Spirit Airways says the operational meltdown price about $ 50 million and is reducing the schedule for the third quarter

On the sixth day, the airline canceled hundreds of flights, passengers wait in line at the Spirit Airlines check-in counter at Orlando International Airport.

Paul Hennessy | LightRakete | Getty Images

Spirit Airlines said Monday that its massive flight disruptions in recent weeks, which have affected tens of thousands of customers and wreaked havoc at airports across the country, cost about $ 50 million in revenue.

The Miramar, Florida-based airline’s shares fell more than 1% in after-hours trading, according to its forecast.

The discounter said it is making “tactical timetable cuts” for the remainder of the third quarter to cushion the blow from staffing shortages. Spirit canceled more than 2,800 flights between July 30th and August 9th, citing staff shortages, bad weather and technical problems.

“On behalf of our entire leadership team, we apologize to everyone who was affected during this event,” said Ted Christie, CEO of Spirit, in a file. “We believe the disruption was a unique event, driven by an unprecedented confluence of factors and not reflecting systemic problems.”

The US Department of Transportation said it “reminded Spirit of its legal obligations, including its obligation to promptly provide refunds if a flight is canceled or significantly changed and the passenger does not accept the alternative offered.

It also said it is monitoring the airline and looking into complaints about the airline “to ensure that consumer rights are not being violated. The Ministry will act if the airline does not comply with applicable laws. “

Spirit also warned that customers are canceling more bookings, which is attributed to the rising number of Covid-19 infections. Frontier Airlines and Southwest Airlines also lowered their forecasts this month, blaming a slowdown in bookings on the fast-spreading Delta variant of Covid-19.

“This behavior, along with the company’s tactical cancellations, is expected to have an additional negative impact of $ 80 million to $ 100 million on sales in the third quarter,” it said.

The Spirit Airlines collapse prompted Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Chairwoman of the Senate Commerce Committee, to recently add Spirit Airlines to other U.S. airlines that they reported about flight disruptions despite the $ 54 billion payroll provided by Congress and staff shortages have been making reservations for airlines since March 2020, the committee confirmed to CNBC.

Spirit did not immediately respond to Cantwell’s questions.