Shares of Spirit Airlines (NYSE: SAVE) fell more than 8% on Thursday morning following the discount airline’s fourth-quarter earnings announcement. The results, as expected, were terrible, but investors were also disappointed by the tepid forecast Spirit provided for the first half of 2021.
After markets closed Wednesday, Spirit reported a fourth-quarter loss of $1.61 per share on revenue of $498.5 million, falling short of Wall Street expectations for a $1.43 loss on revenue of $516 million.
Airlines have been hit hard by the pandemic, and we knew the results would be bad. But Spirit underperformed expectations due to higher interest expense and lower yields on the flights that are happening. The company also said it doesn’t see a rebound anytime soon, and it expects first-quarter capacity to be down 17% year over year.
