17000 employees. And CBS found that fares jumped 23 percent on every route Spirit used to fly the day they left. The strait most Americans cant find on a map just made their summer flights 60 bucks more expensive. And Spirit wont be the last. Every ultra low cost carrier runs the same math. When fuel doubles your model breaks. The next question isnt which airline folds next. Its what happens when the budget travel option disappears and 30 million annual passengers have nowhere to go but the premium carriers charging whatever they want.
Spirit Airlines is the first airline to die from the Hormuz crisis. Jet fuel went from 2.24 a gallon to 4.51 since February. Fares jumped 23 percent the day they left.
byu/Mother-Grapefruit-45 ineconomy
Posted by Mother-Grapefruit-45
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Spirit was way less than their peak, they had already dropped their aircraft count by more than half from their peak and had massive layoffs in 2024 and 2025. Estimated that they only had 7,000 employees left.
Spirit was only kicked by Hormuz, not closed because of it. They were the equivalent of being in a coma and on life support for 3 years and at the end they caught a cold and died – they were going to die this year anyway. Jet fuel could have dropped to $1/gallon, there was no saving Spirit at this point. Debt from the COVID shutdown then the high fuel prices in 2022, then in 2024 the Justice Department successfully blocking their merger sealed their fate, never able to recover.
Fuel prices have doubled many times in their life. 2005, 2008, 2011 (usually referenced as 2012 when it hit the peak). But it’s their COVID debt that really smothered them and continued to plague them even through bankruptcies, then the immediate punch of the 2022 fuel price, followed by that blocked merger which could have saved them.
You would think one of the bigger airlines could rescue them and acquire the assets at pennies on the dollar.
But, maybe the model they were running failed for a reason.
Executives are paid a premium because they are titans of industry. They can navigate market changes and regulatory challenges.
If Spirit, or any other carrier, can’t perform in the marketplace then they should go out of business.
Unless we want to talk about executive compensation being based on lies….