DENVER — Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc. on Tuesday warned it would post a wider-than-expected loss in the third quarter because of storm-related expenses in December and fewer passengers on some routes to sunny destinations.
It was the second time in the past month that Frontier has revised its forecast for the October-December quarter. It predicted a pretax loss ranging between 78 cents and 88 cents a share excluding special items. That compared with Dec. 5 guidance of a pretax loss of 58 cents to 68 cents per share excluding special items.
“We are further revising the guidance we provided at the beginning of December because of higher-than-expected operating expenses related to the winter storms at our Denver hub and throughout the Midwest in late December,” Sean Menke, Frontier’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
He also noted traffic was weaker than anticipated on some non-Denver routes to sunny destinations such as Memphis-to-Orlando.
The airline previously announced it will eliminate those routes as of Thursday.
Frontier’s stock fell 20 cents, or 4.1 percent, to close at $4.65 a share in Tuesday trading.
The carrier revised its guidance as it reported a 31.7 percent increase in revenue passenger miles for December, to 798.8 million from 606.7 million in December 2006.
Its occupancy rate increased to 72.6 percent from 68.2 percent.
Mainline passenger revenue per available seat mile rose 8.1 percent to 8.39 cents from 7.76 cents in December 2006.
Frontier has been battered by skyrocketing fuel prices and aggressive competition at Denver International Airport, where it competes against United Airlines and Southwest. The competition has proven to benefit consumers with lower ticket prices and more choices.
The forecast came as rival Southwest Airlines Co. scheduled a Wednesday news conference where it is expected to announce an expanded flight schedule in Denver. A spokeswoman for Dallas-based Southwest declined comment until then.
Southwest has called Denver one of its fastest-growing cities, where it operates 56 daily flights to 16 cities, up from 13 flights to three locations when it re-entered the market in January 2006.
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