Frontier plans capacity ramp-up in bet on recession-wary American travelers

Frontier Group Holdings is targeting capacity growth of up to 20% through the decade, CE Barry Biffle told Reuters, as the budget airline pushes to take a bigger share of the US leisure travel market from rivals amid a weakening economy. From 2024, the Colorado-based carrier is aiming to increase capacity, or the number of seats it offers, by between 10% and 20% a year as it seeks to position itself as America's budget airline after the recent collapse of a deal to merge with rival Spirit Airlines. JetBlue Airways prevailed over Frontier after a months-long bidding war. Frontier, which is about 82% owned by Bill Franke's Indigo Partners, had previously told investors it would ramp up capacity this year by as much as 15% above the pre-pandemic level and said it would expand 30% year-on-year in 2023. If Frontier hits the high end of the previously unreported, longer-term growth target, it would emerge as almost the size of 2019-era American Airlines, before COVID-19 sent travel into a steep decline. "We will now be positioned in the market as the only national ultra-low-cost carrier," Franke said. Frontier's merger with Spirit would have created a budget airline behemoth and the fifth- largest airline in the United States. Now the company is putting rivals on notice that it will fight to take share on its own. It will cut basic fares to fire-sale prices, seek to increase nonticket revenue and take advantage of the retreat by some US airlines - and Frontier's own relatively deeper pool of pilots - to open new routes.<br/>