Spirit in the Sky
May 2, 2026
Early this morning, and not unexpectedly, the long-beleagured Spirit Airlines closed its doors, retiring to that big tarmac in the sky. The company had been in and out of bankruptcy, and never really regained their footing after the COVID pandemic.
This leaves Frontier, or maybe Allegiant Air, to take on the brunt of snarky social media posts and late-night TV jokes.
Spirit, with its bare-bones service and ultra cheap fares, was easy to make fun of. They were also the nation’s seventh-largest airline (and presumably its largest purchaser of yellow paint), with a fleet of 130 aircraft and 17,000 employees, virtually all of whom are now jobless.
If I’m counting right, this is the most significant U.S. airline liquidation since the demise of Pan Am 35 years ago. And the first in quite some time.
Dozens of U.S. airlines, including some of the biggest, have disappeared since the industry was deregulated in 1979. This has happened a couple of different ways, one more disruptive and catastrophic than the other.
The first was through mergers or acquisitions. TWA, for example, was bought by American. Republic, Northwest, Continental, PSA, Piedmont, Western, all were subsumed into another entity. The list is long. The names went away, but most of the jobs were saved, planes repainted.
Others, however, have shut down outright, ceasing operations completely. Pan Am, Eastern, and Braniff are the most significant names on this sadder roster. Air Florida, Frontier (the original one), American Trans Air, Midway, Comair. And others. Spirit joins them. (If we head offshore, we can count Swissair, Sabena, Varig, etc., among the casualties.)
(It feels that Spirit is receiving a bigger media funeral than any of those above did. This is symptomatic of our time, I suppose, in a way I can’t quite explain. Whatever the reasons, I don’t remember Pan Am or Eastern getting so much coverage when they went under. Those airlines were giants; Spirit a comparatively lowly LCC.)
The remaining airlines (and creditors) will pick through Spirit’s bones. Carriers like JetBlue will expand capacity in certain markets, hire some former Spirit workers. Still, thousands will remain unemployed. Airline shutdowns are seismic, their effects rippling through the economy.
Notice posted on the Spirit Airlines Instagram account.
I lived through an airline shutdown, albeit one you’ve never heard of. It wasn’t fun.
From 1990 to 1994 I flew for a Maine-based regional airline called Northeast Express. We were a feeder for Northwest, funneling passengers into their Boston hub from as far north as Prince Edward Island and as far south as Norfolk.
Trouble was, we weren’t the tightest ship or the most reliable of partners, and in the summer of ’94 Northwest pulled its code-share agreement, knocking us into immediate bankruptcy.
We hobbled along for a few weeks under the protections of Chapter 11 until closing doors forever one sunny afternoon in July. I’d gone in to fly that day and was waiting for the plane to arrive when word came that all remaining flights were canceled. I remember exactly where I was standing: in the ops room, looking through the cutout into the cubicle where the ramp coordinators shouted into their radios.
“That’s all she wrote,” announced one of them.
I felt weirdly abandoned, alone, floating in some onerous (and degrading) new reality that I wanted no part of. All the day-to-day structure that a job gives you, not to mention a salary, had vanished in a moment. Ten minutes earlier I was an airline captain. What was I now?
What are we supposed to do? I wondered. I may even have said it out loud.
Go home, was the answer.
Outside on the tarmac, the baggage loaders were dropping suitcases where they stood, turning and walking away, the motors in their tugs still humming.
My final two paychecks bounced. I never got a dime for the last thirty or so days that I worked.
Of the 17,000 or so Spirit workers losing their jobs, about two thousand are pilots. Some of them will find new flying jobs; others won’t.
Much of the current hiring is taking place at the regional carriers. I can’t imagine too many Spirit pilots will line up for these positions — though I’m sure some will. The major airlines will likely offer “preferential” interview slots, but the numbers aren’t huge.
A fair number of Spirit pilots will seek lines of work elsewhere. The more senior of them will balk at having to start over from scratch, even at United, Delta or American. Remember, in the airline biz there’s no transfer of tenure. Every Spirit pilot will begin again at the bottom of whichever airline’s seniority list he or she takes a job with. They will begin again at first-year pay. No exceptions.
Airplane photos courtesy of Michael Saporito.
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21 Responses to “Spirit in the Sky”
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Businesses fail all the time. I feel somewhat badly for the company that was supplying Spirit with yellow paint. I suppose they could sell that paint to municipal street departments for painting curbs in no-parking zones. 🙂
As for Spirit, they were running a bottom-of-the-barrel airline. Commercial aviation is a hard business in which to turn a profit, even with an exemplary business model. Spirit’s model was never exemplary and in fact, seemed to almost be like Braniff’s in the years after deregulation—but with less-classy passengers. Spirit was bound to fail.
It’s a shame all those folks were put out of work…some will get hired by other airlines and others will draw unemployment or take a job at Amazon packing boxes. The pilot seniority thing will especially hurt the airmen with long tenure. I sympathize with them.
I believe that Pam Am got a lot of coverage when it went bankrupt in 1991. I even remember seeing it on TV in Brazil; can you imagine how much it must have been talked about in the US?
In my younger days, I wanted to become an airline pilot. Your last paragraph is the main reason I didn’t. Such a cyclical business, and you really get hit hard if your job disappears.
Lots to criticize about Spirit, but the few times I flew with them were reasonably priced and without incident. I knew and accepted the constraints in return for a cheap airfare. I was always flying alone when I chose them.
After Northeast folded my next job was at Air LA (in California) which lasted less than a year until they folded. I don’t count the one day I drove a cab in Manchester NH. Next flying job was at Conquest Airlines in Texas which lasted three years. I don’t count the summer I flew in Azerbaijan. Eventually it all worked out and I retired after 20+ years at Continental/United Express. My nephew was about to upgrade at Spirit.
I’ve always thought that a culture of indifference, or even a lack of any civic pride is actively demonstrated by the chaos that prevails in the United States’ transportation system. Although Spirit airlines wasn’t a government entity, and airline failures have been a defining feature of the economic landscape since the 1979 deregulation, the overall impression is one of institutional neglect. America, as a matter of policy, allows its transportation infrastructure to crumble; no better example can be found than the contempt for passenger rail transport, electric vehicles, shabby airports. The experience of flying has become an act of self-flagellation and self-loathing. I never flew with Spirit, but the mantra of crap-flying wasn’t confined to the big yellow birds. It’s standard operating procedure.
I’ve never seen Kiwi mentioned before. My neighbor, Bob Iverson, was the founder and a captain. He wrote a book about it, “When Kiwis Flew”.
It’s always sad to hear of a company going under and its employees being laid off. I had assumed that Spirit was the American equivalent to Ryanair as a low-cost no-frills carrier, but apparently not, at least in terms of how effectively it was managed.
Ryanair is hugely successful and is by some margin the largest airline in Europe. Sure, people love to complain about it, but Ryanair does a great job at getting passengers to their destinations relatively cheaply and usually on time. The flight experience is pretty basic, but perfectly acceptable. CEO Michael O’Leary can be pretty abrasive on occasion, but he has been the driving force behind Ryanair’s success for over thirty years.
I never flew Spirit, but from what I’ve read, the typical response to “customer service is no longer available” will be “How will we tell?”
As for jokes, don’t forget there’s always Ryanair!
Have never laid eyes on an actual Spirit airplane but always liked the yellow livery — bold, simple.
And so much for liveries. These abrupt collapses are pretty brutal. People will say “Well, that’s how capitalism works after all”, as if this somehow graces the pig with acceptable lipstick.
Speaking of which, ain’t just blind fate that Spirit should’ve bitten the dust right Now.
PS The name American Trans Air somehow strikes the ear differently nowadays …
My first flight was on PSA. At the time, the late 70s, it cost $17 each way SFO-LAX unless you went at night when you could go for $9 each way. Planes left every 30 minutes, so you paid a little extra for a reservation or bought a ticket and hoped there was a seat for a flight time you wanted. I was very young, heading to college & the whole thing – businessmen (always men), ladies with jewelry, bright pink, orange, & red stewardesses (always women) – seemed so adult.
My first international flight was on Pan Am. Red eye $99 each way SFO to LHR. I was in college then, too, going to visit a friend who was studying in Innsbruck. Food service with real dishes even in economy! The flight attendant pulling down a screen so we could watch a movie. Legroom! Empty seats designed so you could lie down across the several empty rows!
I remember the feeling of going through major airports with my first passport, our eyes glazed with exhaustion and excitement. I took flying lessons at school, but couldn’t afford the flying hours, plus migraines made it too scary a prospect. Oh, and the men trainers were rotten.
Good work on Spirit’s failure. I was furloughed by UAL after 37 years, too old to begin again I thought. Well, still here and thriving at 80. Retired from them, and never use my passes.They raise my medical premium every year. I won an employee of the year once! If you’re not at the table, you are part of the meal.Had my pension reduced by PBGC after their chicanery of not fully declaring assets in bankruptcy. America offers a chance to survive its own failings, thank you. Fourteen years on maintenance midnights ruined my sleep for life. I’m deaf from engine noise. I have spinal issues from heavy work. Yet I knew many great people from everywhere. Fond memories abound of what went on backstage. Anyone considering a career in this industry needs be be aware of the pitfalls. Best of luck to those youngsters who have been given the bad news. Thin margins always collapse, no?
I wanted to reply to Wilson but wasn’t able to, but he did mention Swissair and others in passing, maybe it’s concerning that someone reads and comments without really reading
Today at school we where doing Gimkit, a game platform where you can play games. When we where waiting for people to join, I saw a person name themselves “Spirit Airlines”. There are only two people in the class (me and one of my friends) who actually knew that Spirit shutdown. That came true, when I asked my friend if he knew that the last flight was at around midnight, soon after there was a girl who said, “Spirit shutdown? They deserve to be!” Most young people know about how spirit has “very bad safety record” (even though its not that bad) So I replied back “Just because Spirit changes for luggage doesn’t mean they have a bad record!” Its just…… people these days.
Volaris still has their tails painted in a pixelated look. Maybe that’s who you were thinking of?
Spirit had a pixelated tail thing for a while. It was black and gray (silver) and ugly. In my book I describe it as looking like an ash tray.
I first flew Spirit back when they had their “pixel” livery. (Side note, I really hated that low-res livery as it wasn’t pleasing to the eye / mind; didn’t another airline try a pixel/low-res livery a few years ago that you reviewed on here?)
That first flight for me on Spirit was their inaugural flight to Guatemala. I’m not sure if it was their first every flight there or perhaps their first ever flight from LAX to there. Anyway, they celebrated at the gate by giving us all cake before we boarded. It looked like a cheap sheet cake from a supermarket bakery, they cut it into little squares and shoved them into little clear plastic round cups, and gave us plastic forks to eat it with.
The terminal at LAX they were using at that time had roaches crawling around our feet as we sat and ate that smashed cake. But you know what? They also celebrated that inaugural route by offering $8 fares (I think our return trip was $88).
I’ve ridden the banana planes a few times and found the crew pleasant, the planes clean, and believe it or not the passengers were well-behaved. It was always my last choice (I even would choose Frontier or Allegiant above them because I didn’t like Spirit’s older aggressive add campaigns). But when I needed them, it worked it out. I’m sad to see them go.
As others have written on websites lately, even if you never flew Spirit, you wanted them around. Competition is always good.
Best of luck to all the newly unemployed, I feel terrible for them.
With the apparent shortage of commercial airline pilots, will the pilots of Spirit have trouble finding new flying jobs
I concur with your assessment. That Pan Am was the last major shutdown. I’ve read many new stories that have said the first major in 25 years. Do they mean the 9/11 shutdown? That would make sense.
Otherwise, I don’t recall any *major* shutdowns that year. TWA was the biggest one to disappear, but as you correctly noted, they were folded into American. So it wasn’t a shutdown in the disruptive sense.
Did the original Frontier actually shut down? I know that Continental devoured them. But I was only about 12 years old at the time. So I don’t know or remember if there was.
And yes. The list of *small* airlines (30 or fewer planes) to give up the ghost was a long one. Western Pacific? The LAS based National? The second Midway? KIWI?
What about the ones that no one ever heard of much less remember? Access Air? Air 21? Pro Air? TriStar?
Ahh the trip down memory lane.
No mention of Swissair or any airline outside the US. Concerning.
Was in my dingy basement apartment when Carlyn called me to tell me not to come to work that day. Or ever again!
I was somewhat relieved to be honest. I was burnt out and miserable. I went on unemployment and spent the summer riding my mountain bike, in the fall I went to work at the last job I thought I’d ever have or need.