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Just in time for summer holidays, Frontier Airlines goes publicINTL

Just in time for summer holidays, Frontier Airlines goes public

In more aviation news, Frontier Airlines announced a small portion of its stock is going public with a $630m IPO. If all goes according to plan (but then again, the travel industry knows a thing or two about busted plans), the budget airline will sell 30 million shares at a $19-21 price range. This would value the company at $4.5b following the public listing.

This is actually Frontier’s second attempt at a public listing — it tried to join the stock markets last year but Covid-19 shut those plans down (relatable, huh?). Will the second time be the charm? One of its biggest advantages this time is that it caters to domestic US leisure travel, which is set to register higher demand than international travel for the foreseeable future.

*Warning* salt ahead — the carrier’s financial sheet could do with the capital injection after posting a $225m loss in 2020. Plus, fellow US low-cost carrier Sun Country Airline’s own successful IPO last week must have provided that extra confidence boost.

why it matters
Pandemic recovery is not looking great for the air travel industry — it's estimated that airlines’ total cash burn will be $75-95b this year. Not to mention, many governments have bailed out state carriers. Since international travel restrictions remain in place, for now, low-cost and domestic carriers are more likely to recover than their larger peers.