Transcript of What the End of Spirit Airlines Means for the Future of Flying New

From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. When Spirit Airlines shut down over the weekend, it brought an end to a company that had revolutionized air travel in the United States with an ultra-low-cost approach. So today, I talked to my colleague Niraj Chakshi about the so-called Spirit effect on air travel, why it unraveled, and whether the problems that doomed Spirit could spread to other airlines. And my colleague Lindsay Garrison talks to a Spirit flight attendant about what Spirit represented. It's Thursday, May 7th.

Hey Lindsay, this is Colleen. Oh, hey Colleen, nice to meet you. Hey, nice to meet you as well. Thank you again for your time. I'm really grateful. And yeah, of course, to say I'm really sorry that this is the circumstance under which we're talking, but I really thank you again.

Um, could we just start by you just telling me a little bit about you know, who you are and when you started working for Spirit Airlines?

Yeah. So my name is Colleen Burns, and I am a Spirit Airlines flight attendant. And I was— which sounds crazy to say— I was a Spirit Airlines flight attendant for 10 years. I had actually just started my 11th year with the company. Got it. Do you remember your first day on the job? Yeah, I was so nervous. And I just remember that first crew, like when I got there, they were like so incredibly kind to me. They were like, oh my God, it's your first flight. Like sometimes we, happened more back in the day, but we used to pull pranks on each other when you were a new flight attendant. And so they had the pilots tell me that something was wrong with the air in the cabin and that I had to do an air test and I needed to collect an air sample in a trash bag. And bring it into the cockpit. So this— and I was like, I don't remember learning about this at all. And like, oh my gosh, I didn't retain anything. So I'm like walking through this cabin on my very first flight operating as a flight attendant with a giant white trash bag above my head collecting air.

I go into the cockpit and the pilots both look at me and just start busting out laughing. Busting out laughing. But we used to do silly things like that to one another all the time. And it's something that I just don't— I don't hear those stories from other airlines. There's just something really special about being a Spirit Flight Attendant. Yeah.

What is it, do you think?

Like, what is that thing? I think that Spirit has been through so many changes and revivals. And we went from being the absolute most hated airline to, to be honest, towards the end, people loved us. And I think all of us went through that journey with Spirit, and we all had so much pride in how far Spirit had come. I mean, we're the underdog story. And I had no idea. None of, you know, we, we really all thought that Spirit was gonna pull through.

Niraj, welcome to The Daily.

Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me.

So Niraj, as you know, Spirit Airlines, they went under over the weekend, and this comes after the White House had tried to save the airline. They did not save the airline. And what was so interesting was that this airline that had basically been a punchline for years sparked so much grief. There was this outpouring of people talking about how sad they were that it was going away. Our colleague Lindsay Garrison talked to a flight attendant who said how much the airline meant to her and how much she saw that the airline meant to other people. And so I want to start this conversation with you explaining to us why the death of this airline has struck such a chord with people.

Yeah, I mean, Spirit Airlines was this symbol of affordable travel in America. It allowed people to take trips that they couldn't otherwise afford. For a large segment of the population, it was the only way for them to be able to fly to places. And the end came really suddenly. They decided late last week it was time to wind down, and by Saturday morning they shut down. That left 17,000 people who are directly employed or indirectly employed by Spirit out of work. Tens of thousands of people who had tickets no longer had flights, and it left a gaping hole in the airline market.

I wonder if you could rewind the clock a little bit and tell us about where this airline came from. Like, what was its origin story and how did it end up symbolizing low-cost air travel in the United States?

Yeah. So Spirit's origin actually dates all the way back to the '60s. It started as a trucking company. They got into travel, they got into charter flights. They renamed to Spirit Airlines in '92. But most people didn't really know who they were. It wasn't until the mid-2000s that Spirit adopted the business model that we all know it for, and that's the ultra-low-cost air travel model. The idea is simple. You just cut costs as much as you can, and you pass that along to passengers in the form of cheap fares. It was popularized in Europe by Ryanair, which is still going strong today, and they thought that they could bring it to the US with success.

And can you just explain that model? Like, what did they do or cut to actually keep those ticket prices so low?

Yeah, they did a lot. The key thing that they did, which we all know them for, is unbundling. Why should we have to raise everybody's ticket price when only some people want to eat or drink on board? We don't think that's fair. We think it gives customers more choice. And the real champion of this idea was Spirit's chief executive at the time, Ben Baldanza. Customers are welcome to bring water on the plane with them. We're not stopping that, but we sell what we sell. They started to separate everything out so that seat assignments cost extra money, even water, you're paying for carry-ons, having them print your boarding pass, but the seat itself could be really cheap. So if you didn't need some of those things, you could actually buy a really dirt cheap ticket.

I didn't realize this, that they literally charge you to print your boarding pass. It's like they're charging for everything except flying. Like everything else is considered a luxury just to keep the ticket as cheap as possible.

Right. And the idea is that, you know, some people don't need it. They're happy to pull it up on their phones or they're, they don't need customer service. So why would they pay the extra fee for it? I recognize our airline's not for everyone. If you want to be coddled in the airport, if you want an enormous amount of legroom, if you want a free Coke, we're not your airline and we're not built to be that airline. But if you want to save $150 round trip, we're a great deal. Come fly us. And they publicized this all with these racy, provocative ads. One of them was what they called the MILF sale. That's an acronym that some people may know. It's kind of a raunchy meaning. Yep.

From American Pie, I believe.

Yeah, exactly right. But for Spirit, you know, it means many islands, low fares.

A gross expression taken from the movie American Pie was adopted by Spirit Airlines.

I mean, you know, and they go viral, right? I mean, they're not only getting a lot of attention on their own, but, you know, news organizations start to cover them. Spirit Airlines has a $69 campaign that, you know, if you don't understand the 69 reference, then Google it. They start selling tickets for numbers that, you know, have other meanings. For, you know, let's say $69.

I didn't know any of this. I am horrified.

Social media is buzzing about this. On our Fox 29 Facebook page, Lori wrote, "How about grow up?" Victoria wrote, "I read the ad and kept waiting to be shocked. So much hoopla over that?" And Spirit starts to get a lot of attention. People start to kind of get to know this airline.

Right. More ads means more controversy means more news coverage, which means more attention. But beyond all of that, how was the actual business model received? Like given the fact that the business model itself was kind of a novel idea here in the United States?

Yeah, there was a lot of skepticism. Consumers saw it as nickel and diming them. Investors had doubts that people would really wanna fly on an airline like this or that the model could work. And they were the butt of a lot of jokes. This is pretty crazy here. Spirit Airlines. Spirit Airlines is considering a new fee to talk with a human face-to-face during check-in.

Yeah.

Which explains the company's new slogan: Spirit Airlines, why are you flying Spirit Airlines? Weird. I mean, on late-night shows, the idea that, like, you would have to pay for a water bottle while flying or a printed boarding pass, I mean, it just is outrageous. The CEO of Spirit Airlines said people shouldn't come to Spirit if they want lots of legroom. He said, "We call it Spirit Airlines because there's only enough room for your spirit." And if I'm being honest, even that's gonna get a little crushed. But you know, they embraced it. And when they got criticism, they would push back and say, "Look, we're here to make travel affordable. That's what this is about. And take it or leave it." And it was slow at first, but then people start to fly on Spirit and it starts to pick up. And they go public in 2011. And by the next year, they're flying about 10 million passengers. They're doing really well. Really well, and by 2016, they're up to 20 million passengers.

And what was behind all that growth? I can't imagine it was just the racy MILF ads.

Yeah, I mean, they are stealing travelers from other airlines, but there's also this idea that they're bringing people in off the sidelines. So people who normally wouldn't be flying, but they see an opportunity because the flights are cheap enough, they might be making that choice instead of ordering takeout. And this is something that Ben Baldanza himself says, is he's like, we're not necessarily competing just with other airlines, we're competing with other forms of spending.

Mm.

And this new approach that Spirit has is starting to affect the wider industry, where when Spirit enters an airport for the first time, you see fares drop. Other airlines have to compete, and so they have to reduce their fares.

Mm.

It actually becomes the subject of academic study. It's called the Spirit Effect.

Did you feel like Spirit was different? Than other airlines? Oh yeah. I mean, we were the market disruptor. We did cause the fares to be lower. They called it the Spirit effect. The first time this really resonated with me was when I was flying back from Fort Lauderdale and I did not have my lanyard on. I was out of uniform and I sat next to this gentleman and his son and we had a little bit of turbulence and then you could hear the hydraulics. And that's always something that either freaks people out or, you know, it sounds kind of like a dog. It sounds like something, and it's normal. It's completely normal on the Airbuses. And I could see him getting panicked. I was like, yes, it's normal. It's just the hydraulics. Like, it's okay. Mm-hmm. And so we're sitting there and we're, you know, I'm just kind of talking to him and he like has a moment and he's like, wait, how did you know that was okay? How did you know that sound was, are you just telling me that? And I like laughed again and I was like, I was like, I'm not wearing my lanyard.

I'm actually a spirit flight attendant. I was like, "I promise it's normal." And he was like, "Oh, okay." Well, then he started talking to me and I remember this gentleman being like, "You guys make it so affordable for me to take my son on these trips every once in a while." You know, it sounded like he shared custody with his son. So this was something very special that he liked to do with him when he had him. He was a blue collar worker. He was like, "I'm terrified of flying, but I really love being able to do this and love being able to try taking my son to see different places." And that was a moment for me that I was just like, I, not that I didn't already have pride, but I really started to have pride in Spirit and our brand and what we did and the accessibility that we brought because we did. We had so many first, we had so many first-time flyers, so many families, so many people that never would've gotten the opportunity to fly if it wasn't for us. And I really loved that we had a carrier that was able to offer that to people that you got your seat and like you were able to fly the $49 round trip ticket and hop on a flight for the weekend to see your family that you normally wouldn't have been able to do because all you cared about was getting from point A to point B safely.

You didn't need the super fancy seats. You didn't need the pretzel snacks. You didn't need the single pour of Coca-Cola. Like it was about getting there and it was about the journey that you were going to have once you got there. We were able to connect people that otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford to be connected.

So, Niraj, it sounds like at least for a while Spirit was really making progress, revolutionizing travel. When did things start going south?

Well, a few things start to happen. The first big thing is that Spirit becomes a victim of its own success. They— can't be ignored anymore. And they're flying in a lot of places where the big airlines are flying too. And so the big airlines introduced something called basic economy, which is basically a Spirit competing fare. It comes with a lot of restrictions. It doesn't include a checked bag or carry-on bag. You often can't pick your own seat, but you can pay for those, right? Just like Spirit. But the problem is that these bigger airlines, they also have a lot of resources.

So, right, because if you have a choice between United and Spirit, and they cost the same, you're probably going to go with the bigger airline, right?

Spirit may be flying on a route twice a day, and United might fly the same route 8 times. If your flight gets canceled, there's a backup. There's also customer service. There's all these other benefits for flying with the big airlines. And so if you're looking at the same cost, you might be inclined to choose them. And that poses a really big problem for Spirit. They can't really lower fares much more than they already have. And so to compete with the big airlines, they have to start to improve quality. They have to get you to where you're going on time more often. They have to have better customer service. And that's expensive. And that puts a lot of pressure on Spirit's business model. And keep in mind also the big guys, they have more profitable seats at the front of the plane so they can subsidize the basic economy seats. Spirit doesn't have that, right?

Spirit does not have a $2,000 business class seat.

Exactly. Yeah.

Okay, so they're feeling the heat from the bigger airlines. Tell us sort of what happens from there.

Yeah, so, you know, the pandemic obviously hurts all airlines equally, but then there's this faster than expected recovery. People really want to travel. And so there's this fierce competition going on and that keeps fares low, makes it hard for Spirit to earn a profit. At the same time, a lot of pilots end up retiring during the pandemic, but then, you know, in the years after, airlines really need them back. And so they end up paying a lot more to stay competitive. That starts with the big airlines, but then everybody else has to do their best to match because there just aren't that many pilots around. So, you know, Spirit starts to see that labor, one of their biggest costs, is going up, and their edge is all about costs. And if their costs are starting to look a lot like the same costs that the big airlines have, then they've lost their edge. So they're in this position where Costs are rising, competition is fierce, and there are all these other problems that they're just having to deal with. And so then they decide they need to do something to get back on track.

We'll be right back.

Okay. So at this point, Neeraj, it sounds like Spirit is really getting squeezed in a whole bunch of different ways. What do they do to try to get back on track?

Yeah. Well, one thing they try to do is, is they actually try to merge with one of their rivals, Frontier Airlines, which is another budget carrier. They announced this in 2022, and the thinking was that they're struggling, things are hard, but if they could create this big national low-cost carrier, that they might actually be able to kind of make some moves. You know, they might be able to take on the bigger airlines in a better way. But then JetBlue Airways decides it actually wants to acquire Spirit, and it makes a better offer, and it ends up squeezing Frontier out, and they go forward with a JetBlue-Spirit merger. But then the Justice Department says, wait a second, we like Spirit. Spirit does good things in the airline industry. It keeps fares low. And so they sue to stop the merger because they're afraid that if JetBlue take Spirit in, they're going to change the way Spirit's planes work. They're going to change the business model and they're going to end up raising fares.

They're basically arguing that if these two airlines merge, it would be bad for consumers. It's basically an antitrust argument.

Exactly. Exactly. One of the things that JetBlue said during the merger process is that we're going to take some seats out of Spirit's planes. Spirit packs in the seats really tightly to fit as many people as they can on a plane. JetBlue says we're going to add a little legroom, make it a little more comfortable. But the Justice Department says, well, wait a second, that means that your costs are going to go up. You're going to have to charge more to cover them.

And what was Spirit's counterargument to that?

Yeah, you know, Spirit and JetBlue were saying, look, this is going to be good for consumers because we're going to have more market power. You know, JetBlue is a low-cost airline. It's not what Spirit is, but JetBlue does compete to keep fares low. And that together, you know, as a, as a national player operating in all these airports, we would be able to actually serve consumers better.

Basically, they're saying if we can pool our resources together, we're going to be able to compete better with the big guys and ergo, we're going to be able to give customers lower fares.

Right. You know, with, with enough scale, we have the resources to keep fares low in a lot more places. But then the federal court judge decides that Spirit's presence at an airport can lower fares 5-10%, and we need that in the market. And this merger is anti-competitive.

Okay. So merger doesn't happen. Where does Spirit go from here?

So they file for bankruptcy in 2024, they get out of bankruptcy in 2025, but then file for bankruptcy again in 2025. And then coming into this year, the Iran war starts and that sends fuel prices skyrocketing. And Spirit has a plan to get out of bankruptcy, but then it seems like with fuel prices this high, that plan is just not going to work.

Right. That would be a challenge for any airline to suddenly have to shoulder these rising fuel costs, but especially a challenge for an airline that has just gone through two bankruptcies and it's really trying to keep its costs low to stay competitive.

Exactly. Uh, you know, labor costs have already gone up. Fuel costs are now going up. Those are the two biggest costs of, for any airline. And so the Trump administration steps in and they say, you know, what can we do? These are a lot of jobs. This is an important airline to the economy.

And on top of that, presumably the optics of this do not look great, right? Having an airline, specifically an airline that caters to working class people, go under because of a war started under the Trump administration.

Exactly. And they float this idea of a $500 million lifeline. The government would step in and lend the company that money, but the government wants protection. You know, they don't want to lend money with no strings attached. They want to get preferential treatment over the other lenders that have lent Spirit money. And Spirit's existing lenders don't love that idea. So they continue talking. But late last week, it becomes clear that there's not really a path forward. There's just not a deal to be done. And so Spirit's lenders tell Spirit, you know, we think it's time for you to wind down. And, you know, they have to move quickly. Airlines are expensive. You can't announce that an airline's going to shut down weeks in advance because a lot of people are going to start to peel away. And so on Friday, they continue flying. They fly 50,000 people. The last flight in lands in Dallas just after midnight. And Saturday morning, at just after 2 AM, they announce, we're done, Spirit Airlines is shut down.

When did you find out?

So this might make me choke up, but at about 11:00 PM, called into a meeting by our AFA International President, Sarah Nelson. And I just remember seeing Sarah's face. Sorry. When IU was over, she told us it was over and that we were shutting down. And we all cried a lot. It's been a really crazy 72-ish hours for all of us because we're losing our family.

Are you hearing from colleagues and friends?

I'm actually— I'm at one of my friends' house with about 8 other flight attendants right now. Oh my gosh. And it's like we're all grieving. We're all still here, but I think we're grieving the loss because Spirit's the catalyst that brought us all together. And that's gone now. And after you've spent years dedicating this time to this company that you had some pride in and you believed in and that you loved and you loved the people that you work with, It, it just comes in waves. It comes in waves. You know, I kind of always thought like if something were to happen, like I would walk away from aviation. And that last week I was like, there's no way. There's no way that I can walk away from aviation. It gets into your It gets into your bones, aviation. And I just, like, there's truly, like, thinking back on it, and I'm like, there isn't anything else that I want to do. But there's just something about it, the, you know, the black and yellow in our blood that I, you know, it's going to be hard to ever find that again for us. It's never going to be the same.

So, Niraj, we mentioned earlier in our conversation that there's been this outpouring of grief from people who travel, who took Spirit, who are so sad that it has gone away. Can you just describe for us what did that grief look like? What did it sound like since Spirit announced that it was going under on Saturday?

Yeah, you know, I think the immediate reaction for some people was surprise. We heard from people at airports on Saturday who had no idea this was coming and showed up and, you know, very quickly had to figure out how they were going to get home. But I think, you know, as frustrated as people were at times with Spirit, I think people really started to understand its place and appreciated it for what it was. This is a sad day.

Thousands of people that really depend on this low-cost airline to travel that may not have otherwise gone anywhere.

And I think seeing it gone is sad for a lot of people.

Spirit was good for, you know, the working consumer who loves to travel, who knows how to pack light. I've taken Spirit a lot of places.

And, you know, looking online, you see this outpouring of tributes to Spirit. This is kind of heartbreaking because whenever I wanted to get like a cheap last-minute flight somewhere, I'd be like, 'Let's check Spirit.' And now I won't be able to do that. And there were a lot of travelers out there who were able to go on vacation because of airlines like Spirit.

Spirit never did me wrong. Like, do you understand how much flights cost nowadays? Like, on some real stuff, flights are super expensive.

And so it really did have a place for people.

What is your diagnosis ultimately, Neeraj, about what Spirit's downfall was? Like, how much should we attribute to the rising costs associated with the war in Iran or other headwinds faced by budget airlines or the airline industry as a whole?

It's definitely death by a thousand cuts. I mean, Spirit just had an unforgiving few years and they just could not catch a break. They couldn't get stable footing. But, you know, I think it also shows that this business model itself is really unforgiving. There's not a lot of buffer. And so if one too many things go wrong, it's hard to recover.

Hindsight is obviously 20/20, but how should we be thinking about the merger that the DOJ blocked in 2024? Because at the time, Spirit said, we need this. The DOJ obviously didn't buy that argument. And now here we are.

Yeah, it's, it's really set off this political debate. The Trump administration says, you know, look, the Biden administration interfered. And now Spirit's going under. And some experts I've talked to agree. They say that, you know, had this merger gone forward, this new combined airline might have been able to survive and be vibrant and lower fares across the country. But then a lot of experts aren't so sure. Airline mergers are notoriously difficult to pull off. They cost lots of money, and there's just no guarantee that it would've ended well for JetBlue and Spirit.

I wanna talk about what Spirit's demise means for the future of air travel more broadly. Like since they came on the scene, There have been other low-cost budget airlines like Frontier and Allegiant. So what does the collapse of Spirit mean for those guys, if anything?

It's a mixed picture. So you mentioned Allegiant and, and they actually adopted this model around the same time as Spirit, and they have actually done pretty well. They just actually are in the middle of acquiring another airline, Sun Country. And part of the reason for their success is unlike Spirit, Allegiant was able to stay off the radar of the big airlines. So about 75% of their routes, they have zero competition.

Hmm.

But you know, others not so much. Frontier, like Spirit, is facing a lot of the same problems.

I do wonder also about the bigger airlines, the Uniteds, the Americans, et cetera. Like, I do wonder whether the bigger guys will now have just that much less incentive to offer competitive low-cost fares. Do you foresee that happening?

Yeah. The experts that I talked to do think that fares are going to rise, and they say that to some extent that probably was going to happen anyway. Fuel costs have gone up, airlines have to cover that. But for the big airlines, they're so much more focused on the elite traveler. They have really discovered that in the last few years that if they invest in those people who are willing to spend a lot of money, they can earn a lot of profit. And, and it's worked exceptionally well for airlines like Delta and United. They've invested in lounges, they've invested in their loyalty programs, they've invested in fancy seats and plane renovations, and it's really paying off. And so will they still compete for basic economy travelers? Sure. Those are travelers that they see maybe someday upgrading to main economy and up to business class. But right now, those airlines are really focused on the front of the plane, those nice big fancy seats.

It's interesting because the Spirit era was really marked by these airlines stripping amenities out from what they offered so that they could offer low-budget fares. But what you are describing sounds like almost going in the opposite direction, like more and more offering these luxury amenities. And it feels as though what you are describing is a real widening of the division that already exists in air travel and so many other facets of American life between the haves and the have-nots.

Yeah, you know, I mean, Spirit in its early years really democratized air travel, but even before it shut down, Spirit was embracing catering to the premium traveler. They last summer announced plans to add premium seats at the front of their planes, and they actually started to re-bundle their fares so that you could buy a single ticket that included a lot of the things that they once stripped out. So even before Spirit went under, we were already starting to see a retreat from that business model that was just sharply focused on low costs and low fares. And so there's this sense that, yeah, maybe the industry is headed in a direction where it's not as focused on serving everybody.

Niraj, thank you so much.

Thank you.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Iran said on Wednesday that it was reviewing an American proposal to end the war, a day after President Trump paused a new U.S. military effort to protect ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said that his government had not yet given its response to the U.S. proposal. And neither he nor President Trump said what it contained. And Tennessee Republicans proposed a congressional map aimed at diluting the state's lone majority Black district, a swift response to last week's Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act. The new Tennessee map slices the county containing Memphis, a majority Black city, into 3 districts and likely will give Republicans the ability to flip Tennessee's lone remaining Democratic seat. And finally, Ted Turner, the 20th century media titan who created CNN, died on Wednesday at the age of 87. When Turner debuted CNN in 1980, it revolutionized television news, presenting news at all hours of the day and eventually inspiring other media operations to follow suit. Today's episode was produced by Stella Tan, Lindsay Garrison, and Diana Wynn. Was edited by Rob Zipko and Michael Benoit.

With research help from Will Peischl. And contains music by Chelsea Daniel, Marian Lozano, Alyssa Moxley, Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, and Diane Wong. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered Engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.