Spirit Airlines (NK, Fort Lauderdale Int'l) will resume taking deliveries of A320neo aircraft this year as it plans to take two units by the end of 2018 and a further fourteen in 2019, CEO Robert Fornaro told Aviation Week at the APEX conference in Boston.
The American ultra-low-cost-carrier took its maiden A320neo in October 2016 but, after having taken five units in total, suspended further deliveries over performance issues with the Pratt & Whitney PW1127G engines.
"We opted to adjust our delivery stream and that starts to resume later this year going into next year. It’s been frustrating, but I have to say both Airbus and Pratt [have] been pretty good partners. We’ve kind of worked through the issues, but it’s safe to say we haven’t got the benefits that we would have liked to have seen," Fornaro said.
Initially, Spirit planned to resume deliveries of A320neo in mid-2019.
Spirit ordered fifty-five A320neo, including fifty directly from Airbus and five from AerCap. Deliveries will run through 2021.
The ULCC also operates thirty-one A319-100s, fifty-five A320-200s, and thirty A321-200s, the ch-aviation fleets module shows. It also has a further seven current generation A320s on order with Airbus.
Spirit is also preparing to place a new order, expected in early 2019. While it could include more narrowbodies, Fornaro also said that Spirit would look into diversifying its fleet beyond A320 Family jets. In particular, the carrier would be interested in evaluating A220-300s and EMB-195 E2s.
"If we got a different fleet type, it wouldn’t be ten, it would have to be a substantial number - let’s say thirty-five to fifty - to get the right economics. I’m not uncomfortable doing it," Fornaro said.