Thanks, folks. We're not done yet. There is still more to learn, more to take in, and I will leave that up to Barry Biffle, who's the CEO of Frontier Airlines. Just wanted to thank you again. A little bit different conversation that we're probably gonna have today than we did when you presented this time last year, March of 2022. You know, the future was looking a little bit different. The trajectory has shifted. I would argue potentially for the better, but we'll see how things play out. Let me turn the podium over to you and then, yeah, we'll keep you busy with a robust Q&A. Barry, it's good to see you. Thanks.
Thanks, Jamie. Good afternoon, everybody. Sorry, I'm bringing up the end of the conference, but hopefully, you've gotten some coffee and the brightness actually helps for sure. We'll get going here. I've got a couple slides that walk everybody through kind of the highlights of Frontier and what's going on right now with the company this year. If I can get it to work. Excellent. Okay, here we go. Here's all these sales prevention things that we have to show you on the disclaimers and more. I'm sure you can all read that. We'll have something on our website, so if you really need to read it. Let's talk about our cost advantage.
When you go back to pre-pandemic, we actually had a $0.05 cost advantage, which actually comes out to roughly $61 per passenger on a stage-adjusted basis. That was the advantage that we had on each way, so $122 bucks round trip. There's a lot of discussion about costs and inflation and all those kinds of things, and we just wanna make sure that everybody understands that in our case, especially including interest and debt, the cost advantage is widening. It went from $0.05 to $0.057 in 2022. We still have got room in the tank to further lower our costs. That $0.057 translates now to $71 per passenger, $142 bucks a round trip. This is the cost advantage that we actually experience.
When you think about the growth, we'll talk about the A321neo in just a moment, we expect this to further widen, including pilot costs and other inflations and all those things. We expect this to maintain over $70 a passenger. Obviously, this includes today's fuel price, but this would change slightly. The cost advantage is there. We also think there's a favorable revenue setup. When you think about our ancillary, we're number one in the world. We generated $82 a passenger each way in the fourth quarter, and we've actually put out that we'll do $85 by the end of this year in the fourth quarter. In addition to that, we've got the strongest bookings. You're hearing kind of a common theme.
We've never had bookings like this since the pandemic started. We've got great bookings for spring break, the summer seasons. When we look specifically at the summer, we have, you know, volume and revenue per passenger that's above 2019 levels. Again, it's just kind of the best bookings that we've seen on a go-forward basis since the pandemic started. We've also got a new revenue management system. We implemented airRM late last year. It's starting to show dividends in the form of load factor. We had a little bit of a transition, as you always do with these, but we're pretty confident that we get back to the 86% load factor that we were getting in a pre-pandemic basis as well.
In addition to that, so above just getting back to 86 on a natural state with our revenue management system, we also launched the GoWild! program back in November. We started sales in November, but it starts May 1st. We talked about this a little bit, but I wanted to make sure that everybody really understands it. What we're doing is if we look at the 12 months that starts in May and you go forward one year, that's six million projected empty seats if we maintain an 86% load factor. What this program does, it allows people for a low annual price or a summer price, we have a summer season product as well, you have unlimited travel and if the seat's available the day before.
You can just start calculating for yourselves how many of those six million seats that we can sell. There'll be the annual subscription revenue that we generate, but also what's we believe to be largely 100% incremental revenue from all the non-ticket that they'll buy once on board the aircraft. Pick your number. Do we sell 10%, 20%, 30% of those seats? The opportunity is pretty big. In addition to the revenue setup we've got, we've also got constrained capacity in the industry. I think everybody has seen this. Jamie and I have talked about this for a lot over the last year and a half.
The reality is, with the supply constraint that you're seeing, especially on the manufacturer side, it looks like things are starting to kinda alleviate on the pilots, but the hardware issues are real. It's gonna take a while to get caught back up. If you wanna order an Airbus today, you're looking at 2030. I would argue to get any meaningful numbers for single aisle, you get well into the next decade. Having said that the supply is gonna actually be constrained, we're in the unique position that we've actually got a order book over 200 aircraft. Of those, 70% are the A321neo with 240 seats.
As you can see, in this constrained world, we've got 195 seats in last year per aircraft, growing to 223 with the current order book, by the end of the decade. We're gonna continue to drive more and more efficiencies. This is why we're confident in our ability to maintain over $70 a passenger and that net cost advantage widening. You put that together, so the cost advantage plus what we've got, the trajectory and the revenue, and we believe that we can reach the double-digit margins by the second half of this year. This is very similar to what we've talked about in $3 million a plane. Just to translate it for everybody, we are targeting double-digit margins second half.
This comes from the confidence that we've seen in the revenue environment as well as the cost trajectory. We've talked a lot about modularity and reliability. I'll point to most recently, somebody was asking me about this earlier today. We had a really big storm hit Central Florida. We have a large operation in Orlando, and Sunday and Monday, it hit us pretty hard. You know what today? We're back to 99%, and that's because the modularity, so we can have a tough weather event, but we can bounce back the next day because the modularity and the out and back nature of all of our flying. We've also got a robust recruiting and training program for our pilots, and we sit in a unique situation today where we have 150 to 200 extra pilots.
We're actually starting to see that in just about every area, that we are somewhat overstaffed. We're actually gonna cancel the next few classes for our flight attendants, as an example, and we've slowed down our pilot hiring. I know SkyWest's announced this. You're, you're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, with the pilot shortage as the hiring, I guess at the Big Guys, has slowed down. What we've done, too, we actually implemented a sign-on bonus that has to be paid back if they leave in the first three years. That's actually, you know, having the benefit of slowing attrition as well. That kinda helps create the surplus in pilots that we have.
As I mentioned a while ago, even in a constrained world, we've got the A321neo. We think we've got the right trajectory to deliver to the double-digit margins, and we've got the growth that we can exploit it. We think we're better positioned than anybody else in the space. With that, Jamie, you wanna talk?
What's the path to higher margins next year constituted with? Because I think all of the efforts and that you're committing towards the pilot shortage, however you wanna describe it, you know, the out and back flying, everything you opined on during Investor Day, I think is very sensible. There is the cold economic reality of higher pilot economics next year. Once your contract becomes amendable, you don't have the loyalty kicker that some airlines do. You don't have the exposure to premium, the exposure to long-haul international, you know, which is, I would argue sort of the, sort of the global bright spot, you know, from a RASM and yield, you know, perspective. What are the building blocks that drive Frontier margins higher in 2024 over 2023?
I think they're the same things we talked about. Look, we're just a different business. You know, we don't have a global alliance that drives credit card sales, but we've got our Discount Den subscription product, which gives people access to the lowest fares exclusively for subscribers. We do have our own credit card program, maybe not as productive as some of the big guys. I think we're gonna more than make up for that with our newest subscription product, the GoWild! product. Well, actually, I think all of those together will generate more money than you've seen from frequent flyer programs. That's one of the reasons why we have the confidence in going from 82 to 85. That's all driven by new products.
We also are launching a travel site. We talked about that at our Investor Day, and that's several dollars a passenger, and that's not even in the $85. That's. There's more to come. But from a cost perspective, like I said a while ago, we believe with the A321neo, that we will maintain over $70 a passenger, and that's including new pilot economics. I think, you know, you're gonna see the margins continue to expand. Our cost trajectory is on, and we have no reason to see why that's gonna change for the second half of this year. You start to see that blended in over the next quarter. I think we're pretty solidly there. I think on a margin basis, I think if you look credit shell neutral, I think we would stack up very well against most of the other competitors in the United States.
Yeah. Forgive me if I missed this. I stepped out at the very beginning of your presentation, but did you provide an update, even high level as to how the first quarter is developing?
Yeah. We were actually a little later, I guess, in, in our reporting-
Yes.
When we gave our guidance. We just gave our guidance just a few weeks ago. I think we were in a unique situation in that we actually reflected the actual fuel price and a more reality of fuel and the current demand. We didn't need to take it down or update today.
Okay. back to my earlier question on margins. Does your internal model have you generating a margin premium to the industry next year, which historically airlines of your operating model did? Do you think you re-overtake the Big Three?
Absolutely.
Okay.
Like, we will be top three.
Based on?
Based on the credit shells burning off.
Okay.
The fact that our trajectory is to improve, and they will have to raise fares just to stand still.
Right. Okay. Fair enough. Anybody in the audience? I can keep going. Pass it over. No, I won't go there. I'll go after you then. Was gonna ask you about your business model. How concerned you are about the U.S. government kind of cracking down on this ancillary business model, and what you would do if you were forced to change?
I think we are one of the few airlines that actually was applauded by the DOT recently for family seating. We've been doing it for over six months, I guess. We had a different program even before, we've had that. As far as refunds for canceled flights, I mean, that's been regulatory out there for a while. I think there's maybe some confusion there. If anything, I would actually point to the government in the main part of their case to fight the JetBlue Spirit merger is actually talking about how unique and important the ULCC business model is. So not to use their words against them, if it's so important, I think that would be a challenge for them to wanna harm it. I mean, we enable millions of people to travel that couldn't afford to otherwise without our service.
What are your latest thoughts on just the overall merger landscape? You were pretty vocal earlier or, you know, middle of last year as JetBlue, you know, gained momentum in their effort. I guess part of that was because you had been involved up to that point. You did make use of our comment that we really do envision Frontier potentially inheriting the keys to the low-cost carrier kingdom. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it had a lot of K's in it. Is that still your, you know, still your view? Have you seen anything on the regulatory front that has altered how you think you are going to earn for the next several years?
Look, I think there's a lot of posturing. I mean, we saw the DOJ weighed in, I guess, officially, finally. I think that was 100% expected. They've telegraphed that they opposed it in some way or another. We also have the NEA, which is, I guess, imminent at any moment. I think once that comes out, I think the general wisdom is that JetBlue and American are gonna win. Once you have that, I think JetBlue's got something to trade. I think, look, they have been pulling out all the stops to get this done, and I have every belief that they actually get it done. I think that's how we should expect it to roll out.
Would you be an interested buyer/participant in any divestitures that might come down the pike, as they try to solve for the sort of regulatory conundrum that they're in?
We'll talk about that when it comes up, nothing to discuss today. Look, I think, you know, it's an interesting situation, right? If this is, this is good for consumers in a way because it does make JetBlue more competitive with the Big Four, and I think consumers and the government are looking for that in the end. While they, let's say they may fight it on its surface, maybe there's a divestiture path or something that gets them somewhere that they wanna be. At the same time, it's great for us, right? They've already admitted they're gonna raise the prices on all the existing Spirit capacity. There's a lot of capacity that they have deployed in stimulated markets.
I think Frontier, along with a few other carriers, there's a couple of them sitting right there, probably have the cost structure that can replace that capacity pretty quick. I mean, not next month, but, within a few years, I think that, you know, you can get it replaced. Look, I think there's a time value component, but I think in the end, the consumers still win and Frontier wins.
Barry, I've been asking everyone about their order book. For you with Airbus, just any update on, you know, since their last guidance to you on the airplanes you're trying to get this year? You know, question as to whether or not you and your finance team are thinking about things differently, still sort of utilizing the sale leaseback channel primarily, or any thoughts on how that might evolve going forward?
Yeah. A couple questions there. Look, we just got an update from Airbus recently, so, and it was a pretty big update, right? And we discussed that at our recent earnings call. Hopefully they don't have a new update in the last few weeks. Look, it's in the, you know, two to five month range. Basically, everything moves forward. They didn't cancel our orders, right? Everything just moved to the right a quarter, roughly. It did cause us a lot of pain close in. It's pretty significant to Q1, most impact, just simply because we actually had to cancel five lines of flying.
We already were over-hired for pilots and flight attendants, and then all of a sudden, just imagine, if I've got 15 pilots per plane, now all of a sudden, I've got 75. Almost half of our surplus of pilots right now was just handed to us in the last two months. That's very expensive. We're disappointed in our results for Q1. I mean, as it was, it was a pretty big economic hit, and it's tough on our customers, too. We had to cancel a lot of flights during principally the spring break season. I think now that we flow through the year, basically we should be by August-ish, you know, kind of lined back up, we think, with our hiring and our, you know, our overstaffing situation.
Definitely July, August, somewhere in there. On the financing, look, I mean, James Dempsey is probably one of the smartest people in the world with this stuff. We constantly compare debt finance to sale leaseback, and we choose the best economic answer, and it continues to be sale leaseback. If that ever changes, we'll look at it again.
I realize it was recent and so forth, but, it's just all indications are just further delays are possible and so forth. Do you feel you have enough visibility and confidence into what there's, you know, that July, August timeframe to catch up and so forth? Do you really?
Yeah. Let me be clear on the July, August. That is for us to work through our oversupply of flight attendants, pilots, gate agents. I mean, we've just got too much staff because we were several months ahead of them, and then we're gonna bleed that off. For example, I'm not gonna stop hiring pilots. We're just gonna cut down the class sizes 'cause it's really hard to shut down the growth machine, right? You know, you don't want those trainers in the sims and all that. You wanna keep it going. We're gonna cut it down, and then that should enable us to catch up by the middle part of the year. Yeah, on further delays, look, I think that they're not done.
I mean, they've got a, you know, a pretty big backlog that keeps getting bigger. I wouldn't be surprised if they have some additional delays, but I don't think you're gonna see anything of the magnitude that we saw recently.
Mm-hmm. Gotcha. How does it work with the Indigo order book? If you wanted more aircraft, if there was more opportunity made available to you down the road, is it up to Indigo to... That's part of it. Who instigates that conversation? Does Indigo reach out to you and say, "Look, we think you would generate better returns than Wizz"?
Yeah.
Do you compete against-?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of confusion with this, okay? We go out to RFP, and we negotiate together for a large number of things, everything from airplanes to engines to seats on aircraft, technology purchases, all these things. We don't have an Indigo deal.
Okay.
There's no Indigo contract. We have our own. We go through the RFP process, but once you get to the end of that, we have a contract with Airbus, Wizz has a contract with Airbus, Volaris has one, and so on.
Okay. Got it.
Right? Within that, I think there's been some publicity around the fact that we can swap a percentage amongst us. I think the truth is that you can do this with especially in their current situation. My impression is just about anyone can do this, even whether you're in the Indigo family or not, I think they would work with you. The problem you have is that there's a shortage of airplanes. You know, I think we got kinda slammed and, "Oh, their planes are late." There's very few airlines that wouldn't be envious very much of our situation. I mean, ask some that don't have an order if they would love to have them all three months late...
Yeah.
Have our order book. It's a, it's a huge asset to the company. I think everybody else in the Indigo family feels the same way. I mean, I think there may be a situation where, I'm making this up, if somebody's season is opposite of ours, possibly there might be something on the margin. I don't see that as a, as a huge opportunity 'cause everybody wants their planes. There's a shortage.
Given the order book, and I wasn't intending to ask this question, but do you consider yourself an acquisition candidate on that basis?
I guess everybody's an acquisition candidate, I guess.
Yeah.
In fairness. At some level.
Yeah. Yeah. Because, I mean, I think that is forcing JetBlue. I mean, that's part of what lies at the root of JetBlue's interest. I think if there were not OEM challenges, if there were not pilot challenges, and in fairness, had Spirit not been in play, I don't think there would be.
Well, look, I.
They've been pretty open about that.
I was at an airline that we bought another airline, and their order book was a big deal.
Yeah.
Back in the 90s when you couldn't get a regional jet in the next five years, for those of you familiar, American Eagle purchased Business Express.
Yeah.
Got the slots at LaGuardia and got an order book.
Yeah.
Right? We were really happy.
Yeah.
right? At the time. I mean, yeah, this is not some novel idea.
Is culture important internally? I ask only because Delta made a big point about that today. United did. We had Jamie Dimon speak, and, you know, he's a big culture believer. It's not a topic that I've heard you sort of bring up in the past as it relates to your role as CEO of the entity. Does it play a role, or are you still-
Oh, we.
Small enough and kinda scrappy enough that it's just not-
We definitely have.
The biggest priority.
We definitely have a culture. I mean, if you see the animals on the tail, we're actually.
The animals? Yeah.
We spend, I mean, it's part of our brand, but it flows through to our culture. I mean, we're the Western frontier, and it's a big part about it. The animals attract kind of a family, a leisure family customer. You know, our flight attendants are actually not only our largest workforce, but they spend the most time with the customer.
Mm.
There's a lot of that kinda feel around the company. you know, we have a kind of a culture of helping families, and we're spending a lot of time this month. You weren't planning on asking this question, but I wouldn't plan on talking about this either. This month, we're calling it March Madness internally, but, in full disclosure, we ripped off this idea from Disney, but, you know the little three-fingered Mickey, right?
Yeah.
That they wave when you're getting off a ride and so forth. Well, we actually have bought, like, thousands of bear hands. All of our flight attendants, all of our gate agents, and everyone is gonna start using these very shortly, waving at the kids when they get on and off the airplane. We're doing all these things, and I just bring this up as a way to kind of bring the animals to life, but it's also how fun it is to work at Frontier and serve our customers, especially as we get around the spring break season. Yeah, that's just an example. Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a big part of us, and I think it's one of the things that differentiates us in the low-cost space.
It's probably good that Cocaine Bear has gotten such bad reviews because you don't wanna be, you know, frightening the kids. Sorry.
Yeah.
At the end of the day, I'm really tired. In terms of the premium market, I mean, when Ted was up here, when Spirit was up here earlier today, you know, they did, you know, speak of the Big Front Seat, which isn't a true premium bells and whistles product, but it's something better than the rest of the configuration.
Well, it's not a class of service, it's actually a seat.
Yes. Yeah, exactly.
Hence the name.
They said the same thing. Had you gotten far enough down the negotiating path that you had made a decision had you carried out your merger with Spirit as to whether that was a product that you were going to adopt, and does it make sense for your clientele?
Well, in full.
You were at Spirit, so you must know all the numbers.
Okay, in full disclosure, yes, I came up with the Big Front Seat. The genesis was actually, we were converting the airline from basically a legacy-type product. I mean, Spirit Airlines had a, what they called a business class. We literally were so broke that we didn't have $3 million that it would take to actually get rid of them. I remember Bill and Indigo had just bought the company, and I went to him with this crazy idea of, "Hey, well, we'll get rid of the class of service. We'll get rid of the booze. We'll get rid of all that. What do you think about this Big Front Seat?" He's like, "Well, we can't afford it anyway.
Let's try it out." It was a huge success for us. When I came to Frontier, a few months before I got here, we had made the decision to actually go with a potentially different strategy, with the stretch strategy. We actually have a lot more seats, so there's not as much scarcity. It literally took us probably four or five years to actually finally optimize. 'Cause, I mean, it was hard to sell a lot more legroom. When you've got four, eight or 10 of something, it's a lot easier to sell, you know, a finite amount, much easier.
It would have left us with a tough situation because we finally optimized it and I think we would have had to look at the numbers, but we did not get that far down the path for them to share their numbers on that and us to share ours because I'm really curious. I'm still curious which one is the better use of the real estate. We'll see. We're not in the premium business. I mean, we're, I think, more unabashedly leisure, and we don't make any qualms about it. I mean, that's like the GoWild! product. I mean, you know, you're not gonna see people match that 'cause if you sell any walk-up, you're not gonna want that. I mean, we're not a walk-up business, so.
Since you bring that up, what has been the uptake on that, on the pass, on the GoWild!?
We're really excited about it. It's been big. In fact, you know, what we've said publicly is over half the customers are actually new to Frontier. We have no history with them.
Oh.
It's bringing us a whole new clientele that's really interested in the product. We're seeing all types of segments. We're seeing, as you would expect, we're seeing the retired segment that has a lot of flexibility. We're seeing the work from home 20 and 30-somethings without kids, which is kind of what the genesis of why we came up with the idea during COVID anyway. It works for a lot of people.
If your route planning department came to you, with two ideas, two new nonstop markets, and on paper, they looked identical. Let's call it the same stage length, same estimated number of PDUs, you know, same fuel price at the other end of the nonstop. The only differentiating factor was that one market would put you up against Southwest, one would put you up against Delta. Would that influence which route you took?
No.
How could it not? If that's the only Yeah, I mean, so they are equal competitors to you in terms of how they behave to your market presence and.
Both those airlines are in different businesses than us.
Fair enough. Okay. I mean, I think that's Southwest's problem, that they still consider themselves to have a foot in your business, which personally I think is undeserving given their cost structure, but.
I fly everybody I mean, if I go to their terminal, there'll be a lot more sports coats than you'll ever see on us.
Okay. Fair enough.
I mean, you don't fly 20 times a day between Dallas and Houston for leisure customers.
Yeah.
I mean, it's an interesting story, but it's just not based on fact.
Any others from the field?
Thanks. I'm just curious how you think about airport costs, given that's a much higher percentage of your cost structure than a legacy carrier, and we're seeing a lot of, you know, airport CapEx plans. Just curious how you think about that. You know, obviously Allegiant, they do the secondary airport thing. Just curious for your thoughts. Thanks.
I think Allegiant and ourselves are probably some of the most aggressive. There's a few new ones, but we're pretty aggressive on airports. I mean, yes, they choose a lot of cheaper airports. We've pretty much handed the death penalty to some airports. We pulled out a lot of places recently. If you can't control your costs, you don't make a good partner for us. Look, we're so small that we can grow for years and years and years without incurring, you know, big, big airport, you know, expensive airport costs. The other thing that's going on too is they're still holding on to a lot of COVID money. We'll see what happens. I think, you know, now that they've, you know, it's very clear they're getting their passenger volumes back, I think we should see some of those benefits.
Some of them have built some pretty expensive CapEx projects and maybe didn't even add new capacity, so their cost per enplanement has gone up considerably, and we've just decided not to support it. We got six minutes. No other questions?
Well, what part of the Frontier story is not adding to the payout? You have six new planes.
What part of the Frontier story is not getting out? I think that.
Seriously, I mean, I know I'm the analyst, and I've always kind of scoffed, you know, when my competitors have asked on you know, "Why do you think your stock's not up?" I mean, you're trading at a low, very, very low multiple, which implies that.
I think the world is sensational
T he market doesn't believe the estimates. What are we all missing? Why is this not the greatest airline investment out there right now?
I don't have the ability to connect the dots, I think if you looked at our fourth quarter or our most recent, you have seen the trajectory go from third quarter last year. I mean, let's back up. We continued to take airplanes during COVID. We didn't fly them. We had a whole bunch of airplanes sitting around with a whole bunch of rent expense, and in many cases, we kept hiring the employees too to have them available. We carried a lot of expenses. We didn't fly them. That's why our costs were elevated. We were, like, 7.2, I think, in second quarter last year. We got it to 6.7, moved down to 6.4 in the fourth quarter.
You can see what we've been saying from a cost trajectory has been coming through. I think we're the only airline last year that gave capacity guidance at the beginning of the year and actually hit it. I think you can check that math. Excluding Omicron and the Delta variant, we don't miss guides that we've given. I'm not sure why people don't trust us. Look, I think the ancillary, same thing. We've continued to... We went from 53 to 57 to 60, 65, 72. Hit 82 in the fourth quarter, and we're telling you we're gonna get to 85. I don't think another $3 is much of a stretch when I've already added over 20 in the last year and a half. Look, you've got the trajectory there.
You've got the cost trajectory I think the margins, like I said a while ago, I think if you subtract the credit shells from a lot of folks, I think you'll find that our margins are actually very respectable. We've closed that gap. I just think that it just takes time. There's a lot of other noise out there. I think that, you know, I continue to hear a lot of crazy ideas. We're out of pilots. Actually, no, we have 150 to 200 extra pilots right now. you know, there's problems with our operations. I'm like, "Okay, did you see the thunderstorm that sat over Orlando and the ATC things that happened two days ago? Okay. We hear a lot of these things, but at the end of the day, we just keep delivering. I look forward to doing that again this year.
For next year, and not expecting you to negotiate in public, but to be conservative, $0.002 of ex-fuel CASM for a higher pilot contract?
We're not gonna negotiate in public.
Okay. John, do you have a question?
Sure.
While we're here.
Barry, President Biden calls you up and says, "I'm gonna ask for your opinion on where the FAA should make the most changes to give the biggest bang for the buck for the airline industry," what would you tell him?
I would revamp air traffic control. It is a known issue that we could save 10-20 minutes on every flight. If we care about being green in this country, we made a lot of big deals about it, one of the biggest things you could do to not only save fuel and CO2, but save the airlines a lot of money and a lot of frustration for consumers is actually start clearing people direct. Change up the airspace.
I just wanna just go back, and sorry to kind of ask this question again or just go back to this one. You were trying to figure out, like you said, you've got extra pilots, and you don't really need as many. How much of that is driven by the delivery, the plane deliveries being stretched out versus you're having a robust pipeline or the attrition is down because you're saying you're gonna have to pay back the bonuses? Just trying to understand sort of like.
It's a little bit of everything. I'll break it down for you. We're somewhere between 150-200 too many right now. Of that, 75. There's five aircraft that are delayed right now. Right now versus what we had planned over the next 60 days, there's roughly 15 pilots per plane, that's 75. Roughly half of it is from those delays. We've also seen, you know, yes, we're seeing, you know, better attrition numbers now that we've done in our bonus program, that has a three-year cliff vest. Also, yeah, the robustness of the hiring has been pretty good. You know, I think we were really nervous because we saw these new pilot deals coming in.
Every time I come to an investor, it's been this boogeyman story for the last year and a half. I mean, he's laughing too from another carrier. I'm sure they say too. We're not canceling flights for crew. We're not short pilots. We kept getting asked it, and so we got nervous ourselves. We've been carrying an excess. The truth is we see that, you know, if you listen to them, not to make my pitch, but if you look at why are pilots coming to us, one, if you look at a W-2 and you look at our upgrade, our last class was with the company for three years. There are stories of people upgrading to a captain in two years, but ask them what their average is.
One of the Big Three in particular is 6.8 years. I just heard it last week from one of their VPs in finance. They're actually running about seven years. When you compare that on this, their pay scales and ours, you will make more money, even with them having higher pay rates on each side, because you jump to the captain side four years sooner, your W-2 over the first 10 years, you make more money with us. That's number one. Number two, our pilots get over six hours per day, meaning that the average bid is 12 days. They get an average of 18 days off. Go ask pilots at these other carriers that are sitting reserve. They're gonna be pumping 16-18 days, maybe even 20, and they're gonna be sitting on reserve for a long time.
Go ask a regional pilot how much they get. They're pushing high teens. You're getting better, good, same or better cash. You're getting more days off. We have a better portfolio of bases than most carriers in the United States. We've got bases, not just in Florida. I've got Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Atlanta, Philadelphia. We've got a new base opening in Dallas, which has driven huge Texans that wanna come with us. That's a question to ask American or Southwest. What is the seniority of a pilot that is actually based in Dallas? I mean, you're gonna get that a decade or more before with us. We've got Denver, we've got Las Vegas, and we've got Phoenix. We've got lots of great places for them to live.
The last thing is, because of the growth, not only are they upgrading to captain sooner, you're gonna have holidays and weekends off decades before anybody else. We've got a really good package. Even with these higher rates, we're still seeing a lot of folks coming. I think the other thing, I think actually one of the best things in this regard I've seen is kinda if you look at SkyWest, it's finally starting, you know. They're kinda the canary in the coal mine. If they're actually now it's getting stable, I think you're seeing the shortage starting to subside.
Last question, real quick.
Just wanted to follow up on the stock valuation. What do you have any plans or are there any ideas of how to increase the liquidity of your stock? 'Cause I think that's the reason for the disconnect in the valuation. I, you know, whatever, through whatever means, IPO or stock offer, whatever.
Well, we IPO'd at $19 and we're far below that. You can look at the history of our sponsor with other deals. They're in Wizz, I think 18 years. They've been in Volaris 12 years. I'm unaware, I don't know if somebody could find this, of any of the companies that they've taken public that they sold below the IPO price. You'll have to ask them.
With that, thanks, Barry.