Spirit Airlines shares surged Friday after the struggling budget carrier said it would cut jobs and sell aircraft.

The stock closed the day 16% higher, at $2.79 per share.

The carrier late Thursday laid out a plan to reduce costs and raise cash by selling 23 older Airbus aircraft. That sale will bring in $519 million, Spirit said in a securities filing.

It also said it will reduce costs by about $80 million, mostly through job cuts.

Last week the airline again delayed a deadline to refinance more than $1 billion in debt until late December, giving it breathing room with its credit card processor.

Spirit has struggled to return to profitability in the wake of the pandemic, facing a shift in travel demand and the grounding of dozens of Pratt & Whitney powered aircraft.

Even with Friday’s jump, Spirit’s shares have tumbled more than 80% this year after a judge blocked its planned acquisition by JetBlue Airways.

Spirit didn’t immediately comment on how many employees it will cut but said its 2025 capacity will be down in the mid-teen percentage point range compared with this year. It started furloughing about 200 pilots in September. Flight attendants “are well-positioned” because so many crew members took voluntary leaves of absence, according to the company.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Spirit and Frontier Airlines have revived merger discussions, sending shares higher. The airlines didn’t immediately comment. The two budget airlines had a merger agreement that was derailed by JetBlue‘s April 2022 offer to purchase Spirit outright.

Late Thursday, Spirit forecast a third-quarter negative operating margin of 24.5%, better than a previous estimate for as much as a negative 29% margin for the three-month period.

Boeing and its machinists’ union have reached a new contract proposal, the union said Saturday, outlining a deal that could end a more than monthlong strike that has hobbled the manufacturers’ aircraft  production.

The ratification vote is set for Wednesday.

The new proposal includes 35% wage increases over four years, a higher signing bonus of $7,000, guaranteed minimum payouts in an annual bonus program and higher 401(k) contributions among other changes.

Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su met with both parties earlier this week. “With the help of Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su, we have received a negotiated proposal and resolution to end the strike, and it warrants presenting to the members and is worthy of your consideration,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 said in a statement Saturday.

“President Biden believes the collective bargaining process is the best way to achieve good outcomes for workers, and the ultimate decision on a contract will be for the union workers to decide,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement.

The strike began Sept. 13 after more than 30,000 machinists overwhelmingly rejected a tentative agreement that included 25% wage increases over four years. Boeing later made a sweetened offer but the union blasted it saying it was not negotiated.

“We look forward to our employees voting on the negotiated proposal,” Boeing said in a statement.

Boeing is working to stop bleeding cash as it grapples with a safety crisis stemming from a near-catastrophic door plug blowout on one of its 737 Maxes at start the year and challenges in its other programs.

The company earlier this month said it will report a deep loss and take charges of about $5 billion in its commercial and defense units. A ratified contract on Wednesday, when Boeing also reports full results, would be a victory for new CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took the top job in August, tasked with reshaping the company.

On Oct. 11, he announced job cuts of 10% of Boeing’s workforce and that the company will stop making 767s when orders are fulfilled in 2027.

Brazilian plane maker Embraer is studying the market and new technology that could warrant it building an all-new jet, CEO Francisco Gomes Neto told CNBC.

A new airplane could help the airplane manufacturer compete with much larger rivals Airbus and Boeing, which deliver hundreds of jets a year compared with Embraer’s dozens of aircraft.

But Gomes Neto noted that no decisions have been made yet.

“At this point in time, we don’t have concrete plans to go to a big narrow body,” he said, adding that the studies for new engine technologies, avionics and potential demand are “to be prepared.”

In the meantime, Gomes Neto said Embraer is focused on improving results and selling its regional planes, which won orders earlier this year from American Airlines, manufacturing its E2 jet, and “delivering what we promise” customers.

Embraer said Friday that it delivered 16 commercial jets in the third quarter, up more than 5% from a year earlier. Including its defense and business jets, the company handed over 57 jets in the period, a third more than last year.

The Federal Aviation Administration approved a freighter version of its E190 passenger-to-freighter converted jet earlier this month, helping clear the way for its commercial introduction.

“This is maybe the advantage we have: We have a great product [that’s] available,” Gomes Neto said.

Both Airbus and Boeing are struggling to ramp up production and deliver aircraft on time in the wake of the pandemic. Boeing has the added challenges of a safety crisis and a machinist strike.

Boeing once had plans to take control of Embraer’s commercial jet business but ended those discussions in early 2020. Last month, Embraer said Boeing would pay it $150 million over the scuttled plan.

Like its competitors, Embraer is facing supply chain strains coming out of the pandemic, and the company is taking a more in-depth look at delivery capabilities.

Engines, hydraulic valves, cabin interiors and components for them are some of the areas where it has been difficult to ramp up production from suppliers, Gomes Neto said. He added that he expects supply chain problems will likely ease in 2026.

Spirit Airlines on Friday said it reached an agreement with its credit card processor to again extended a debt refinancing timeline to December, hours before it was set to hit its deadline.

Spirit said in a filing late Friday that earlier this week it drew down the entirety of its $300 million revolving credit facility and expects to end the year with just over $1 billion in liquidity.

“As previously disclosed, the Company remains in active and constructive discussions with holders of its senior secured notes due 2025 and convertible senior notes due 2026 with respect to their respective maturities,” Spirit said in a filing late Friday.

The deadline was previously set in September and had been extended until Oct. 21 before the Friday change. The airline’s stock closed at a new low Friday, down roughly 3%, at less than $1.50 per share.

The Miramar, Florida-based airline has furloughed workers, slashed its schedule and deferred aircraft deliveries to save cash over the past year.

Many of its planes have been grounded because of a Pratt & Whitney engine recall. It has also reported weaker-than-expected bookings and its planned acquisition by JetBlue Airways was scuttled after getting blocked by a federal judge on antitrust grounds.

Its shares have tumbled more than 90% so far this year and nearly 40% so far in October alone.

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal said the carrier is considering a bankruptcy filing. Spirit and advisor Perella Weinberg Partners did not immediately comment on the matter.

Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems will furlough some 700 workers as a strike by machinists at the plane maker enters its sixth week, a spokesman for the supplier said Friday.

More than 32,000 Boeing workers walked off the job Sept. 13 after overwhelmingly rejecting a tentative labor deal with Boeing, deepening the aircraft producer’s financial strain and handing a new challenge to CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took the reins just over two months ago.

The temporary furloughs account for about 5% of Spirit’s U.S. workforce, according to its latest annual filing.

The temporary furloughs will affect employees at Spirit’s largest facilities, in Wichita, Kansas, and account for about 5% of Spirit’s U.S. workforce, according to its latest annual filing. Meanwhile, Boeing and its machinists’ union remain at an impasse, and Spirit is considering deeper cuts.

“If the strike continues beyond November, we will have to implement layoffs and additional furloughs,” Spirit spokesman Joe Buccino told CNBC on Friday.

Ortberg, who faces investors in his first earnings call next Wednesday, last week announced a series of drastic measures meant to slash costs as the company’s losses mount, including cutting the workforce by 10%, or about 17,000 people. Boeing is also ending 767 commercial production when orders are fulfilled in 2027 and said its long-delayed 777X wide-body jet won’t debut until 2026, pushing it back yet another year.

Boeing is in the process of raising debt or equity to increase liquidity.

The roughly 700 Spirit workers affected by the 21-day furlough are assigned to the 777 and 767 programs for Boeing, for which Spirit has built up “significant inventory,” Buccino said. Spirit workers on Boeing’s bestselling 737 Max are not affected, he added. Work on all three programs, however, is stalled because of the strike.

Boeing agreed to acquire Spirit this summer, but the companies don’t expect the deal to close until mid-2025. Reuters earlier reported Spirit’s latest furloughs.

Boeing said Tuesday that it could raise as much as $25 billion in shares or debt over three years, a move to increase liquidity as the troubled manufacturer faces a more than monthlong machinist strike and problems throughout its aircraft programs.

“This universal shelf registration provides flexibility for the company to seek a variety of capital options as needed to support the company’s balance sheet over a three year period,” Boeing said in a statement.

Boeing shares are down nearly 42% this year as of Tuesday.

Bank of America aerospace analysts have estimated that Boeing will raise between $10 billion and $15 billion in equity.

“We expect Boeing to offer equity first, which should shore up the company’s balance sheet in the near term while maintaining the option to later issue equity debt with a lower risk of a credit downgrade,” BoFA analyst Ron Epstein wrote Tuesday.

Fitch Ratings said Boeing’s announcement Tuesday will “increase financial flexibility and moderate near-term liquidity concerns.”

Boeing is trying to shore up its balance sheet as it faces warnings from credit ratings agencies that it could lose its investment-grade rating.

S&P Global Ratings, one of the agencies that warned about a downgrade, last week estimated that the machinist strike is costing Boeing more than $1 billion a month.

The two sides have been at an impasse. On Tuesday, four U.S. lawmakers representing Washington state wrote to Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, Jon Holden, president of IAM District 751, and Brandon Bryant, president president of IAM District W24, urging the parties to come to a solution.

The lawmakers said they hoped they will “will expeditiously work out a fair and durable deal that recognizes the importance of the machinist workforce to Boeing’s future, the aerospace economy of the Pacific Northwest, and the nation,” in the letter, signed by Washington state Democrats, Sens. Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray and U.S. Rep. Adam Smith and Rep. Rick Larsen.

Earlier, Boeing separately said in a filing that it has an agreement with a consortium of banks for a $10 billion credit agreement.

“The credit facility provides additional short term access to liquidity as we navigate through a challenging environment,” the company said in a statement. “The company has not drawn on this facility or its existing credit revolver.”

On Friday, Ortberg, warned that the company plans to lay off about 17,000 employees, or 10% of its global workforce to cut costs.

“We need to be clear-eyed about the work we face and realistic about the time it will take to achieve key milestones on the path to recovery,” he said, adding that Boeing needs to focus resources on “areas that are core to who we are.”

The announcement came alongside preliminary financial results, showing mounting losses and $5 billion in charges in Boeing’s defense and commercial airplane units.

On Oct. 23, Ortberg will hold his first quarterly investor call since becoming Boeing’s CEO in August.

United Airlines said Tuesday that it is starting a $1.5 billion share buyback as the carrier reported higher-than-expected earnings for the busy summer travel season and forecast strong results for the last three months of the year.

United expects to earn an adjusted $2.50 to $3.00 a share in the fourth quarter, compared to $2.00 a share a year earlier and the $2.68 analysts polled by LSEG estimated.

Here is what United reported for the third quarter compared with what Wall Street expected, based on average estimates compiled by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: $3.33 adjusted vs. $3.17 expected
• Revenue: $14.84 billion vs. $14.78 billion expected

The share buyback would be United’s first since before the Covid-19 pandemic. U.S. airlines received more than $50 billion in government aid during the pandemic travel slump that prohibited share repurchases and dividends, though airlines were still fighting for financial stability.

Southwest Airlines announced a $2.5 billion share repurchase program last month.

“Like other leading airlines and companies, we are initiating a measured, strategic share repurchase program,” United CEO Scott Kirby said in a note to staff on Tuesday. “Importantly, my commitment to you is that investing in our people and our business will always be my top priority even while we institute this share repurchase program.”

For the third quarter, United posted revenue of $14.84 billion, up 2.5% from a year earlier and above analysts’ estimates. It reported net income of $965 million, down 15% from a year ago.

United said domestic unit revenue was positive in August and September compared to last year as airlines trimmed a glut of flights that were pushing down fares. United expanded capacity by 4.1% in the third quarter. The carrier said corporate revenue rose 13% in the quarter; premium revenue, including business class tickets, rose 5%; and sales from its no-frills basic economy tickets were up 20%.

The airline last week unveiled a far-flung expansion for next year that included new flights to Mongolia, Senegal, Spain and Greenland in a chase for international travel demand.

Adjusting for one-time items, United reported earnings per share of $3.33, topping Wall Street forecasts and United’s estimate in July of $2.75 to $3.25 a share.

Airline executives will hold a call with analysts at 10:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday and will likely face questions about demand for the end of the year and into 2025, as well as production problems at Boeing, where most factories have been idled during a more than monthlong machinist strike.

It’s been just over a month since more than 30,000 Boeing machinists walked off the job after overwhelmingly voting down a tentative contract. Costs and tensions have only risen since then.

The strike is adding to pressure on Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, who was brought in over the summer to solve the plane maker’s various troubles. The strike, which S&P Global Ratings estimates costs Boeing more than $1 billion a month, bookends an already difficult year that started with a near-catastrophic blowout of a 737 Max door plug and comes six years after the first of two fatal Max crashes put the storied manufacturer in constant crisis mode.

The union and company remain at an impasse, and airplane production at factories in the Seattle area and other locations has been idled, depriving Boeing of cash. Boeing last week pulled a sweetened contract offer that the union had rejected, saying it wasn’t negotiated.

Boeing officials had been upbeat to airline customers about getting to a deal in the weeks before the original vote, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the conversations were private.

But that optimism didn’t pan out, as workers on Sept. 13 voted 95% against an initial tentative labor deal.

“They’ll have to increase their offer. There’s no doubt about that,” said Harry Katz, a professor who studies collective bargaining at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He said one of the union’s demands, a return to a pension plan, is unlikely, however, and estimated the strike could last two to five more weeks.

The process of ending strike has turned more fraught, with federally mediated talks breaking down midweek.

Boeing on Thursday said it filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board that accused the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union of negotiating in bad faith and misrepresenting the plane makers’ proposals.

Late Friday, Jon Holden, president of the striking workers’ union, IAM District 751, pushed for a return to negotiations.

“CEO Ortberg has an opportunity to do things differently instead of the same old tired labor relations threats used to intimidate and crush anyone that stands up to them,” he said in a statement. “Ultimately, it will be our membership that determines whether any negotiated contract offer is accepted. They want a resolution that is negotiated and addresses their needs.”

Boeing’s unionized machinists are not receiving paychecks and lost their company-backed health insurance at the end of September. However, unlike during the last Boeing factory strike in 2008, there is more contract work in the Seattle area to help workers fill the gaps. A union message board posts job opportunities like driving for food delivery services and warehouse work.

Delta Air Lines had to suspend hot meal service on more than 200 flights out of its Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport hub over the past several days because of a “food safety issue.”

Delta said that operations from the facility were shut down and hot food will be managed by other kitchens.

“During a recent inspection at a DTW kitchen, Delta’s catering partner was notified of a food safety issue within the facility,” Delta said in a statement on Sunday. “Delta and its catering partner immediately shut down hot food production and subsequently suspended all activity from the facility. Hot food and other onboard provisioning will be managed from other facilities.”

A message to a flight crew on Friday said first-class meals couldn’t be loaded because of “an unforeseen supply chain issue” and that the flight would be stocked with additional snacks.

The Food and Drug Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

The carrier said no employee or customer illnesses were reported, and that it gave affected customers travel vouchers or frequent flyer miles as compensation.

Airlines serve thousands of meals to passengers a day, generally through third-party catering kitchens. Do & Co., which works with Delta, didn’t immediately comment.

In July, a Detroit-to-Amsterdam Delta flight diverted to New York because of a report of spoiled chicken, forcing the carrier to limit meals to pasta for several days on certain flights.

SpaceX launched its fifth test flight of its Starship rocket on Sunday and made a dramatic first catch of the rocket’s more than 20-story tall booster.

The achievement marks a major milestone toward SpaceX’s goal of making Starship a fully reusable rocket system.

Elon Musk‘s company launched Starship at 8:25 a.m. ET from its Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas. The rocket’s “Super Heavy” booster returned to land on the arms of the company’s launch tower nearly seven minutes after launch.

“Are you kidding me?” SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company’s webcast.

“What we just saw, that looked like magic,” Huot added.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX in a post on social media.

“As we prepare to go back to the Moon under Artemis, continued testing will prepare us for the bold missions that lie ahead,” Nelson wrote.

Starship separated and continued on to space, traveling halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as intended to complete the test.

There were no people on board the fifth Starship flight. The company’s leadership has said SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before the rocket launches with any crew.

The full Starship system has flown four spaceflight tests previously, with launches in April and November of last year, as well as this March and June. Each of the test flights have achieved more milestones than the last.

SpaceX emphasizes that it tries to build “on what we’ve learned from previous flights” in its approach to developing the massive rocket.

The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth. The rocket is also critical to NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the moon. SpaceX won a multibillion-dollar contract from the agency to use Starship as a crewed lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis moon program.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued SpaceX with a license to launch Starship’s fifth flight on Saturday, sooner than the regulator previously estimated. But the company wanted to launch the fifth flight earlier than October, leading both SpaceX and Musk to be vocally critical of the FAA, saying that “superfluous environmental analysis” was holding up the process.

While the FAA and partner agencies at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service conducted assessments more quickly than anticipated, SpaceX has also had to pay fines to environmental regulators regarding unauthorized water discharges at its Texas launch site.