Spirit Airlines (NK, Fort Lauderdale International) and Frontier Airlines (F9, Denver International) have revealed that their respective capacity growth plans for 2023 will suffer slightly due to delayed A320neo Family deliveries.

"We have been notified by Airbus that a number of our expected 2023 deliveries will be delayed until 2024, which may cascade some aircraft into 2025, all reducing the number of aircraft delivered from Airbus and our lessor partners by seven in 2023," Spirit Chief Executive Ted Christie said during the carrier's annual investor call.

Spirit Airlines does not disclose the number of aircraft it plans to take per year in its plans. However, the ch-aviation fleets module shows that the LCC has thirty-one A319-100Ns, forty-eight A320-200Ns, and forty-one A321-200Ns due from the manufacturer and lessors.

The airline said it reduced its capacity forecast for 2023 by 4.5-5.5% compared to the previous plan and intended to grow by 19-22% this year.

"We estimate about 40% of this reduction is related to the diminished A320neo engine performance coupled with no or limited spare engine availability. We estimate about 30% is related to the Airbus delivery delays, and about 20% is driven by the accelerated retirement of our A319-100 aircraft. The remaining reduction is related to the continued buffers we have in place to support the operation due to continued industry infrastructure constraints," Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer Scott Haralson said.

Haralson said that at this point, Spirit was not pursuing penalties from Airbus as the delays were "sort of excused" due to global supply chain issues.

Rival LCC Frontier is battling a similar problem.

"In December 2022, Airbus notified the company of its intent to shift aircraft deliveries by a range of one to five months for aircraft initially scheduled in 2023, causing nine A321neo aircraft to shift into 2024 from 2023 and reducing available capacity growth in 2023 by approximately 5%," Frontier said in its annual report.

Frontier's order book comprises forty-nine A320-200Ns and 169 A321-200Ns.

"Although aircraft manufacturers are dealing with supply chain issues, the delays we're experiencing from Airbus are between one to five months. While we're disappointed with these delays, they effectively represent a manageable one-quarter shift on average across our order book," President and CEO Barry Biffle said.