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Businesses Transportation

Spirit Airlines Files For Bankruptcy (apnews.com) 62

Posted by msmash from the tough-luck dept.
Spirit Airlines has filed for bankruptcy protection and will attempt to reboot as it struggles to recover from the pandemic-caused swoon in travel, stiffer competition from bigger carriers, and a failed attempt to sell the airline to JetBlue. From a report: Spirit, the biggest U.S. budget airline, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition after working out terms with bondholders.

The airline has lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020 and faces looming debt payments totaling more than $1 billion in 2025 and 2026. The airline said it expects to continue operating normally during the bankruptcy process.

Spirit told customers Monday they can book flights and use frequent-flyer points as they ordinarily would, and said employees and vendors would continue getting paid.
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Spirit Airlines Files For Bankruptcy More

Spirit Airlines Files For Bankruptcy

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  • They're a terrible airline (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    and nobody should be flying on it.

    • The market is already fixing that for you.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        IF they had merged, they'd probably spread their shittiness to the other side and kill it also, like what McDonnell Douglass's bean counters did to Boeing engineering.

    • Yeah... after they canceled my return flight in Tampa and left me stranded for three days, you can add me to the "let them die in a fire" list of former customers.

  • Cursed (Score:3)

    by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2024 @11:30AM (#64957545)

    For those who don't know, Spirit uses Airbus planes obtained when Skybus Airlines went bankrupt. [wikipedia.org]

  • Loved Spirit Airlines (Score:4, Funny)

    by ElitistWhiner ( 79961 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2024 @11:34AM (#64957557) Journal

    Contrary to the entitled, snowflakes and wealthy Cheap Charlys’, Spirit was a cut-rate ticket to paradise.

    Based out of Fort Lauderdale FL (FLL) feeder flights fed into its southern bound destinations in the Caribé and Central America, Even its feeders were discount hops across the country. Its zero padding seating innovation was more comfortable than any Avianca or United flights I took(in United case it was more comfortable).

    From every acquaintance whose very identity was threatened by flying cheap on Spirit, endless were the fabrications how rude, uncomfortable and inconvenient were lack of luggage handling provision in their tickets. Funny I trekked all over the U.S. coast to coast and down to Central America even taking a road bike with no trouble but the $70USD EXTRA I was expecting to pay.

    Thank you Spirit

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tx ( 96709 )

      User name does not check out.

    • Yeah I liked it. Admittedly they nickel and dime you for all extras but if you simply decide not to buy extras it was a was to fly for pretty cheap. I basically just would take a backpack (personal item) with clothes and buy nothing else. I don't need to change my seat. I don't need another bag. I don't need any snacks or water. I just want you to get me physically from location to another. I would fly from SC to NY for as low as $49 depending on timing. For that it was great.

      • Yeah I understand, but if you wanted anything other than a seat on an airplane, it was difficult for less educated folks to understand their fee structures. But honestly it seemed to have hints of AWS pricing. It was taking a profit, but was doing a libertarian esque accounting of everything else you did and making sure they were correctly accommodated. That hate of Spirit, is essentially the hate the common person would have to libertarian policies if they were ever in place. Spirit and Sears are the best

        • Yeah I understand, but if you wanted anything other than a seat on an airplane, it was difficult for less educated folks to understand their fee structures. But honestly it seemed to have hints of AWS pricing. It was taking a profit, but was doing a libertarian esque accounting of everything else you did and making sure they were correctly accommodated. That hate of Spirit, is essentially the hate the common person would have to libertarian policies if they were ever in place. Spirit and Sears are the best

          • Yes, Spirit was much cheaper than Southwest if you had no luggage. And they often had last-minute tickets available. Sometimes, on business trips, if I wanted to come home early, the cost of a one-way Spirit flight would be less than the American Airlines change fee. Southwest never sells Getaway fares last minute.

            But if I am going somewhere with my family (where they bring more luggage for an overnight trip than I bring for a week), I wouldn't even consider Spirit.

          • Comparing southwest to other airlines is always difficult due to their free baggage, rebooking and the strange seating system they had, which will soon be retired. Arranging trips with friends always devolves into an argument over how many and what kind of bags everyone will bring, and how much they want to sit together on the plane. I have a few friends I fly with that you just can not trust their baggage estimates, they will say one and bring three. They prefer southwest anyways, so we just go with that.

            • and the strange seating system they had, which will soon be retired.

              I recently heard they were changing to something "more conventional"...and I am NOT pleased.

              Hell, when I was younger, I didn't even mind the OLD way where it was first come first serve in line at the gate....but the current way has served me well, I almost ALWAYS get my choice seat, the one with the massive leg room on the aisle near the wing emergency exit.

              I don't like that I will likely have to pay more of that now...and likely it wil

          • I've never looked at Spirit before....were they THAT much cheaper than say Southwest Airlines?

            Yes, but only if you show up with only the clothes on your back and expect to arrive at your destination dehydrated and miserable. Once you start adding on extra luxuries like a carry-on bag, being allowed a few sips of water in-flight, or not being stuffed in between the family on their way to be hosted on an episode of jerry springer, it starts to become comparable with any of the major carriers.

      • Yeah I liked it. Admittedly they nickel and dime you for all extras but if you simply decide not to buy extras it was a was to fly for pretty cheap. I basically just would take a backpack (personal item) with clothes and buy nothing else. I don't need to change my seat. I don't need another bag. I don't need any snacks or water. I just want you to get me physically from location to another. I would fly from SC to NY for as low as $49 depending on timing. For that it was great.

        It was great for recent college grads who needed to fly to friends weddings or parties. Stuff everything in a suitcase, have a rented tux where the wedding takes place, and you are good to go. If I had to fly to one of their locations for a quick down and back o my own dime, I'd consider them , even though I have flown millions of miles on the majors.

    • Spirit flew from a smaller county airport here and you never had to deal with hours long TSA lines or other nonsense.

    • I loved taking Big Front Seat flights, but on my most recent return flight from Vegas, we lost time returning the rental car (mostly waiting for the shuttle bus), got put into the wrong bag dropoff line (I had paid for priority but the person who read my boarding pass ignored it), and ended up missing the flight completely. Bye bye upgraded seats. Returning in a standard 3-across seat was painful. We've ruled out ever going on Spirit again, and mostly ruled out air travel of any kind.

  • as it struggles to recover from the pandemic-caused swoon in travel

    I've been reading stories for years about record-breaking travel, in large part caused by the prior pent-up demand for travel that accumulated during covid... which would seem to be the polar opposite of what the above line is suggesting. Anyone know the data?

    • From the article:

      The airline has lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020 and faces looming debt payments totaling more than $1 billion in 2025 and 2026.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tx ( 96709 )

      I watched Why Budget Airlines are Suddenly failing [youtube.com] a while back. It's too long since I watched it to remember precise details, but as I recall, the main takeaway was that operating costs, especially fuel prices, had shrunk budget carrier margins dramatically, despite the amount of air travel rebounding post-pandemic. But I think there were a bunch of other factors as well.

    • The above line assumes that all airline service levels are equal. They are not.

      I would much rather pay a bit more to be on an Alaska Airlines flight than Spirit. And it's just not that much more for a whole lot less nickel-and-dime bullshit. Doing a quick search just now for flights from Portland to Los Angeles area airports, it's the same price for Spirit and Alaska ($113) but I get a whole lot more value out of the Alaska ticket. And there's 23 flights to choose from, some of them non-stop rather than

  • For those who live in the USA and never leave it - and I'm American and live in the USA so I am most definitely allowed to make that comment - they only care about the cost to fly. Everything else is negotiable. In other countries, there are nowhere near the number of airlines the USA has. Many countries have one major carrier and maybe there are a crappy regional carrier or two and that's it. Consolidation to survive is inevitable. Earlier in this century the USA had 6 major airlines, and that is

    • In America, people care so much about the ticket price over all else because we have other options to travel. Everyone I know who has a true emergency situation, needing to be someplace ASAP, will pay whatever the ticket costs to get there when they need to be there. But most travel isn't like that. People weigh the pros and cons of just driving instead of flying, within the continental USA, or even taking a train or a bus.

      I think airlines created this mentality when they reduced the quality of the flight e

      • You can look at any movie made in the 1970's involving airline flights and see how much more luxurious an experience it was compared to today

        I don't mean to harp on you personally, but I hear this over and over again online and it's frustrating.

        Why? Because it's disingenuous to talk about how good air travel was in the good ol' days without also acknowledging how dramatically more expensive it was. In the 70s, an economy class return ticket from NYC to L.A. was around $2800 in inflation-adjusted dolla

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by King_TJ ( 85913 )

          Fair point. To be honest, I was just a kid in the 70's so really didn't have a good grasp of the cost for airfare at the time.
          $2800 in inflation-adjusted dollars is a LOT.

          Still, they had a much more relaxed atmosphere around boarding a plane back then. And in fact, it was pretty commonplace that if they had hijackers on a plane making demands to fly them someplace, they just complied with them. (Not in agreement with THAT policy, but that's how it was.)

          I never felt like I needed my flight to have a whole op

          • Still, they had a much more relaxed atmosphere around boarding a plane back then.

            That's because many, many flights were a third or a half-full, because in the good ol' days airfares were so expensive and the airlines were so profitable. Today, airfares are dirt cheap so every flight is 99% full and boarding is stressful.

            But it doesn't seem impossible for them to still stay profitable while giving people ample leg-room.

            Over and over again airlines have tried this - A little more legroom for a slight

  • Bummer (Score:3)

    by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2024 @11:43AM (#64957599)

    I flew Spirit a few times to Vegas. They had great service and, in the larger seats, fine comfort.

  • What about this is newsworthy on Slashdot?
    Of course msmash posted it as usual.

    • What about this is newsworthy on Slashdot?
      Of course msmash posted it as usual.

      Actually, I was the one who submited it, yet, somehow, did not get credit...

      1.) News for nerds. Us nerds come in all shapes and sizes. There are computer nerds (I am one), electronics nerds (also, I am one, I am an electronics engineer, specialized in telecoms), animaton nerds, anime nerds, comic book nerds, lietarure nerds. But more importantly for this, AVIATION nerds, and FINANCES nerds (I am a finances nerd also, with an MBA). For those types of nerds, this is news.

      2.) Stuff that matters: Slashdot is pr

  • This is an example where the government basically regulated a functional company out of existence. Spirit tried to merge with JetBlue, US regulators said no, so the company shrugged its shoulders and declared bankruptcy. Now, it's debts are gonna get wiped, all sorts of creditors are gonna get shafted, and they MIGHT get restructured as a slightly-different undersized cut-rate airline that will probably have the same problems. I bet that a big chunk of the costs will get put onto the taxpayers.

    The Biden
    • Oops. Just realized that I gave the wrong formula. Should be proportional to the square of the size, no inverse.

    • Mergers never lead to better prices or benefit the consumer. Prove me wrong.

      • So, better to have one or two airlines no bankrupt rather than allow a merger? Because that just clears the field for the companies that already managed to get big. Not sure that helps the ecosystem at all.
      • Bankruptcies never lead to better prices or benefit the consumer.

      • Mergers never lead to better prices or benefit the consumer. Prove me wrong.

        Yup, Mergers never lead to better prices or benefit the consumer.

        But, when Sprint goes in Chapter 7, or even during chapter 11, it will be Delta, American, united and southwest the ones that get the routes and planes from Spirit.

        The merged entity would have become the 5th airline and the USoA, and bring competition to the other 4. Insteand, afther the other 4 gorge on the carcass of spirit, JEtBlue will be even more threatened, and maybe go under itself.

        The JetBlue+SPirit merger would have not led to better

    • Oh god JetBlue + spirit would have killed JetBlue. Sometimes 1 +1 = negative billion. See Boeing merging with Mcdonnell Douglas
      • Also its much easier and less disruptive to prevent a merger than to split up giant companies. Basically, from what industry insiders have told me ( contacts at Boeing, united, American) that the budget airlines like Spirit through Southwest are really riding on a knifes edge just hoping nothing remotely bad happens to decrease travel or increase cost of business. This is why Southwest is doing the dramatic step of getting rid of their boarding and starting to charge for seats. They need more money to cont

  • Rule 1 (Score:3)

    by dsgrntlxmply ( 610492 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2024 @12:11PM (#64957735)
    Do not name your airline after anything associated with death.

  • Oh no!

    Anyway...

  • I saw $50 roundtrips to Vegas the other day. It made no sense they could be that cheap.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      I saw $50 roundtrips to Vegas the other day. It made no sense they could be that cheap.

      We all know that in the US, $50 advertised or on the shelf is never $50 at the checkout.

      However even over here in the UK, the advertised £20 fare from Ryanair is almost never what you'll pay. Even though they're legally obliged to have some seats available for that price, it'll be 10 seats on a red-eye flight from "London" Isle of Skye airport to somewhere remotely within the range of an ICBM to Malaga.

      Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) price the fares low knowing that they can extra their way to a higher

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