 737s.  Southwest has had its ups and downs as it emerged from the pandemic. This was not helped by their systemwide computer meltdown in December 2022, leading to a drop in total flights for that month. However, 2024 seems to be a steady year for Southwest, with the number of flights generally below 10% of the equivalent month in 2019. So, Southwest is certainly flying more than pre-pandemic.

Spirit Airlines is about a quarter of the size of Southwest, however it appears to have grown more compared to Southwest, even with the issues it is experiencing with some of its Pratt & Whitney-powered Airbus A320neo family aircraft. Spirit tried to seize the opportunity, like other LCCs, to make the most of the pandemic and return strong as leisure travelers were taking “revenge travel” after being grounded at home. By mid-2021, Spirit was already operating as many flights as it was pre-pandemic, and it continued to look for growth. July 2024 sees Spirit flying 25% more flights than in July 2019.

Frontier Airlines has a fleet of around 150 aircraft, which is approximately 50% larger than it was in 2019. This results in Frontier having the highest level of aggregate growth when compared to 2019. July 2024 is more than 25% higher than July 2019

Allegiant was the most aggressive coming out of the pandemic and was back at 2019 levels in early 2021. Allegiant has also grown its fleet by around a third, which has resulted in some aggregated flight growth. The utilization profile for Allegiant during 2024 has been saw-tooth shaped, with some months being 25% higher than 2019, and some at the same levels as 2019. July 2024 sees Allegiant at around 10% higher than July 2019.

This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.