DANIA BEACH — If ever there was a company in need of a psychological lift, it is Spirit Airlines, twice a target of failed takeover bids by rival air carriers, and now flying with a fleet diminished by problems not of its own making.
The South Florida-based discount carrier, now in its 25th year as the region’s “hometown airline,” seized the day on Thursday by unveiling its new 11-acre, four-building corporate campus on at Dania Pointe south of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, amid cheers from throngs of employees who had been honored by management the night before with an annual recognition gala.
“I’m a little overwhelmed,” exclaimed Ted Christie, president and CEO, at a morning ceremony. “This is absolutely amazing. This is such a huge day for our company.”
“Spirit has come a long way, guys,” he told a cheering outdoor assembly of workers and visitors. “But we’ve got a long way to go.”
“Today is a significant milestone in Spirit’s journey and the next chapter … the beginning of the next chapter of our airline,” he added.
Dubbed “Spirit Central,” the $275 million campus is part of a 102-acre neighborhood of hotels, apartment complexes, restaurants, movie theaters and retail outlets developed by Kimco Realty Corp. as Dania Pointe, an enclave east of Interstate 95 and south of the Design Center of the Americas. Besides Kimco, Spirit partnered with Florida-based architectural firm HuntonBrady, general contractor Brasfield & Gorrie, and adviser Jones Lang LaSalle to design and build the project.
The airline will be vacating its longtime operations center in Miramar “in the coming weeks,” management said in a statement.
The Dania Pointe campus features four main components:
- Support Center: A six-floor, 180,000-square-foot building with office space for more than 1,000 people who work in the airline’s operations control center, IT, flight operations, inflight support and other areas.
- Fueling Station: An amenity building accessible from the first floor of the support center with a café, fitness center, and lounge spaces for employees.
- Training Hub: A state-of-the-art training facility for inflight and flight operations teams with flight-simulator bays and fixed flight simulators, a “cabin emergency evacuation trainer” door trainer, classrooms, and debriefing rooms.
- The Landing: Corporate housing for up to 400 visiting workers from out-of-town. The building contains meeting rooms, a grab-and-go market, a pool, fitness center, and parking garage.
The project is a commitment, company officials said, to run a more efficient operation while being an integral part of the Dania Beach community, its new host city. Along that vein, the Spirit Charitable Foundation added to its multi-year string of giving, donating $25,000 to Dania Beach PATCH (Peoples Access to Community Horticulture), an urban farm and market.
Chief Financial Officer Scott Haralson told the crowd on Thursday that the airline decided to locate its headquarters in Broward County almost a decade ago. “We evaluated cities across the country and ultimately knew that South Florida and Broward County is where we knew we wanted to be,” he said.
“The value of this investment will start to pay back almost immediately,” he said.
“Being closer to the airport with all of the amenities here at Dania Pointe, our team members and their families will enjoy a more vibrant lifestyle, be closer together no matter the job to streamline our operation and collaborate and grow together more efficiently,” Haralson added. There is also room for a “sister building” next to the support center, “for when we need more space. and hopefully that’s real soon.”
Hurdles ahead
In a post-ceremony interview, Christie told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that he’s confident the airline and its employees are on a path to recovering from disruptions and uncertainties caused by the failed merger and buyout initiatives orchestrated by Frontier Airlines of Denver and JetBlue Airways of New York.
For a considerable period of time, it appeared that the name on the new headquarters might bear those of either Frontier or JetBlue. Both competitors had Spirit in their sights as a merger or takeover candidate. Both initiatives failed after JetBlue defeated Frontier in a bidding war, and a federal judge ruled that a takeover by JetBlue would hurt consumers.
Christie has vowed that his airline, which lost $183.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, can make its way to prosperity as an independent company. But the road to success, he acknowledged to the employees Thursday, “has not been smooth.”
“I feed off the energy of the group,” he said in the interview with the Sun Sentinel. “The position is about establishing direction and culture, but then my job is to make sure they have what they need. And this group has no quit. They have just been relentless in what has been a very tumultuous period for aviation in general. Obviously we have been involved in two transactions that did not culminate, and that creates a lot of action and work and frustration at the end of the day.
“But they’ve hung in there and we’ve managed to keep the group together,” he said. “What we now have is an opportunity to be energized for what’s next for us.”
The new campus, “is a physical representation of the next Spirit. And that’s why it’s quite an emotional day for a lot of people in this company.”
The company, which is the leading airline in terms of passengers carried to and from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, posted a $183.7 million net loss in the final quarter of 2023. It has been forced to ground planes and rearrange its network amid problems with engines made by Pratt & Whitney. In the process, it has announced the furlough of 260 pilots starting in September.
Management has been refinancing the company’s debt and is facing tough competition from other carriers that are encroaching upon the discount space.
“A lot of that financial work we have already started to announce and will come over the next coming months has to be done in order,” he said of the maneuvering with lenders that includes refinancing debts and ensuring cash flow for the future.
“It’s quite strategic and very thoughtful; and we feel like we will have a good resolution to what we need to do … to execute our go-forward strategy by the early part of the summer,” he said.
Growth: a longer term eventuality
But Christie acknowledged the engine problems, for which Spirit is being compensated by the manufacturer for groundings through the end of 2024, are restraining growth for the foreseeable future.
“The biggest challenge we faced in this process, and we still face today, is that a number of our airplanes in our fleet are requiring more routine inspections and earlier removals,” Christie said. “And today we have around 20 of those airplanes on the ground with no engines on them. We expect that number to grow to about 40 by the end of the year.
“For an airline our size, that is significant,” he said. “That is going to level off the growth rate for a while, which is why we have had to adjust.”
As of the end of 2023, the airline was operating 205 planes, according to a regulatory filing.
“We’re optimistic that over time the manufacturer of that engine — Pratt & Whitney — will get their legs underneath them and start being able to move things back in the right direction, and we can start returning those aircraft to service,” Christie said.
“Naturally, we’re optimistic that can start to happen towards the tail end of next year. We’ll have to see.”
