Trump killed Spirit Airlines

[Renew Deal]

Spirit Airlines is going out of business today because Trump’s war in Iran raised fuel prices

[dalton99a]

1. Yep.

[Prairie Gates]

2. Spirit Airlines fate was sealed the minute the first cruise missile struck Iran

[Lovie777]

3. I thought shithole was buying the airline company with our taxpayer's money..............

and then claim it as his.

[Renew Deal]

4. There was talk of a bailout

But I don’t think there is a political appetite for that

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

5. Spirit was collapsing regardless

Trumps idiocy just made it happen quicker. Spirit hasn't turned a profit since 2019, before covid. Poor management doomed them. Trump just sped up the inevitable.

[Johnny2X2X]

6. They wouldn't bribe him.

Throw a few tens of millions into Trump crypto and Spirit would have gotten a bail out.

17,000 workers laid off immediately. Passengers stranded.

This is about jet fuel prices doubling.

[ChicagoTeamster]

7. Other airlines are next. No jet fuel, no air industry. Diesel is in short supply too. No more Amazon deliveries.

Can't fly it in to the hub, can't deliver from hub to warehouse by truck. Thanks Trump. Great job.

[tinrobot]

9. At least Amazon is starting to go electric.

They invested early in Rivian, who makes a lot of their EV delivery vans.

One upside might be that this oil war backfires on the administration's crusade against EVs. The cars are already good enough and charging infrastructure is growing rapidly. It could be a tipping point.

[ChicagoTeamster]

12. Yes, but he already paid two billion to cancel offshore wind farms

Last edited Sat May 2, 2026, 03:00 PM - Edit history (1)

They were already mostly financed by Biden’s bill and with all of the data centers that electricity would have been useful in meeting America’s energy needs.

[Botany]

8. Is everybody tired of winning yet?

Last edited Sat May 2, 2026, 03:56 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXQgPs3smfS/

[IbogaProject]

10. Spirit almost went out of business late 2024 or early 2025

So they were already tottering.

[babydollhead]

11. Nephew and his little kids are stuck

They had tickets for Sunday morning.
From virgin island back to the Midwest.
Stuck.

[lame54]

13. Nobody flying In Nobody flying out...

That's how they want it
America First

[LetMyPeopleVote]

14. 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.

[spanone]

15. trmp & sean duffy et al are (of course) blaming Joe Biden & Pete Buttigieg.

Even though the media has reported it is the high price of jet fuel.

They take zero responsibility for anyfuckingthing.

[Johnny2X2X]

17. Yeah

They claim that because their merger wasn’t allowed in 2024, that they went out of business 2 years later and the RWers everywhere are repeating it.

[Johnny2X2X]

16. Yup

Link to tweet

?s=20

[Emile]

18. More jobs lost under trump's reign of terror.