LoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyThings have not been looking good for Spirit Airlines for years now. The budget airline known for its bare-bones approach to the sky filed for bankruptcy in 2024 and then again in 2025. And yet, its demise on Saturday felt sudden and shocking: Spirit said it would go out of business, canceling flights, shuttering its customer service lines, and laying off workers without warning.
What does it mean for fliers and for the busy summer travel season? WIRED spoke to experts to find out.
Spirit’s demise was several years in the works. The company hadn’t made a profit since 2019. Other airlines, including larger and richer Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, invaded its low-cost turf by unbundling tickets and offering their own cheap, perk-free fares. In 2022, the US Department of Justice sued to block a proposed merger with JetBlue, arguing the deal would increase fares for all fliers. In early 2024, following a months-long trial, a federal judge blocked the merger. Then came two bankruptcies, one in early 2024 and one in summer 2025, with Spirit cutting staff, routes, and flights in an attempt to save itself.
Finally, the coup de grâce: the Iran War, crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, and spikes in fuel prices—which alone account for more than 25 percent of airlines’ operating costs—made operation unsustainable. As the airlines’ lawyers put in a court filing on Monday: “Recent geopolitical events have resulted in a massive and sustained increase in fuel prices. … There are no longer any viable paths to a restructuring or continued operations.”
Spirit has said that it’s automatically refunding fares. Those who purchased flights through third-party sites should approach those businesses about refunds. But even before refunds, “your biggest concerns should be rebooking,” says Katy Nastro, a travel expert at the flight deals website Going.
Jet fuel price spikes have already made this upcoming travel season a messy one: US tickets are up nearly 15 percent year over year, according to NerdWallet, with certain trips—flights to London and Hong Kong, for example, and travel on the West Coast of the US—even higher, Nastro says.
If you have a Spirit ticket, United, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest are all offering capped ticket prices for a set period, according to the US Department of Transportation. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines are offering reduced fares on high-volume Spirit routes, and Allegiant has frozen fares on routes that overlap with Spirit. Frontier is offering up to 50 percent off its base fares for former Spirit passengers for several days.
Same advice, says Nastro: Move quickly to book. Routes left with fewer seats after Spirit’s implosion might get especially pricey. It’s too soon to say exactly the effect a Spirit-free aviation business might have on ticket prices, but Nastro says in the medium-term, some routes might go up in cost by 15 to 20 percent.
This weekend, most US airlines offered stranded Spirit workers travel passes and jump seats to get home. Many have also offered Spirit employees "preferential employment interviews,” according to the DOT.
Over time, most Spirit employees will find new work in the aviation industry, predicts Ahmed Abdelghany, who studies airline operations as a professor in Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s College of Business. “The capacity that’s lost by Spirit will be replaced by other airlines,” he says. In other words, other airlines will rush (and have rushed) to fill the flight slots and routes opened up by Spirit’s absence, and will need workers to help. Still, some employees may need to relocate for new positions or find work outside of the airline business.
In a bankruptcy filing, Spirit proposed retaining 40 employees after three months of winding down operations—a far cry from the 17,000 affected by the shutdown.
Spirit’s planes might not keep their cheery yellow wrappers, but the equipment won’t go to waste. Spirit only flew Airbus A320s, a plane that “is very popular,” Abdelghany says. Eighty-two of Spirit’s 131-plane fleet were leased and will be returned to their lessors; the 49 remaining planes owned by the airline will be sold off.
The prognosis for cheap fares in the US is less pleasant. People loved to rag on Spirit—its penny-pinching approach to baggage fees, its BYO approach to water (it charged more than $4 for a bottle onboard), and its deeply uncomfortable seats. But the airline was one of the shrinking few to offer one-way fares below $100. These budget airlines are only able to keep flying if they can keep their costs down, says Abdelghany, costs that include labor, maintenance, and fuel. Now that fuel prices are up, “you have no other option than raising the fare.”
In a Spirit-less world, there’s less competition. If airlines “are filling their planes, there’s no incentive to lower prices,” Nastro says.
