Spirit Airlines Prepares to Shut Down (Gift Article)

In hindsight, yeah jetblue would have almost certainly also gone down.

I don't think its credit card offering but fact that clientele attached to Spirit makes the credit card a poor money maker for them. Airline Credit Cards are looking for big spenders who are going to be extremely loyal to the airlines. Big spenders are generally business travelers/high income travelers who want premium economy seats/business/first with high chance of getting there on time.

I really wonder how much it would help if we had what Europe has in place where gates and check in are all flexible, so instead of branding entire gates and check in booths as American or Delta etc. any airline can utilize those resources depending on whether they have a flight or not. In the U.S. it is very difficult for budget airlines to get a foot in the door because all the physical resources are tied to the airlines here. So even if a gate is available for 5 hours nobody can use it unless it’s the airline that owns that gate. Europe has plenty of budget airlines and the U.S. used to but they have been pushed out of the market by design. Maybe Spirit had a bad business model, but they’re also up against a system in the U.S. that is designed to only support the oligopoly of the big 4 airlines. It’s hilarious how we still teach in Econ 101 that capitalism is about competition when the ability for anyone to compete in most established markets is barely feasible.

Idk where you're flying but JetBlue definitely does not cost $50 a passenger.

I agree with this as well. This merger should have gone through.

No, the Justice Department blocked the merger.

They blocked both

That pre-COVID 2017-2019 era when Frontier, Allegiant and Spirit all came to Austin at once and no one knew what flight routes would be profitable was the BEST time to fly in Austin. The three airlines combined ran something like 60 total routes and all went "IDK, just price it c**** and see if it works." I routinely took day trips and weekenders across the country without ever spending more than $100 RT.

they fly to Houston

It wasn’t working since 2019.

So is Breeze going to shut down next?

It’s almost like increased fuel costs are the plan to expand monopolies.  Only the big companies can weather this economy.

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Same here. I used Spirit monthly between Tampa and Vegas for about a year. Come in with the expectations of a city bus and it’s fine. Way better than frontier even, I would never have an on time flight with them but only ever had a few delays with Spirit.

People really are against micro transactions and hidden fees and stuff. Also people like good customer service

Yeah, I don't get the hate. I flew from Nashville to LA for like 90 bucks both ways. I don't expect it to be amazing accomodations.

I'm not sure if that's as big of an issue. Plenty of airlines lease a solid chunk of their fleets and are in far better financial shape, although I guess not majority leased like Spirit. Someone else pointed out that Spirit's issue was a bunch of their planes had the P&W engines that were defective. If a bunch of them were owned rather than leased, then that would be a significant issue where you incurred debt on basically lemons.

Because the requirements to certify, the cost to get there, and mandatory retriement age rules constrain supply

I recall hearing that a lot of pilots retired or lost their jobs during the pandemic. I assume that fewer people might want to go to flight school in recent years out of fear that there might not be jobs for them, what with all the economic uncertainty.

Simple. Flight School is too damn expensive. I'll give one example. There is an exam you take to get your instrument rating. The exam costs around $1000, plus the cost to use the plane, plus fuel. One of the things you are tested on is instrument landing. To do this, you have to switch the aircraft from Satellite Navigation to Radio Navigation on approach. It's one button press. If you don't press that button, you fail the exam. This is a good thing. We want pilots using the correct navigation method at all times. But failing the exam means you have to take the exam again. Another $1000+airplane+fuel. Why the hell we don't subsidize training for operators of critical infrastructure, I'll never know. $10000 on the low end for a Private Pilots license. Usually closer to $15000-$25000. $100,000 is about average to get your Airline Transport Pilot. Then you need 1500 hours in the air as Pilot in Command to get hired by an airline by law (the 1500 hour rule is a US only thing and it is HIGHLY controversial). It's a problem. Then there is the "Spend 10 years scumming it at the Regional Airlines for $45K a year before you can drive for a major airline" thing. Also. You don't NEED a college degree, but you should probably get one. In short, the upfront cost is insane. You don't get paid for a few years after flight school, and you spend years getting paid peanuts until you can actually make money. It makes flying incredibly hard to financially get into as a career.

It's like the people who say McDonalds is actually a real estate company

And then $300 for luggage.

jetblue would have gained access to spirit's gates and their planes, which are all Airbus A320 series (which jetBlue flies). It was an ideal merger, in theory, and my guess is jetBlue would have figured out some way to restructure the debts. Now what's probably likely is there will be a fire sale of all of Spirit's assets to other airlines to pay off their debts. edit: I'll add that jetBlue, Breeze, and Frontier will probably take over many of the routes Spirit flies since they're mostly leisure routes, while Delta and United will go after the hardware. American, jetBlue, and Frontier might also chase some of the hardware, but my bet is the bulk will go to the latter 2.

A bit, yeah but spirit had a lot of valuable and important gates in addition to a lot of airbus planes in a time when Boeings were shall we say less than reliable.

They would have saved tens of millions on gate restructuring and engine maintenance alone. Spirit wasn't in a good position. Jetblue could have effectively stopped buying planes to save capital expenses. Overall probably better outcome for everyone compared to this.

I mean, Frontier and jetBlue (and maybe Allegiant and Breeze) are probably going to pick up Spirit's routes and probably some of their planes, and they're hardly industry "big fish" (while we're on that, American, Delta, and United are unlikely to chase those routes since Spirit mainly flew low-profit leisure routes; they're probably more interested in the planes since they all operate A320s in their fleets)

In my experience, it's less the spartan flying experience and more the fragile route network making delays and cancellations more catastrophic. E.g. your flight on Spirit is cancelled and the can't fly you to your destination until next week because the route only runs 2-3 times weekly and the next plane is already sold out, or maybe you'll accept a ten-hour layover in Fort Lauderdale that gets you in at midnight tomorrow. Meanwhile, a big-boy airline probably has two or three more flights that day and interline agreements as a last resort.

I mean even a non-budget airline experience sucks these days. I flew a lot last year and American's seat cushions are about as thin as a few layers of toilet paper these days.

Sounds like prices need to be higher to actually pay for all the costs of running the service.

Delta and United are both profitable.

Also, the gum you like.

I always said that I would stand for the two hour flight I wanted to take if it was c**** enough. Idgaf about anything but getting to where I want to be and a small duffel bag as a free personal item was enough for a few days to get away somewhere.

Well, Delta alone went from projecting \~500 hires to almost 1500, so spread that across all the majors and worst case we’re right back at the original estimate which was already going to be the 3rd best in history. I’m not worried.

War in the middle east has always been one of the options as long as I can remember.

undoubtedly, and objectively true. but that’s not what they said. I’d also 100% rather my tax dollars go to a US business than f*** ass across the seas bullshit.

Actually, a lot of those bus routes are contracted out to third parties, including greyhound and are existing services that Amtrak offers through-ticketing for. "Shitty train routes" they’re not doing that out of spite.

They were second worst, but now they've got the title!

It is crazy how quickly the price grew when you selected a seat and brought a bag.