Spirit Aviation - Q2 2022
August 10, 2022
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Welcome to the second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. My name is Erica, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star followed by the number one again. I will now turn the call over to DeAnne Gabel, Senior Director, Investor Relations.
DeAnne Gabel (Senior Director of Investor Relations)
Thank you, Erica, and welcome everyone to Spirit Airlines second quarter earnings call. This call is being recorded and simultaneously webcast. A replay of this call will be archived on our website for 60 days. Presenting on today's call are Ted Christie, Spirit's Chief Executive Officer, Matt Klein, our Chief Commercial Officer, and Scott Haralson, our Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us are other members of our senior leadership team. Following our prepared remarks, there will be a Q&A session for analysts. Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements that are based on the company's current expectations and are not a guarantee of future performance. There could be significant risks and uncertainties that cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected by the forward-looking statements, including the risk factors discussed in our reports on file with the SEC. We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements.
In comparing results today, we will be adjusting all periods to exclude special items. Please refer to our second quarter 2022 earnings release, which is available on our website for the reconciliation of all non-GAAP measures. With that, I turn the call over to Ted.
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Thanks, DeAnne. Good morning. Thanks to everyone for joining us today. It's been a very busy summer with robust demand for leisure travel, resulting in crowded airports and full planes. In addition, we at Spirit have had a few other things on our plate, and I want to offer my sincere gratitude to our team members for staying focused on supporting each other and delivering high-quality service to our guests. Before discussing our second quarter results, on July 28, we entered into a definitive merger agreement under which JetBlue will acquire Spirit for $33.50 per share in cash, including a prepayment of $2.50 per share in cash upon Spirit stockholders' approval of the transaction and a ticking fee of $0.10 per month starting in January 2023, up to a maximum amount of $34.15 per share.
As you know, we previously signed a merger agreement with Frontier Airlines, which we terminated on July 27. Thanks to our board's robust and diligent process, shortly following that termination, we were able to enter into a very favorable deal with JetBlue that delivers significant immediate value to our stockholders. The merger agreement with JetBlue provides meaningful protection for our stockholders against an adverse regulatory outcome and a significant cash premium upon closing the deal. Until then, though, it's business as usual. With that, let's move on to our second quarter results. For the second quarter of 2022, we reported an adjusted net loss of $32.2 million or a loss of $0.30 per share. Our adjusted pre-tax margin was -2.8%, which exceeded the better end of our guidance.
Demand was strong and our revenue production was robust, with total revenue increasing 34.9% compared to the second quarter of 2019 on 9.9% more capacity. Our operational improvements drove a much more reliable airline and therefore more predictable costs excluding fuel. As we've discussed before, we are still operating at sub-optimal productivity levels with total fleet utilization around two hours per airplane less than our 2019 levels. We built an efficiency-based franchise that maximizes earnings with optimized utilization of assets and labor. The carrying costs of underutilized assets, human capital, and lack of capacity production are delaying our return to run rate profitability levels. However, once we reach a more traditional utilization level, we're confident in our ability to deliver normal operating margins.
The expected timeline to achieve that goal will in part depend on the infrastructure that supports the aviation industry, most notably the ability to fully deploy our schedule to and from Florida. Operationally, by June, we had our first glimpse as to how the changes we've made to date are improving operational reliability. These changes include adding new crew bases, changing how we flow aircraft, and how we approach crew scheduling. We finished the quarter on a strong note with a 98.8% completion factor for June. July's completion factor rose to 99.7%, including 15 days with 100% completion, an excellent result from the investments made. Now I'll hand it over to Matt and Scott to share some additional details about our second quarter performance, as well as some color around our third quarter outlook. Matt, over to you.
Matt Klein (EVP and CCO)
Thanks, Ted. I also want to thank the Spirit team. Travel demand has been strong. Load factors and passenger counts are back to pre-COVID levels in most locations, and we've seen packed airports with lots of guests excited to resume their summer travel plans. I thank our team for maintaining their dedication and professionalism during these busy times and for providing a high-value travel experience for our guests. Turning now to our second quarter 2022 revenue performance. For the second quarter, our revenue was $1.37 billion, up 34.9% compared to the second quarter 2019. Total RASM for the quarter was $0.1154, up 22.8% versus 2019.
This is quite a remarkable achievement considering we saw capacity increase by nearly 10% while also lengthening stage by 2%. Additionally, this is the first quarter since prior to the pandemic where we achieved double-digit absolute total unit revenue results in all three months of the quarter. On a per-segment basis, again, compared to the second quarter of 2019, total revenue per passenger increased 24.3% to $140.61. Passenger revenue per segment increased 25.7% to over $72, and non-ticket per segment increased 22.8% to a record $68.20. This is another new record for non-ticket per segment production and was 5.7% higher than the prior quarterly record of $64.53 that we just achieved in the first quarter of 2022.
Bag and seat revenue continued to improve from an already record level, and we also are continuing to recognize impressive per-segment revenue increases from our bundled services offerings. One more note about Q2 before we talk about guidance for Q3. We saw year-over-year improvement in TRASM every month in Q2, including a peak result of 30% TRASM growth in June 2022 versus June 2019, driven by large increases in both fare and non-ticket metrics. Our strategy is to continue to drive increases in both metrics, and we are pleased to see that we are not trading between the two revenue buckets. Now, moving to third quarter 2022 total unit revenue guidance. The first half of the quarter has already seen flown TRASM achieve better than 20% growth versus 2019, and as we head into the back half of the third quarter, demand continues to remain strong.
On an absolute basis, we are seeing what we hope to see, which is normal average fare seasonality for the off-peak period relative to peak summer results. This is good news as it sets us up to see strong unit revenue growth results versus 2019. Given these inputs, we estimate our third quarter revenue will range between $1.33 billion-$1.37 billion, with TRASM up 18%-21% versus third quarter 2019. We expect to achieve these results on approximately 14% more capacity than we produced in third quarter 2019, while also growing stage by around 1.5%. Regarding the network changes Ted referenced, while we are seeing good revenue results from the network changes we've made, we are still constrained on the number of flights we can operate to the Jacksonville Air Traffic Control Center.
To put this in context, Florida to the continental US accounts for about 40% of our network. If this constraint did not exist, Florida to the continental US would likely be closer to 50% of our network. Additionally, and importantly, to help maintain operational reliability and recoverability, we will continue to take a pragmatic approach toward capacity deployment from now through the first half of 2023. Given that, we now estimate fourth quarter capacity will increase approximately 25% versus 2019. For full year 2023, even with capacity moderated in the first half of next year, we are still targeting our previously stated range of 62-65 billion available seat miles. However, if the industry infrastructure doesn't improve enough to support our higher growth rate as the year progresses, we will likely be towards the lower end of the range for the full year.
In closing, we are pleased with our second quarter revenue results. We are excited about the continued prospects of non-ticket product development. Load factors and yields continue to be strong as we grow capacity and stage length. The third quarter continues to build nicely even as we head into the off-peak period. This is a total team and company effort, and the revenue results really do speak for themselves. Now, here's Scott.
Scott Haralson (EVP and CFO)
Thanks, Matt. I'll provide a few additional details about our second quarter results and share when we are planning to get back to full utilization. Good cost management and benefits from improved reliability resulted in better-than-expected non-fuel costs for the second quarter, mitigating the majority of the impact from higher-than-expected fuel prices. On a unit cost basis, lower utilization remains a headwind. Fleet utilization for the quarter was about 15% lower than our desired levels. We've built a business that is capable of producing a much higher level of capacity. To help put this in perspective, since the start of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, we've added about 20% more aircraft, 30% more pilots, and 17% more flight attendants, yet are only producing 8.5% more capacity.
The industry infrastructure is still unstable, and we are not yet comfortable that it can reliably support higher levels of utilization. By industry infrastructure, I'm primarily referring to the labor challenges across various support functions of the industry, including suppliers, business partners, and the ATC and TSA, an issue impacting all U.S. airlines. We are seeing progress. It's just not happening as rapidly as we had anticipated. In addition, higher crew attrition is also limiting our ability to ramp up utilization as fast as we would like. We will continue to balance our desire to get back to full utilization with our commitment to run a reliable operation. From a liquidity perspective, we remain in a strong position.
We ended the second quarter with $1.5 billion in liquidity. Which includes unrestricted cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments, and our $240 million of available capacity from our revolving credit facility. Year to date through June 30, we made debt payments, including principal, interest, and fees of $135 million and had capital expenditures, including net purchase deposits of around $114 million. For the full year 2022, we estimate our capital expenditures, again, including net purchase deposits, will be approximately $270 million. Regarding the fleet, during the second quarter, we took delivery of 4 A320neo aircraft, ending the quarter with 180 aircraft. We expect to take an additional 17 aircraft throughout the remainder of the year, ending the year with 197 aircraft.
Our 2022 deliveries are fully financed, and we are in the process of finalizing documents for the sale and leaseback financing for our 2023 deliveries from Airbus. Looking ahead to the third quarter of 2022, we estimate our pre-tax margin will range between -1% to +1%. This assumes total operating expenses of $1.32-$1.33 billion or a CASM ex-fuel of 6.9-7 cents and a fuel price per gallon assumption of $3.55-$3.60. When our capacity constraints ease and we are back to optimal utilization levels, we anticipate a baseline run rate CASM ex-fuel in the low six-cent range. This does not take into account any new labor deals with our unionized work groups.
As we begin to frame our 2023 plan, we are assuming we can achieve normalized utilization levels by mid-year 2023, and that fuel price per gallon will be about $3.40. Together with a reasonably strong demand backdrop, this should produce a mid-single-digit op margin for 2023. Before I turn it back to Ted, I do want to thank the Spirit team for their incredible efforts during what has been an ever-changing environment over the past couple of years. Kudos to the entire team. With that, I'll hand it back to Ted.
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Thanks, Scott. Last quarter, I outlined our objectives for the next year or two. Here they are again, along with an update. Number one, network reliability enhancements and growth. In June, we delivered very strong operational results, and we had one of our best operational Julys on record. Three new crew bases, crew services automation, an optimized buffer in and out of Florida were the big wins. Network growth achievements were capped with fantastic news of the DOT's decision to grant Spirit all 16 available takeoff and landing allocations at Newark Airport, which when fully utilized, gives us up to 45 departures from the New York Metropolitan area. Two, return to peak utilization and profitability. For utilization, our expectation was to deliver this by year-end 2022.
After experiencing how the ATC has operated this summer, coupled with our new crew planning strategies, it seems more prudent to target the summer of 2023. Full restoration of profit margins will, as we indicated, return once this target is achieved. Three, record non-ticket performance. Current quarter non-ticket of $68 is another all-time record. As we continue to refine our pricing and product mix, we expect this number will continue to climb over time. Four, widening the unit cost gap. We have maintained a wide gap to the industry, which we believe will widen over time. However, until we get back to full utilization and optimize our network, this is a work in progress. There is much to do throughout 2023.
With the distraction and uncertainty of the past six months behind us now, I'm excited to see this group of talented and motivated aviation professionals show the industry what a fantastic company we have become. With that, back to DeAnne.
DeAnne Gabel (Senior Director of Investor Relations)
Thank you, Ted. We are now ready to take questions from the analysts. We ask that you limit yourself to one question with one related follow-up. Erica, we are ready to begin.
Operator (participant)
At this time, I'd like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI.
Jake Gunning (Equity Research)
It's Jake Gunning on for Duane. Could you mark to market how caught up on pilot hiring and training you are? Given your flight plan through the end of 2023, how many more pilots will you need?
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Hey, good morning, this is Ted. I think as Scott indicated, you know, we've been actively hiring pilots and adding them to our baseline. If you look back at the pre-pandemic levels, we have about 30% more pilots today than we had at the time. However, attrition is significantly higher than it was then, too. We're going through a little bit of that right now. We've been ramping up our schoolhouse over the past six months, six or eight months, to the point where we're nearly doubling the size of that schoolhouse and still very successful in getting the necessary pilots, we need to fill each individual class and have a good backlog of resumes in place for additional pilots.
We're on target to hit what we need from a staffing perspective. That includes pilots and flight attendants and technicians across the board, as well as supporting our business partners at all the airports to make sure that we have appropriate staffing at all the airports. We're on target to get back to full utilization, as we indicated, in the middle part of next year.
Jake Gunning (Equity Research)
Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. Just as a follow-up, do you have any estimate on how much it would cost and how long it would take to reconfigure your planes to the JetBlue configuration?
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
No, we don't. I think that's probably a better question for JetBlue.
Jake Gunning (Equity Research)
Okay. Thank you.
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Mm-hmm.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.
Shannon Doherty (Equity Research Associate)
Hi, yes, this is actually Shannon Doherty on for Michael Linenberg. Thank you for taking my question. The first one, can you guys dig a bit deeper into the efforts that you made on the cost management side in the June quarter?
Scott Haralson (EVP and CFO)
Yeah. Look, this is Scott. I think a majority of the benefit comes from efficient production. Running a good airline, as we've mentioned before, has ripple effects through the P&L and that production of ASMs on the unit cost side. We're continuing to build back the airline, so building the infrastructure for us to continue to hire and train pilots, to make sure we have the real estate in place to run a fully utilized airline are gonna be headwinds. On the unit cost side, it's primarily going to be efficient production of ASMs.
Shannon Doherty (Equity Research Associate)
Got it. My second question, you know, aside from the overall industry infrastructure issues that we're facing, what would you guys say is the biggest risk to your return to sustained and meaningful profitability? Should we expect to see this happen by summer of 2023? Thanks for my questions.
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Sure. As we've stated in our comments that just answered some questions, obviously the bigger inputs to return profitability are full utilization of the assets, and the inputs to getting there require labor and infrastructure support from our team members, our business partners, as well as the various government and non-government entities that support the airline business. I would view those as the primary things that would drive one way or the other. What I can tell you is those things that we control, which is our staffing, our hiring, our training, are on track and on target, in some respects ahead, and we feel good about our ability to get there.
There are some things beyond our control as well that have inputs, but we have received comfort from various support entities, business partners, as well as the FAA, that they are also making the necessary adjustments to get us all ready to have much bigger airline business as we head into 2023. I would say those are the inputs, the puts and takes. Obviously, input costs matter a lot to this business. Fuel has moved dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic and throughout the course of the pandemic. I think Scott mentioned that we're looking at, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.40-$3.50 a gallon next year, which is historically among the highest fuel prices we've ever seen in this business.
That will have an input into kind of short-term profitability, but the long-term view is still that capacity will necessarily adjust to those input costs, and we'll have the appropriate level of production to drive the margins we wanna get. Feel like we're making the necessary changes to our network and doing the things we need to do to get ourselves back. We're not there yet, and we are, you know, collectively, I think, you know, frustrated with the progress to date, but still feeling optimistic about our targets for next year.
Shannon Doherty (Equity Research Associate)
Great. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Scott Group with Wolfe Research.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. How does the JetBlue merger and the regulatory uncertainty impact your capacity plans in terms of how much, and then also where? If you get to the low end of that ASM guidance for next year, that's about 27% capacity growth, what would you think CASM ex does with that much capacity growth?
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Good morning, Scott. This is Ted. I'll take the first half. Scott can jump in after that. As to what does the process, the merger process with JetBlue have an impact, the answer is none. We are active competitors today, and that will remain true until there is final approval on the deal from the regulatory authorities, which is down the road quite a bit. We're continuing to deploy the same way we would without a deal, and our expectation is that JetBlue is doing the same. No impact there. Scott, how would you view-
Scott Haralson (EVP and CFO)
Yeah, on the capacity guide of 62-65 billion ASMs, you know, we talked about a sort of CASM ex view in the low sixes. I think even with the low end of that guide or around 62, we would still be in the low sixes range. I think that's where we would target at this point.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay. As you think about next year, I think you talked about mid-single-digit operating margins. I guess two questions. What are you assuming in terms of unit revenue? And then with all the capacity growth, are you comfortable or confident that you can take on all these new planes and also get the utilization back to where you want? Is it difficult to get both in the same year?
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Well, there's a lot there. I'll give some thoughts. I'd like Matt as well to jump in on unit revenue. We are confident that with our delivery schedule that we've got the right trajectory to get ourselves back to full utilization, as I indicated before. It doesn't come without effort, and you know, we're in the midst of that right now. We're doing quite a bit of hiring and training for crew, as we indicated with some of our numbers. That will continue. There is a lot of work to do, but I, as I said before, I think we're confident in our ability to execute to it. I can tell you one thought before I turn it over to Matt.
As it relates to unit revenue production, we're assuming that the demand environment that we see today continues. If we had a lot more flying today, I'm not sure the unit revenue number would be anything different. In fact, it might be higher, because of the way we've throttled the network and where we throttled it. There's still a lot of ULCC Spirit opportunities in our network, we just haven't hit them. Matt, what would you dig in further on that?
Matt Klein (EVP and CCO)
Yeah, that's right. Scott, when we think about the network and some of the network changes we've made this summer, we are expecting them to roll through the fall into probably spring break next year as well. We will have a little bit of a network sort of impact there to revenue. The way we view that is that's opportunity coming for the future that we're not capturing today. Your question's a good one about capacity and deployment. As Ted mentioned, right now anyway, we feel like more capacity would have actually led to the same unit revenue, possibly even better unit revenues, because we'd be flying more to where we really would like the network to be lining up right now.
One more thing to note on that, though, as we look for other places in the network to continue to grow, these are all opportunities that we knew we'd be going after here as we moved into the future. Maybe a couple are being pulled forward a little bit early. Not that big a deal from our perspective, we were gonna be there anyway. The bigger thing is where we already are strong and want to continue to grow, we're just gonna continue to be smart and thoughtful about how much we grow in any given month or period in some of those stations. Just making sure that we're setting ourselves up for success and making sure we set the operation up for success. Ultimately, that will help revenue production as well.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
Matt Klein (EVP and CCO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Andrew Didora with Bank of America.
Andrew Didora (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Morning, everyone. Ted, Matt, can you speak a bit more about what you're seeing in demand as we head into the fall here? It does seem like the real pent-up demand from early in the summer is gone, and the industry seems to be normalizing a bit here. Can you maybe kind of talk a little bit more about what you're seeing? I guess, you know, kind of follow up to that question, some other airlines earlier in earnings season spoke about seeing maybe some peak pricing around leisure fares. Just curious if you feel like you're seeing the same thing. Thank you.
Matt Klein (EVP and CCO)
Sure, Andrew. As we move from summer to September and into October, we are seeing what we would call normal seasonality, which as I said in my scripted remarks, we view as very good news. For us, the question was going to be, was the summer demand unusual to the extent that it would just fall off a cliff after we hit Labor Day and beyond? We're not seeing that right now. In fact, we're continuing to be pretty impressed with the volumes that are coming through. We're happy with the way that we have our revenue management plan set up. We're continuing to see the volume flow through there.
Now, what I would say is, we definitely saw a little bit of pricing movement, coming out of the summer into the fall. What's different this year compared to prior years is that we're continuing to see longer Advance Purchase Restrictions on fares that are published in the marketplace. Some of the levels are a little bit lower than we saw over the summer, but we're continuing to see pretty good, for lack of a better term, Yield Fences on the fare rules in place. That should be good news moving through the off-peak period and then as we head towards the peakier part of Q4 as well. That's the way that we're seeing things right now. Obviously, that can change.
As of right now, we're pretty confident and feel pretty good about the setup.
Andrew Didora (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Great. That's helpful. I'll keep it to one. Thank you.
Matt Klein (EVP and CCO)
All right. Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Stathoulopoulos with Susquehanna.
Christopher Stathoulopoulos (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to dig into this, Matt, your comments on normal average fare seasonality. How much of your inventory for 3Q and 4Q is currently sold, and how does that compare to pre-pandemic levels?
Matt Klein (EVP and CCO)
Hey, Chris. Thanks for the question. We're not gonna get into the exact details of how much is already booked versus what we expect to come. I would tell you that, sort of echoing what I just said on Andrew's question is, as we move out of the summer into the fall, the pricing is a little bit lower. That would be normal, as we move from the summer into the fall. What I mean about how it's acting normal is we're still seeing, and we expect to see unit revenue improvements in every month here in the quarter and moving into the fall. It's staying at relatively consistent unit revenue growth numbers in each month. Is it different by month? Yes.
Are we expecting it to be a little bit different by month? Yes. The peakier periods definitely, we expect will continue to outperform even better than the off-peak periods.
The off-peak periods are continuing to book well, and I don't want anyone to over-rotate on this and think that it's stronger than it is. It's definitely seasonal. The good news for us is that we're continuing to see our leisure routes and our leisure network continue to take volume that we would hope to see coming out of the summer into the fall. Hope that helps.
Christopher Stathoulopoulos (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you. A follow-up here, Ted or Matt. Can you help us think about, or at least how you view the stickiness of your non-ticket fare revenue into a cyclical slowdown? Thank you.
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Sure. I'll take that one as well. As we move cyclically through the seasons, through the year and into next year, we are very happy with what we've seen, what we continue to see book. It gives us confidence that the stickiness is there and will be there. I think the question will be what ultimately happens to ticket yields will likely have more of an impact than what happens on non-ticket yields. As we just sort of got done saying, we're pretty confident that what we're seeing on the ticket side is holding its own relatively well. If that holds, that gives us a lot more ability to do things on the non-ticket side as well.
It gives us more confidence on the non-ticket side to continue to do more things and invest in how we think about the products we offer, and especially the way that we offer our bundled services offerings continues to develop how we think about depending on the destination that guests are traveling to. We may have different offerings in place now than we had in the past. All of that is because during COVID, we continued to invest properly in what we knew was going to be opportunity coming out of COVID, and we're pleased with what we've seen, and there's definitely more opportunity to come.
Christopher Stathoulopoulos (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Thank you.
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
You're welcome.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Savanthi Syth with Raymond James.
Savanthi Syth (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Hey, good morning. If I might just quickly return to the utilization question. I was kind of curious, it sounds like you're gaining confidence that the training capacity is going to be large enough to kind of address the current attrition levels so that you can get there. I think the other component of that, let me know if that's correct, and the other component of that is these buffers that you've built, and you need those to kind of come off to reach that utilization. Can you talk about, like, what you'd need to see to kind of remove those buffers or what gives you the confidence that those buffers can come off in mid-2023? Or maybe you don't need the buffers to come off, maybe you'd get it all through training.
Just kind of curious if you could address that a little bit more.
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Sure, Savi. The training issue, you are correct. We have adjusted. We started adjusting it in the latter part of last year as a result of the attrition change. Attrition has kind of like stabilized at this point. It's still elevated from what we like and what we wanna see, but we have adjusted to it. Absent there being some other sort of step change one way or the other, we feel like we've made the necessary adjustments, and we have seen enough history here over the last six or seven operating months, so we have at least some idea. Feel like we've made the necessary adjustments there. As to the second half of your question, I think it's a shrewd point.
We have put in place a lot of buffer in the system to run well because we had the time but also to adjust to the practical realities of the operating system, the North American airspace. You know, you heard us talk about Florida a lot. Well, you know, pre-pandemic and into the early parts of last year, we were 50%-60% of our flying in Florida. It does have an impact when things aren't running well down here. Being able to analyze those changes, be it buffer or block performance or the way we crew schedule, the way we base our crews, the what we call the pairing mix, which means how long are our crews away from base before they come back and refresh?
The analysis of all of it is underway and trying to isolate as best you can which of those things is having the greater impact and which isn't. We've already made some conclusions about that, by the way, and have some early returns on the things that we can start to your point, either remove the buffer or layer in more flying as a result of the change. Those experiments will start in the coming quarters, which is why we're being a little bit more prudent about the build-back into next year. Nothing is perfect ever in this business. We still have to adapt quite a bit to changing environment, but I think taking this approach is gonna put Spirit in a better position for the long term.
For that reason, gives us confidence that we can do it, because we're learning as we go.
Savanthi Syth (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
That's helpful. Then if I might follow up on the ancillary question. You know, clearly ancillary has been stronger than I think even what you envisioned pre-pandemic. Just curious, you know, mentioned that, Matt, that you're, you know, gonna try and, you invested in things and you'll be experimenting different things. You know, how do you have a sense of how much more that you can push that ancillary fare here?
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Hey, Savi. You know, you're right. We definitely thought that we would get to these ancillary numbers, but not this quickly coming out of COVID. It's hard to know exactly where the top end of this is. One thing that I think is worth
Matt Klein (EVP and CCO)
Mentioning that we have started to see. It's not all the way where we wanted to be yet, but we're starting to see the take rates push up well on our loyalty program, as well as our credit card partner program. That's moving well. It actually was a little slower than we would have liked to have seen, which we kind of just think COVID had a big impact on that, overall for us. The good news with this is that the trajectory has now not only caught up, but the slope of the line is steeper than where we had initially thought it would be. We're at the place we want to be with a better trajectory moving forward. We're pleased about that.
We don't talk about it that often, but I think that's something, for example, that will continue to add to our non-ticket production that really isn't there and hasn't been where we wanted it to be the last few years.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Helpful. Thank you.
Matt Klein (EVP and CCO)
Sure.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Jamie Baker with J.P. Morgan.
James Corrigan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning, guys. This is James on for Jamie. I guess since the town halls and employee interactions since the JetBlue announcement, just wondering what feedback has been. Has there been any key topics that employees have brought up, and just any general feedback there?
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Sure. Look, this is a pretty stout and resilient group that has been put through much like every airline over the past two years, quite a bit, but specifically for us, a lot over the last six to eight months. They were looking for an answer. They were looking for a little bit of clarity, and we were able to deliver that. I think now they've begun to turn their attention back to what's critical for us, which is continuing to build a really nice franchise. You know, there are always gonna be specific questions.
James Corrigan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Thanks.
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
As you look forward to the.
James Corrigan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
No, I. Sorry.
Ted Christie (President and CEO)
Sorry? Are you there?
James Corrigan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hi. Yeah, sorry. No, that's fair. I thought you were continuing. Just the same question. Airbus came out with the announcement, I think two weeks ago, that it's delaying its ramp of the A320. Just wondering, did they send you a revised schedule, or is that really up to Airbus to just determine your schedule at will there? Does that impact 2023 scheduling at all if it gets delayed?
Scott Haralson (EVP and CFO)
Hey, James, this is Scott. Yeah, we're in constant communication with Airbus around delivery dates. There have been some delays. Doesn't impact our capacity deployment at this point, primarily because we're not fully optimized at this point, so we can manage through some temporary delays in terms of you know a month or two. Not dramatic at this point. We continue to monitor and talk to all of our vendors, including Pratt & Whitney and Airbus around the number of products that impact our ability to deploy that capacity. We are carefully watching it, but at this point no real impact.
James Corrigan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Thanks for the questions.
Operator (participant)
At this time, there are no further questions.
DeAnne Gabel (Senior Director of Investor Relations)
Great. Well, thanks all for joining us today, and we'll catch you soon.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect at this time.