Spirit Airlines planes head into the desert, led by repo pilots

When Spirit Airlines shut down before dawn on May 2, the work for pilot Steve Giordano was just beginning.

Giordano, managing partner of Nomadic Aviation Group, told CNBC he organized a massive trade-in of more than 20 Spirit planes that lessors wanted returned.

In just over a week, he said he and his team transported 23 Spirit planes from airports across the country to the Arizona desert. A few hours earlier, these bright yellow Airbuses were carrying Spirit customers.

Giordano, who runs Nomadic with co-founder Bob Allen, was beginning to hear late on the morning of May 1 that his team would soon be at work. “We were finally able to pull the trigger to start moving crews in at 6 p.m.” on May 1, he said. Spirit shut down at 3 a.m. ET the next morning.

So nomadic, hired pilots — some of whom previously flew for Spirit — began ferrying the plane West without customers on board to special airports. outside of Phoenix and Tuscon, Arizona, where they will be stored for the time being.

Retired or unused aircraft are often parked in the desert because the climate reduces the risk of corrosion or other damage. Airlines parked thousands of them there when travel collapsed because of the Covid pandemic.

Nomadic organizes everything from sourcing fuel for the planes it flies to ensuring the planes have the necessary inspections and crews for flights.

Unlike an airline that has a large staff of dispatchers, mechanics and pilots, “when you go on a mission like this, you have a lot more responsibility to accomplish the mission,” Giordano told CNBC. “To be honest, the easiest part is the flying part.”

Nomadic is an aviation specialist. The company typically transports aircraft to new customers around the world. Rarely, the company’s work also involves repossessing aircraft for leasing companies or other owners in the event of an airline liquidation.

“It’s definitely the least frequent type of surgery that we do,” Giordano said.

Major airline closures in the United States are rare, and Spirit’s collapse was the largest in decades. Earlier this month, Spirit began the lengthy process of breaking up the discount carrier in bankruptcy court.

Part of this liquidation process involves returning the planes to lessors, and that’s where Nomadic Aviation comes in. According to a court filing, Spirit owned 114 Airbus A320 planes, and 66 of them were leased.

Giordano said he was so busy before a Spirit repossession flight that he forgot to eat.

“By the time I got to the plane, I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m really hungry and there’s not going to be any options until I get to Arizona,'” Giordano said. “One of the mechanics said, ‘Hey, all the kitchen carts are full.’ So there were all the normal Spirit snacks. I think I ate Milano cookies. … I had a few boxes of snacks with cheese. It was basically free and unlimited.”

Not everything was free, like Wi-Fi.

“I had to pay for it, but it worked,” he said of the Spirit plane he flew from Philadelphia International Airport to Pinal County Airport in Marana, Arizona.

It’s unclear where each plane in Spirit’s fleet will end up. The carrier had already reduced its fleet in recent years and cut routes to save money.

Engines that weren’t part of a major Pratt & Whitney recall that grounded Spirit’s jets and damaged the airline years before it even declared bankruptcy could be in high demand.

A Pratt & Whitney PW1127G engine cost about $14.5 million in January, up from $11.3 million three years earlier, according to aviation consultancy IBA Group.

Supply chain deficits since Covid have driven up the value of used parts, with none more valuable than engines, although there are hundreds of components that make up a plane and can be sold.

“Operational drivers will be very well received,” said Stuart Hatcher, IBA’s chief economist. “The turnaround time in stores is probably still close to double what it should be.”

Giordano, who lives not far from the Philadelphia airport, said it was “surreal” to go to work to fly the last Spirit plane out of that airport.

“This is the last time this will happen, and I happen to be flying this plane,” he said.