“Spirit Guests should not go to the airport.” 

That's what Spirit's website said in big letters on its website Saturday morning – the morning after the airline flew its final flight, landing in Dallas (DFW) with a rather sad exchange with air traffic control. 

Thursday, Spirit started cancelling international flights to keep their planes stateside. On Friday, more cancellations rolled in, and early Saturday morning it ended for good. All future Spirit flights are cancelled, and travelers with cancelled tickets are owed a refund by law. 

“Spirit is Winding Down All Operations” says the airline's bankruptcy restructuring website, which is all that's left of Spirit's site. It says travelers with Spirit tickets booked will get refunds for their cancelled flights.

In the aftermath, most U.S. airlines began offering some sort of “rescue fares” to help Spirit passengers get to where they're going, including American, Delta, United, Southwest, and others. Trying to gobble up some Spirit customers of its own, Avelo launched a 75% off sale while Breeze and JetBlue both announced new routes vacated by Spirit over the weekend, too, according to Ishrion Aviation on X.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Spirit had been negotiating with the Trump administration on a deal that would have given the federal government an option to take a stake of up to 90% of the airline in exchange for the cash infusion. But disagreements inside the Trump administration – combined with pushback from certain Spirit bondholders – sank the package before it could close. Without it, Spirit is running out of cash … fast.

Spirit is in its second round of bankruptcy in less than two years, and the airline has been buckling under a relentless combination of pressures: jet fuel prices that have doubled since the start of the war in Iran in late February, intensifying competition from major carriers' Basic Economy products, and a mountain of debt the airline couldn't outrun.

We argued last week that even a $500 million bailout wouldn't be enough to fix any of it. We weren't rooting for this outcome – a Spirit collapse means 14,000 lost jobs and higher fares in the markets where it operates… but the writing was on the wall.

My Thoughts: Despite not being a regular Spirit flyer, I find myself wistful for Spirit's 33-year run (Tuesday would have been 34).

I'll miss the airline that led a revolution of cheap airfare in the U.S., but I won't miss the airline whose business model forced the legacy carriers to introduce basic economy. I will miss the jokes and memes and archetype of the Spirit flyer, but I won't miss the experience of flying the airline.

Mostly though, I will miss Spirit's crucial role as the low-fare driver. Flights on your favorite airline were cheaper when Spirit flew the same route. And with one fewer low-cost carrier to challenge the majors, I worry about the future of fares.

Rest in peace, Spirit. Here's hoping its 17,000+ pilots, flight attendants, agents, baggage handlers, and other staff land on their feet in the coming weeks and months.

 

What to Do If You Had a Spirit Ticket

Spirit's website says travelers who had tickets with the airline will get refunds. You can check your refund status at this website. 

That said, historically, airline liquidations like this often lead to messy processes around getting travelers their money – if they get refunded at all. 

Your best recourse might be a credit card chargeback. If you paid with a credit card and Spirit can't deliver the flight, file a chargeback with your card issuer for services you paid for but didn't receive.

Unfortunately, travel insurance probably won't save you here. Most policies – including those built into travel credit cards – explicitly exclude airline insolvency.

For example, the travel protections you get with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card specifically exclude “Default of the Common Carrier resulting from Financial Insolvency.” 

 

Bottom Line

Spirit Airlines is no longer, leaving thousands of passengers without upcoming flights, and leaving a whole in an industry the airline redefined.