Frontier Airlines experiences strong revenue performance in Q4, confirms higher-end EPS guidance
The carrier also confirmed Jimmy Dempsey as its permanent President and CEO.
Frontier Airlines, which confirmed that Jimmy Dempsey is now its permanent President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), also affirmed that its Q4 2025 guidance will be at the higher end due to a favorable revenue environment following the government shutdown.
On January 8, 2026, Frontier Airlines said that its initial Q4 2025 guidance, which was affirmed on December 15, 2025, when it announced that Dempsey would be replacing Barry Biffle, its former CEO, is now being updated.
The low-cost carrier stated that, following “strong revenue performance as the quarter progressed,” which overcame the impact of the US government shutdown between October 1 and November 12, 2025, its Q4 2025 adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) should be “at the higher end of the previously provided guidance range of between $0.04 and $0.20 per share.”
Frontier Airlines’ quarterly guidance included only one other metric, namely capacity, which it said should be roughly flat year-on-year (YoY). The airline did not update its capacity guidance.
The Q4 2025 guidance was also based on the assumption that the average fuel price per gallon would be $2.50 during the three-month period, and included guidance on certain non-adjusted measures, “which excludes, among other things, special items.” The guidance also assumed “no projected tax expense provision.”
Q3 2025 was yet another loss-making quarter for the company, which has not had a profitable quarter since Q4 2024. Frontier Airlines ended the former with a net loss of $77 million, while the latter’s net profit was $54 million.
Rytis Beresnevicius
Together with the guidance update, Frontier Airlines also confirmed that Dempsey, who was announced as the carrier’s interim President and CEO on December 15, 2025, was chosen to be the permanent chief executive of the airline.
The permanent appointment has been effective since January 7.
“[Dempsey] has demonstrated over his more than a decade at Frontier that he’s the right leader to drive our airline forward,” Bill Franke, the Chairman of the Board at Frontier Airlines, said, adding that Dempsey will “help us capitalize on the opportunities we see ahead, preserve our industry-leading cost advantage, and guide Frontier into the future.”
Dempsey replaced Biffle, who remained with the airline in an advisory capacity until the end of 2025. Biffle had been the CEO of Frontier Airlines between March 2016 and December 2025, and the President of the low-cost carrier between July 2014 and October 2023, which includes a period when he was both the President and CEO of the company.
When Frontier Airlines announced the CEO transition, it reiterated that Biffle’s departure was not “the result of any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies, or practices.”
At the same time, Biffle had not been the biggest proponent of a potential Spirit Airlines acquisition, especially after it had exited its first Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in March 2025. During that restructuring process, Frontier Airlines made two acquisition bids, which were deemed to be “far short of what [Spirit Airlines’] stakeholders would support” and failing to address the deficiencies of the first bid.
In emails that were made public, Biffle determined that under its then-current post-restructuring plan, Spirit Airlines would “emerge highly leveraged, losing money at the operating level, and this would not be a transaction we would pursue.”
Just a day after Frontier Airlines announced that Biffle was leaving the company, Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the two low-cost carriers have begun talks to potentially merge.
By December 2025, Spirit Airlines was in the fourth month of its second Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
And the same day that Frontier Airlines announced its CEO transition, Spirit Airlines said that it received an immediate $50 million liquidity boost after its debtors agreed to amend its debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing agreement.
The amended agreement, which was approved by the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on December 29, 2025, read that Spirit Airlines will be able to make a fourth draw from the DIP financing facility if it enters “into definitive documentation with respect to a Strategic Transaction that is acceptable to the Required DIP Lenders in their sole discretion,” or files an “acceptable” post-bankruptcy plan.
Rytis Beresnevicius
Comments ()