Spirit Airlines beats expectations again

After being forced to cut its guidance on multiple occasions from late 2014 through 2015, Spirit Airlines has returned to its winning ways. In January, the company dramatically boosted its Q4 margin guidance, offering hope that the unit revenue declines seen throughout 2015 were starting to moderate. Monday, Spirit offered up more evidence of a turnaround in unit revenue. It still has to make up a lot of ground to return to unit revenue growth, but revenue came in ahead of expectations for a second straight quarter, leading to a better-than-expected operating margin in Q1. In Q1 2015, Spirit Airlines achieved a remarkable 22.7% adjusted operating margin during what is traditionally the weakest quarter for the airline industry. However, revenue trends weakened throughout 2015 as airline capacity grew faster than demand. <br/>