The demise of Spirit Airlines is that of the demise of countless other carriers since the beginning of airline deregulation in the 1970s, from Braniff International to People Express to ValuJet — initial success and hoopla, overambitious expansion, untenable debt loads from that expansion, and collapse.
Granted, Spirit throws a few wrenches into the usual rags-to-riches-to-rags story.
For one, there’s the fact that much of the damage began with COVID. And then there’s the schadenfreude aspect: The low-cost carrier had developed such a nasty brand reputation, both for its customer service and its customers’ behavior, that rebranding itself as “Yugo” or “Enron Air” might have been an improvement image-wise.
And then there was the last-ditch effort of President Donald Trump’s administration to bail the airline out to the tune of $500 million, with the U.S. government effectively becoming the carrier’s largest shareholder. This was a move straight out of the 2008 housing market collapse, and both Republicans and Democrats — not to mention Spirit’s bondholders, who would likely have gotten shafted had the move gone through — seemed to buck against it.
In the end, it wasn’t enough. According to The Wall Street Journal, Spirit was preparing to shut down effective 3 a.m. Eastern on Saturday morning. CNN confirmed this shortly after 1 a.m. Eastern, citing two sources familiar with the airline’s shutdown plans.
Shortly after 2:30 a.m. Eastern, the airline made it official: “It is with great disappointment that Spirit Airlines has started winding down its global operations, effective immediately.”
— Spirit Airlines (@SpiritAirlines) May 2, 2026
The airline, which had a 3.9 percent market share in the United States — down from 5.1 percent last year, according to Forbes — was set to run out of cash in just a matter of days.
And while the focus will be on the bailout not coming, what people will forget is that there was a bailout for Spirit, and from the private sector.
It was killed by Democrats, specifically President Joe Biden’s administration, who thought that letting Spirit exist as an unsustainable separate entity would be good for competition and lead to lower ticket prices and more jobs.
Now, Spirit is completely out of business, meaning less competition, higher ticket prices, and no jobs for anyone with the airline. Winning, Democrat-style!
Let’s rewind a bit. In 2022, when it was clear that Spirit was in trouble, it began seeking out prospective merger deals. After a deal with another ultra-low cost carrier, Frontier Airlines, fell through, JetBlue offered $3.8 billion to merge, according to The Wall Street Journal. The offer was accepted.
This, it’s worth noting, would have actually increased competition on the so-called “Big Four” U.S. carriers — United, American, Delta, and Southwest — by creating the fifth-largest airline. The route networks of both JetBlue and Spirit were complementary. Both operated mostly Airbus A320 derivatives, meaning their fleets would also be complementary.
“Where we are today is we’ve got an exciting merger agreement with JetBlue. It’s going to create a very large, national low-cost carrier,” Spirit Chief Executive Ted Christie said at the time.
However, The Wall Street Journal noted that there were some storm clouds on the horizon: “Still, JetBlue’s victory over Frontier marks the beginning of a fight to get antitrust regulators to bless the deal. The Justice Department has been concerned that airline competition is dwindling after years of mergers, and the Biden administration has taken a tough stance on antitrust enforcement and corporate mergers broadly,” the outlet reported at the time.
And a tough stance they did take. Biden’s Department of Justice, acting primarily at the behest of the Federal Trade Commission under chair Lina Khan, made sure that the merger didn’t happen — something they openly celebrated when JetBlue abandoned its merger attempt in March of 2024.
“Today’s decision by JetBlue is yet another victory for the Justice Department’s work on behalf of American consumers,” then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a media release. “The Justice Department proved in court that a merger between JetBlue and Spirit would have caused tens of millions of travelers to face higher fares and fewer choices. We will continue to vigorously enforce the nation’s antitrust laws.”
“Our win in court is a victory for U.S. travelers who deserve lower prices and better choices,” former assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter likewise said. “We fought this case to protect consumers who, as the court recognized, ‘otherwise would have no voice.’ I am incredibly proud of the Antitrust Division’s team and our state law enforcement partners’ tireless advocacy.”
And Biden’s DOJ wasn’t the only one spiking the football. Regulation-happy Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called it “a Biden win for flyers!”
I’ve warned for months that a @JetBlue–@SpiritAirlines merger would have led to fewer flights and higher fares.@JusticeATR and @USDOT were right to stand up for consumers and fight against runaway airline consolidation.
This is a Biden win for flyers! https://t.co/lJFGS3ucv3
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 6, 2024
At the time, Spirit flew 158 planes and averaged roughly 800 flights a day.
On Saturday, it was scheduled to fly 290 flights, according to CNBC, and it said in a March media release that it was looking to “rightsize its fleet to 76-80 planes” by the end of this year. It went from 12,798 employees in 2023 to 9,700 employees at the end of last year.
Except at 3 a.m. Saturday, it went to zero planes in the air, zero revenue flights being flown, and zero long-term employees. Sure, it still has planes, they will likely need to fly ferry flights, and a skeleton crew will have to look over its liquidation. But for all intents and purposes, Spirit as an ongoing concern ceased the moment the wheels on the last revenue flight touched the runway at its destination.
Now, at this point, it’s for the best that Spirit Airlines is shutting down. At a purely aesthetic level, the ultra-low cost carrier has become the Waffle House of the skies, albeit with worse food and more fights. At a business level, it creates a moral hazard for the government to bail out and effectively own an airline whose problems were of its own making.
However, there was a solution to this, and one that created benefits for consumers, stockholders, creditors, and the U.S. government: letting JetBlue and Spirit merge. But, no, said Biden’s anti-business apparatchiks! We couldn’t do that, that’d spoil all the competition Spirit provided. We needed to “protect consumers” who “otherwise would have no voice.”
How’s that working out, Sen. Warren?
If Spirit Airlines fails, the blame will fall squarely on crazy Elizabeth Warren and the Biden Administration. Their anti-capitalist policies killed the Spirit–JetBlue merger that would have saved the airline and protected its workers’ jobs.
Warren is a nasty woman. https://t.co/guincozeej
— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) May 1, 2026
A good reminder that Warren is almost always wrong.
Warren celebrated the Biden admin effort to block the Jet Blue-Spirit merger. Now Spirit is likely to shut down, resulting in fewer flights and higher fares, the very thing she claimed the effort was preventing. https://t.co/6o0Zaaxp2g
— AG (@AGHamilton29) May 1, 2026
LMAO.
What you say now?
I think there’s going to be less flights.
— Mila Joy (@Milajoy) May 2, 2026
So, no merger, spirit goes out of business and prices go up, merge and prices go up.
— Ivan 🇺🇸 🤠 (@Ivantheboomer) May 2, 2026
oops
— Mike Solana (@micsolana) May 1, 2026
Because now, those consumers you were protecting have no airline — and limited options for flying, given that Spirit tickets may or may not be honored by other carriers for a brief period of time. JetBlue is not in a better position to challenge the “Big Four.” Almost 10,000 people don’t have jobs anymore, at least long-term.
Yes, “a Biden win for flyers,” indeed.
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