Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle has pushed back against comments from his United Airlines counterpart, Scott Kirby, who recently declared the U.S. budget airline model dead.
“That’s cute,” Biffle said Wednesday at the Skift Global Forum in New York. “If he’s good at math he would understand that we have a [flight] oversupply issue in the United States.”
Biffle’s remarks were a direct response to Kirby, who last week predicted the nation’s largest discounter, Spirit Airlines, would go out of business. When asked for his reasoning at a conference in California, Kirby replied, “Because I’m good at math.” He added that if Biffle aimed for Frontier to become the top U.S. discount carrier, he would be “the last man standing on a sinking ship.”
Defending his airline’s business model, Biffle highlighted Frontier’s lower unit costs—7.50 cents per available seat mile, excluding fuel, compared to United’s 12.36 cents in the second quarter. He argued that Frontier serves customers who might not otherwise fly, as well as travelers who save on airfare to spend more on other aspects of their trip, like luxury hotels.
“That’s like the CEO of Nordstrom saying ‘I allow customers to buy jeans from Walmart,'” Biffle stated, emphasizing the different market segments the two airlines target.
The public sparring comes as ultra-low-cost carriers face significant headwinds, including a post-pandemic surge in costs, an oversupply of domestic flights driving down fares, and intense competition from major airlines offering their own no-frills “basic economy” tickets. In August, Spirit Airlines entered its second bankruptcy in under a year.
In response to Spirit’s troubles, Frontier, United, and JetBlue have all announced new flights on major Spirit routes to attract its customers.
Kirby told CNBC on Tuesday that budget carriers fail to provide value. “Customers care about value, and they don’t get value on a [ultra-low-cost carrier],” he said.
As major airlines adopt the unbundled fare model, budget carriers like Spirit and Frontier are adapting by introducing more upscale options and bundled packages that include services they previously charged for separately.
Despite swinging to a $70 million net loss in the second quarter, Frontier has forecast mid-to-high single-digit unit revenue growth for the third quarter, which it believes will “provide a solid foundation for profitability in 2026.”
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