Spirit Airlines plans to hire more than 4,000 employees this year to cover aggressive growth as well as staff replacement. 

Among the hires will be pilots, flight attendants, aircraft mechanics and other customer service workers.

Spirit and JetBlue are currently engaged in a legal fight with Justice Department, which has sued to block plans the JetBlue-Spirit merger. The carriers’ stated goal is to complete the merger during the first half of next year. 

In the meantime, Spirit continues to grow. The discount carrier plans to increase capacity by 18% to 20% over 2022. Spirit, which had a fleet of 194 planes at the end of 2022, is scheduled to take delivery of 26 new aircraft this year and 144 Airbus planes through 2027 while shedding its 29 remaining Airbus A319 planes by 2025. 

“We bring on new team members with each additional plane,” the company noted.

The new staffers will be spread throughout the Spirit system. Among other places, they’ll staff a new aircraft maintenance facility at Houston Bush Intercontinental and crew bases opened last year in Atlanta, Houston and Miami. 

Spirit added nine new cities to it network last year.

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