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Spirit Airlines has had an interesting time lately. The carrier entered and exited bankruptcy four months later, got a new CEO, and has been working to make itself more of a premium airline while still delivering value to passengers. Now, Spirit is partnering with Contour Airlines to bring affordable travel to underserved communities across the country.
Contour is the second largest carrier in the US Department of Transportation’s Essential Air Service (EAS) program. It currently serves 22 EAS cities throughout the country. It provides service to the major connecting hubs of its interline partners: American, United, and Alaska Airlines. Spirit will soon join that list and offer flights to leisure destinations from several of Contour’s EAS markets.
This partnership will expand the utilization and reach of the airports served. Contour will provide ground handling support to Spirit at its EAS locations while leveraging its deep community relationships to cross-market Spirit flights. The initial markets that will be served under this partnership will be announced this summer.
The EAS program was created after the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. It works to guarantee that small communities will continue to have a scheduled air service while making it profitable for airlines to serve them through subsidies. The program is in the sights of the Trump administration, but no decisions have been made around cuts.
John Kirby, Vice President of Network Planning at Spirit Airlines, said:
Our new partnership with Contour gives us an exciting opportunity to grow our network and explore low-cost entry into new markets that currently have limited service. We look forward to welcoming new Guests onboard and providing convenient connectivity in historically underserved regions through Spirit’s affordable, high-value service.”
Ben Munson, President of Contour, added:
EAS communities no longer need to choose between national connectivity and low fares. The combination of service from our two airlines is the best formula to grow passenger traffic in these underserved airports.”
Anthony’s Take: This is a great opportunity for Spirit to pick up traffic and sell seats. We’ll see what routes they offer through this partnership.
(Image Credits: Contour Airlines and Spirit Airlines.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
