Spirit and other airlines have been struggling with high oil prices that have pushed up the price of jet fuel. The company’s woes predated the war in Iran, though, as the company has struggled to increase post-pandemic demand.

Well yeah, the population that would normally fly Spirit are now unable to afford flying at all.

Good thing the US has a great high speed railway network. Oh wait...

Spirit started out as the villain and ended up as the hero lol.

They popularized the low cost system in the US which absolutely wrecked quality of service from every other airline as they too started removing everything to cut costs.

But then Spirit was the only budget airline actually selling tickets for cheap and decent baggage bundles.

American and United offer the same net quality of service for 4x the price. Why whould I pay such a markup and still have to pay for carry on and checked baggages? Its not a budget airline but they sell "budget"services.

Now they all want the profit squeeze of Spirit without the lower fare.

I still remember when Delta flights above 3 hours had a full meal with multiple snack services. I don't even think they give you regular sized pretzel bags anymore.

How do European budget airlines succeed while US ones fail?

That's too bad. Less competition will make tickets more expensive

They ran the only affordable flight I could take to see my family during the holidays

Legitimately the only budget airline left that flew to that city. Tickets will now cost me roughly 3x as much, and I don't think I can afford that

Spirit Airlines - the “we have Southwest Airlines at home” airline

That's the spirit!

I had some okay experiences with Spirit, but they "rescheduled" a flight one time by 13 hours that was essentially a cancelation, and I swore never to use them again for any trip that mattered. Between "ceasing operations" and a taxpayer-funded half-billion dollar bail-out, I choose ceasing operations.

Last time I flew spirit one of the flight attendants was so upset by my shirt saying "I fucking love to cuddle" that she delayed the flight in an attempt to get me thrown off. I had to turn my shirt inside out so the plane could take off. On the same flight, there was a preacher that stood up and started preaching that the flight attendants were fine with.

Shit's dire when Spirit Airlines can't keep up with the race to the bottom.

Edit: What's the over–under that Spirit Halloween can get a sick deal on this for a portable costume store this fall?

On one hand, worlds smallest violin. On the other, one has to consider Spirit both helped drive prices down and kept at least some batshittery off other airlines.

Good riddance.

The article goes on about oil prices, but there's no mention of the fact that many people can't afford to vacation these days. Of course the budget airline is the first to fail when people on budgets are too busy trying to keep their families fed, housed, and healthy.

Good.