Fast-growing LCC Spirit believes there is “an enormous amount of potential” in the US to continue its remarkable increase in capacity.

Over the past decade Spirit has grown by 480.8 percent in the last decade, now capturing 11.2 percent of the domestic LCC market from just 2.6 percent ten years ago.

Nick Bartolotta, director network planning, explains that Spirit’s model of stimulating demand in niche markets means there are plenty of additional opportunities available.

“The key to understanding how we’ve been able to successfully grow so much is realizing that we stimulate demand,” he said. “This is pretty foundational to our network strategy: where can we find markets that have underlying demand being priced out of the market?”

Spirit has opened new routes from Nashville, Charlotte, and Routes Americas 2020 host Indianapolis in 2019, and while it faces competition on those routes, Bartolotta believes that its low fares can still attract travellers who were previously priced out of the market.

“Some amount of that demand is being spilled today, but the majority of it is people who aren’t even thinking about traveling.

“There are a lot of people who don’t think about travel as being accessible. We’re trying to change that behavior, and though every market takes time, it works.”