Pilot Steve Giordano’s career was just beginning when Spirit Airlines grounded his plane before dawn on May 2nd.
Giordano, managing partner of Nomadic Aviation Group, told CNBC that the company had planned a major recall of more than 20 Spirit aircraft that their lessors were seeking back.
In just over a week, he said he and his team have transported 23 Spirit planes from airports across the United States to the Arizona desert. Just hours earlier, a bright yellow Airbus plane was flying Spirit customers.
Giordano, who runs Nomadic with co-founder Bob Allen, started hearing in the early morning hours of May 1 that his team would soon be on the job. On May 1, “the trigger was finally pulled and crew movement began at 6 p.m.,” he said. Spirit shut down at 3 a.m. Eastern time the next morning.
So Nomadic and hired pilots, some of whom had previously flown on the Spirit, began ferrying the planes west, without passengers, to special airports outside Phoenix and Tuscon, Arizona, where they will be stored for the time being.
Retired and unused aircraft are often parked in the desert because the climate reduces the risk of corrosion and other damage. Airlines parked thousands of planes there when the coronavirus pandemic disrupted travel.
requisition of aircraft
A retired Spirit Airlines Airbus aircraft in Coolidge, Arizona in February 2023.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC
Nomadic organizes everything from getting the fuel for the planes they fly to ensuring they have the inspections and crews they need to fly.
Unlike airlines, which have many dispatchers, mechanics and pilots, “when you’re on a mission like this, you have a lot more responsibility in terms of accomplishing the mission,” Giordano told CNBC. “Honestly, the easy part of this is the flying part.”
Nomadic is an aviation specialist. The company typically transports aircraft to new customers around the world. In rare cases, when an airline goes into liquidation, its work may mean getting the aircraft back to the leasing company or other owner.
“This is certainly the least common type of surgery that we perform,” Giordano said.
Major airline closures are rare in the United States, and Spirit’s bankruptcy was the largest in decades. Earlier this month, Spirit began the lengthy process of dissolving the discount company in bankruptcy court.
Part of that liquidation process involves returning the aircraft to the lessor, and this is where Nomadic Aviation comes into play. According to court filings, Spirit had a fleet of 114 Airbus A320 aircraft, 66 of which were leased.
Giordano said he was so busy ahead of Spirit’s recovery flight that he forgot to eat.
“By the time I got to the plane, I thought, ‘Oh, I’m really hungry, I don’t have any other options until I get to Arizona,'” Giordano said. “One of the mechanics said, ‘All the galley carts are full.’ I mean, it had all the regular spirit snacks. I think I ate Milano cookies. … I ate some snack boxes that had cheese in them. It was basically free and unlimited.”
Like Wi-Fi, not everything is available for free.
“I had to pay, but it worked out,” he said of the Spirit plane that ferried him from Philadelphia International Airport to Pinal County Airport in Marana, Arizona.
there is a demand
Spirit Airlines’ Airbus A320 was parked at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, days after the airline grounded it.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC
It’s not clear where each plane in Spirit’s fleet will ultimately end up. The airline had already trimmed its fleet and cut routes in recent years to save money.
Engines that were not included in the massive Pratt & Whitney recall that grounded Spirit jets and damaged the company years before filing for bankruptcy could be in high demand.
Pratt & Whitney PW1127G engines cost about $14.5 million in January, up from $11.3 million three years ago, according to aviation consulting firm IBA Group.
Post-COVID-19 supply chain shortages have increased the value of used parts, and although there are hundreds of parts that can make up an aircraft and be sold, none are more valuable than the engine.
“It will be very welcome to have the engine running,” IBA chief economist Stuart Hatcher said. “The turnaround time in the store is probably close to double what it normally would be.”
Giordano, who lives not far from Philadelphia Airport, said it was “surreal” driving to work to fly the last Spirit plane out of the airport.
“This is the last time this will happen, but I happen to be the one steering it,” he said.
