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Spirit Airlines February Traffic Rises, Load Factor Falls

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Spirit Airlines (SAVE - Free Report) saw a 10.6% rise in traffic (measured in Revenue Passenger Miles or RPMs) to approximately 1.74 billion in February 2017 from 1.57 billion reported in the same month last year. Available Seat Miles (ASMs) increased 14.9% to 2.15 billion from 1.87 billion recorded in Feb 2016. Load factor (the percentage of seats filled by passengers) decreased 310 basis points (bps) to 80.7% in February 2017 as capacity expansion outpacedtraffic growth.

On a year-to-date basis, Spirit Airlines witnessed a 10.2% year-over-year rise in RPMs to 3.56 billion. ASMs rose a substantial 14.8% to 4.48 billion. Load factor decreased 330 bps to 79.4%. Additionally, passenger flight segments in the first two months of 2017 rose to 3.52 billion, compared with 3.16 billion in the comparable period of 2016.

We remind investors that Spirit Airlines reported mixed results in the fourth quarter of 2016 wherein earnings were 77 cents per share, above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 74 cents. However, the bottom line declined 24.5% on a year-over-year basis. Revenues came in at $578 million, in-line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Operating revenue per available seat mile fell 3.6% year over year.

Zacks Rank

Spirit Airlines currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked stocks in the airline space include Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes , International Consolidated Airlines Group (ICAGY - Free Report) and Air France-KLM (AFLYY - Free Report) . Gol Linhas and International Consolidated Airlines sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), while Air France-KLM carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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