As long as you haven’t lived under a rock, you should be aware of Spirit Airlines, the airline with tickets so cheap that obviously something might go wrong on a flight of theirs. After all, you have to pay extra for quality.
Surprisingly, Spirit offered something no other airline did: low costs and unbeatable security.
In the 33 years of Spirit’s existence, not once did a plane of theirs crash. Not one passenger of theirs ever faced a casualty. Their only incident happened in 2015, when a leak from their engine oil or hydraulic fluid entered the cabin, leading to the death of a pilot 50 days later.
Spirit started as a trucking company in 1964, but it later made the switch from logistics to aviation. The first evolution became Charter One in 1983, and later evolved into Spirit as we know it, in 1992.
Spirit is an À la carte service. This is the reason for the low prices. Customers pay exclusively for the seat. If they want drinks, carry-on luggage, or other extras, they pay an add-on price, rather than it all being bundled into one price. This allowed hundreds of thousands of lower-class customers to fly to wherever they desired.
Spirit was one of the best in the fact that they flew to multiple regions for a really low cost. Spirit flew to the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This isn’t an extensive list of locations, but it seems to be what caused their demise.
Spirit filed for bankruptcy twice, once in November of 2024 and again in August 2025. They filed in November with the goal of just restructuring their debts, and the filing in August was the one intended to get them closed.
Spirit is a good example of why you need to upcharge more even if you don’t want to. I’m sure people would’ve happily paid an extra $10 per flight and it possibly could’ve prolonged their shutdown for a couple more years.
Even though the shutdown was inevitable, I’m sure they would’ve wanted to running as long as they really could’ve. Greed is a horrible thing, but upcharging in a situation like this would’ve really benefited them and would’ve stopped or delayed the bankruptcy.
One major thing that could’ve prevented this was the JetBlue acquisition. Back in 2024, a federal judge blocked a 2-year long process, where JetBlue tried to buy Spirit for $3.8 billion. The court claimed that it was a violation of the Clayton Act that would “reduce competition, raise airfares, and harm consumers who rely on Spirit’s low-cost model.” Now, none of that exists. It wasn’t a monopoly in the making. It was a cry for help.
While it is upsetting that Spirit shut down, the more unfortunate part is that 17,000 people were laid off and affected by this bankruptcy. Luckily, some airlines are trying to speed up the interview process for these former employees but not all of them will get lucky, and unfortunately that’s just how it is.
I wish for nothing but the best for those affected by this bankruptcy. 17,000 people now struggling to find work to feed their families and house them. I hope it’s not too difficult for them to find work.