Spirit Airlines is closing down. Thousands of employees and travelers are impacted.

[RandySF]

Spirit Airlines is shutting down, in a move that will affect thousands of scheduled flights and nearly as many employees.

The troubled budget carrier cancelled all flights and announced an “orderly wind-down” of operations, effective immediately early Saturday.

“To our Guests: all flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available,” the company said in a statement. “We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry over the last 34 years and had hoped to serve our Guests for many years to come,” it added.

Spirit, which has struggled to maintain consistent profitability since the Covid-19 pandemic, had been looking to emerge from its second bankruptcy in less than a year. But those plans were derailed amid soaring jet fuel costs sparked by the outbreak of the war with Iran.



https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/spirit-airlines-shuts-down-rcna343155

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Trump likely will cast shade on the shutdown on Truth Social,

feeling he had been "robbed" of another pirate takeover of a business he had no right to own.

[Emile]

2. Piss poor management has put a lot of people out of work.

[PBC_Democrat]

3. Fortunatly some of the other airlines are stepping in with deals for stranded travelers

Just saw on GMA that Jetblue is capping return fares for Spirit travelers at $99

[obamanut2012]

4. A friend's sister was dumped in Orlando

Didn't even unload luggage. It was a layover.just abandoned them.

I wouldn't have chanced it, but that's not the point. She now doesn't have her stuff or a way to Chicago. Last I heard, she was able to get a ticjet on another carrier, but not until Sunday night, at a high cost.

[newdeal2]

5. Another airline Trump bankrupted nt

[BluenFLA]

6. Sucks for the employees but Spirit was horrible

I tried the airline a couple of times and between the nickel and diming and terrible customer service I swore them off. Didn't care how low their fares were, i would gladly spend a few bucks more elesewhere than not to pay for water and other nonsense.

One time on a round trip the idiots canceled my return flight because according to their flight manifest I never arrived for the initial flight! Had to get the Better Business Bureau to resolve the problem since they refused to refund me.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. MaddowBlog-Team Trump tries to blame Biden for Spirit Airlines' collapse, but reality gets in the way

Whether Republicans like it or not, the war with Iran pushed fuel prices higher, and this proved to be the death blow for the company.

Team Trump tries to blame Biden for Spirit Airlines’ collapse, but reality gets in the way www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

Reality is one thing that Trump is incapable of understanding, recognizing, relating to, and realizing

— Tom Jones (@earl2.bsky.social) 2026-05-04T15:17:02.673Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/team-trump-biden-spirit-airlines-collapse

A couple of weeks ago, when it was clear that Spirit Airlines’ future was in doubt, Donald Trump did what he too often does: He tried to avoid blame for a looming setback by shifting responsibility to one of his Democratic predecessors.....

Nevertheless, in the days that followed, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick led a Trump administration initiative to bail out Spirit Airlines, as part of a deal that would have led the federal government to take a significant ownership stake in the business. A variety of Republicans raised a new round of concerns about state-run capitalism, the private negotiations ultimately failed, and the carrier permanently closed its doors late last week.

One day later, Trump administration officials, led in large part by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, moved away from the president’s effort to blame Obama and instead tried to convince the public of a related claim: This was the Biden administration’s fault.

Sean Duffy on Spirit Airlines: "I think it's important to talk about why we are here today. Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg ... "

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-02T16:23:59.743Z

On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also toed the new party line.

BARTIROMO: Treasury was supposed to be doing a deal to save Spirit Airlines. Can you tell us what happened?

BESSENT: This is just more of the mess we inherited from the Biden administration

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-03T15:31:34.251Z

....There are, however, two foundational problems. The first, as The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki explained, “If JetBlue’s acquisition of Spirit had been approved, there’s a good chance JetBlue would now be headed into bankruptcy, too.”

The second is that the White House’s pitch is part of a clumsy attempt to answer the question of why exactly Spirit folded. At a press conference on Saturday, Duffy told reporters, “The war was not the impetus for Spirit.”

There’s ample evidence to the contrary. As The Associated Press reported, “Although Spirit had gone bankrupt twice before, the company said high oil prices, which have been rising because of the war with Iran, made it impossible to stay aloft.” NBC News added, “Spirit, which has struggled to maintain consistent profitability since the Covid-19 pandemic, had been looking to emerge from its second bankruptcy in less than a year. But those plans were derailed amid soaring jet fuel costs sparked by the outbreak of the war with Iran.”

If Republicans want to argue that Spirit was facing real challenges before the war with Iran, that’s a fair point. But while they scramble to convince the public that Joe Biden (or, according to some GOP voices, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts) was the main culprit, the fact remains that the war pushed fuel prices higher, and according to Spirit’s own executives, this proved to be the death blow for the company.