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Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations
- rvz 5mo agoToo bad. Capitalism working as it should and no last minute government bailouts for failing companies. The market should decide and determines winners and losers, not the government. So compete.
- 47282847 5mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
- littlexsparkee 5mo agocan't help but think of the deadweight loss to the US over lack of free market capitalism in terms of bailouts, price supports & subsidies, monopolies, etc. every day we stray further and further from this system we purport to have. edit: do folks not think more competition would be better for consumers? i'm no stan of capitalism but surely it could be made better, sheesh.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- phtrivier 5mo agoI never heard about this company before this morning, so I can't project any second order effect of this closure. That being said, I suspect many people had never heard about Lehman Brothers before 2008...
- low_tech_love 5mo agoMan wouldn’t it be great if we lived in that world?
- vrganj 5mo agoOther than ideology, in what way is this a good outcome? For passengers? For workers?
- ungreased0675 5mo agoBecause companies that are run poorly should go out of business. Otherwise, what incentive is there for management to do a good job?
- vrganj 5mo agoWhy can't management be fired instead? Why punish the above groups for the mistakes of leadership?
- RestlessMind 5mo agoManagement is also fired in this instance. What you are probably suggesting is that management should have been fired sooner and replaced with competent ones. That is the job of the board, who is the proxy for shareholders. Since the board didn't do its job properly, their shares are also going to zero. Again, working as intended. There should be no free lunch or bailouts for incompetent work.
- vrganj 5mo agoThe people being punished aren't the board or the management, those will fail upwards to other cushy roles. The people being punished are the workers and the consumers. If the board is unable to bring their house in order, the state should fire them, not let their incompetence ruin the lives of the working class. I agree with GP that this is "capitalism working as it should", e.g. inflicting cruelty on working people while funnelling more wealth upwards. I disagree with the assessment of that being a good thing.
- RestlessMind 5mo ago> those will fail upwards to other cushy roles I see this trope often. Citation needed! > If the board is unable to bring their house in order, the state should fire them, not let their incompetence ruin the lives of the working class. Oh no please! Last thing I want is letting Donald Trump (or AOC if you are a right-winger) decide which board to fire based on their whims about a company. > I disagree with the assessment of that being a good thing. What you are suggesting is much worse.
- pfannkuchen 5mo ago> Winding Down > To our Guests: all flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available That seems quite a bit stronger than “winding down”!
- shawn_w 5mo agoIt was a very quick wind down.
- testfrequency 5mo agoMore like a free fall ffs
- sudo_cowsay 5mo agoIt's a fall down. Just like their stock prices.
- barneybooroo 5mo agoIt's "orderly", don't you know!
- Animats 5mo agoJust a few hours ago, Spirit execs were saying everything is just fine. At noon yesterday, Trump was saying that a bailout was still likely. (The first time I read about Trump saying that "we" were going to buy Spirit, I thought he meant him personally, or The Trump Organization. Spirit only needed about $500 million, and Trump could afford that.) That nobody wanted to buy a major airline for $500M means it was a really bad deal and not worth saving. They were already in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the "debtor in possession" reorganization mode. Not yet clear if they just went to Chapter 7, liquidation, but that's probably happening within days. Still, a zero-notice shutdown is a bit much. Some people who have tickets for tomorrow probably went to bed already. There's still the mechanics of winding down. All the planes have to be flown to suitable storage locations. With such an abrupt shutdown, they'll have mis-positioned aircraft all over their route system. Many planes are probably leased, so the lessor may have to arrange to take custody of the aircraft. It's probably better if the aircraft are leased - there's some lessor with funds to take care of the job and the knowledge of how to arrange it, since a handover and move happens at the end of each aircraft lease. Aircraft Spirit actually owns will have to be moved by a bankruptcy receiver, which is a lawyer trying to run what's left of an airline. Most major airports charge very high parking fees. LAX charges $1000 for the first day, and that goes up to $5000 a day on day four. They're not in the storage business. There are probably a lot of middle of the night phone calls and meetings going on right now.
- epistasis 5mo agoThis process may seem ugly, but just like biological death is necessary for an ecosystem, this sort of death/restructuring is essential for capitalist economies. Assets and capital get reallocated to better uses. It's all part of the circle of life.
- noosphr 5mo agolooks at ai investments Sure.
- system7rocks 5mo agoThank God human beings who spend money on these resources are left to fend for themselves. Imagine if we spent good money on a flight, and now the company winds down its operations even as we are on route to our destination. Since we are just a number, I supposed we should simply cease to exist or occupy a liminal space. Or maybe... we could be treated as a human being?
- epistasis 5mo agoI'm guessing you misinterpreted my comment to assert that we should provide no consumer protections. That was not what I was saying. I'm talking pancakes, you're talking waffles. How we treat capital and how we treat humans should not be connected to each other, and it's absolutely important that capital not be treated as if it were a person. Corporations are not humans, and we can not bail out investors while we let consumers flail. And we should never bail out corporations under the premise of helping humans, when direct assistance to humans would suffice.
- gizmo686 5mo agoBankcruptcy and corporate death in general are important. However, the details of how that is managed can vary wildly, and not all implementations are equal. In this case, the bankcruptcy was handled by cancelling all flights with 1 day of notice. This level of ugliness is not necessary.
- matwood 5mo ago
- charcircuit 5mo ago[flagged]
- mikelitoris 5mo agoIs this an actual question? I’ll answer it anyway: because they had nothing to do with financial market risk shenanigans and just wanted to get somewhere.
- charcircuit 5mo ago[flagged]
- _moof 5mo agoYou've just decided, all by yourself, that customers are "low priority people." Why?
- charcircuit 5mo agoThe law specifies the order people get paid out for a bankruptcy.
- dented42 5mo agoI think the law is wrong…
- _moof 5mo agoWhich law? 14 CFR Part 260 requires air carriers to refund tickets on cancelled flights.
- charcircuit 5mo agohttps://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/507 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/507 14 CFR Part 260 I don't see having precedence. It is hard to punish a company that no longer exists.
- system7rocks 5mo agoI am so grateful for this announcement. In a time when gas prices are high, Spirit should be the kind of capitalist example that dominates. Instead, it goes bankrupt despite the President trying to nationalize it. Thanks be to the God of money.
- muppetman 5mo agoWow those Halloween shops really flopped huh?
- intothemild 5mo agoIf only they flapped. Maybe they'd still be in the air.
- xyst 5mo agoI sense another bailout for the airline industry if the illegal Iran war continues. Spirit is just the first domino to fall.
- aliljet 5mo agoWhy did Spirit die? Was there any last of this that had to do with their abysmal customer service?
- avazhi 5mo ago[flagged]
- robin_reala 5mo agoSmall regional airline failing isn’t a big news story in my typical parts of the internet.
- avazhi 5mo agoNo, Spirit is/was not a 'small regional'. You asked if this was caused by or related to bad customer service. This was 100% caused by the increase in jet fuel prices due to the war in Iran. Obviously huge swings in jet fuel prices affect budget carriers more than, say, United or American or Lufthansa or Singapore Airlines, which have many (many) more options when jet fuel prices rise. Many countries, including many third world countries, have regional airlines. It has nothing to do with America in particular, and the usage of that term is not an American-ism. A good non-American example is Qantas and QantasLink, the latter being a regional airline, and the Aussies refer to it as such.
- chrisandchris 5mo agoThat really sounds line the US is the only country in the world. Considering the world is bigger, I would call Spirit maybe regional, but not small. Ask some europeans, basically no one will know Spirit - as US people may not know e.g. Wizz.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- gblargg 5mo ago
- user_7832 5mo agoCan someone explain to me (a non American) which niche or segment was Spirit in (and perhaps why they, and not any other airline, are shutting shop)?
- infinitewars 5mo agoSimilar to Ryanair in Europe
- user_7832 5mo agoThanks!
- mey 5mo agoLow cost carrier. Think Ryanair. Competition from the rest of the market and bad management put them in a bad position, with the most recent war causing unsustainable fuel issues. Other airlines may be able to double/triple their prices in the short term. Spirit's customers may simply choose to not fly. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/02/nx-s1-5807933/spirit-airlines-ceases-operations-folds https://www.npr.org/2026/05/02/nx-s1-5807933/spirit-airlines... describes this in more detail.
- user_7832 5mo agoThank you!
- plantain 5mo agoGood. They treated their customers terribly and actions have consequences. I was double charged for a flight and they just refused to acknowledge it until I charged back, after which I assume they banned me.
- livinglist 5mo agoThat’s my experience of every single US airline though…
- wg0 5mo agoSeems like the fallout of the unnecessary adventurism in middle east.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- clintonb 5mo agoIt’s strange to see so many commenters celebrating the death of a company and the loss of so many jobs. I flew Spirit a few times. The first time sucked because it was an emergency and I had no other option. The last few flights were great. We got the large seats up front for $75 extra. That plus parking at SJC was still cheaper than flying Southwest out of OAK. The staff were friendly, and the gate was conveniently across from a lounge, so we had a truly great experience for those couple flights to Dallas.
- spacedcowboy 5mo agoIt's probably the association with Trump, at least to those outside the US. Anything even remotely connected to that arsehole is, almost by definition, to be reviled. If he wanted to save it, there's probably a really good reason not to, without reading any further into the topic.
- sys_64738 5mo agoA company that isn't a going concern should be liquidated immediately. Taxpayer money should not be sunk into something that has no future.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- dlcarrier 5mo agoIt's a class thing. Enjoying Spirit Airlines a-la-cart benefits is like enjoying the extra features in an Android phone or using a car to get somewhere quickly instead of waiting around for public transit. If you aren't showing the worlds that you can afford to go without, you aren't upper class.
- phtrivier 5mo agoThe article does not give context : it is not entirely about the price of fuel, but it seems like fuel was the last nail in the coffin...
- instagib 5mo agoManagement chased every quarter with little care about the long term future. Took their profits and ran to other low cost airlines like frontier to make them ultra low cost per friends in the industry. Spirit tried to merge a few times but failed due to their balance sheets. Then bankruptcy protections. Follow the price of oil and airlines run into issues during those times when it goes above $100.
- dlcarrier 5mo agoJet Blue was for the merger, but Elizabeth Warren and Sean Duffy were against it. That's not a balance sheet problem, it's a problem of not pleasing the people in power.
- ikidd 5mo ago>thanks administration that drove them out of business with a pointless war, or at least finished them off.