Summary

Spirit Airlines has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing mounting losses, debt, and the failure of its proposed $3.8 billion merger with JetBlue.

Operations, including ticket sales, will continue as normal, with the airline securing $300 million in financing and planning to exit bankruptcy by early 2025.

Spirit has also arranged a $350 million equity investment from bondholders.

Struggling since the pandemic, Spirit deferred $1.1 billion in debt, faced an engine recall, and announced cost-cutting measures, including job cuts and selling older planes.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      It’s almost like the “better” airlines already know how much you can shit on the customer base and survive. Pretty much everybody I know who has ever taken a Spirit flight has told me they never want to do it again.

      • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I’m in the minority. I love Spirit. I don’t appreciate the dark patterns when purchasing tickets, but that’s it.

        This is only for “short” domestic flights, <4 hours.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Yeah, they were always great for me, likely do to shitty practices, but when it’s a 17 hour drive home, and it only costs $42 for a ticket. I can get their cheaply easily. Not enough room, throw in another 40 and have a bigger seat up front that’s reserved and not have to deal with that southwest BS of random seats. You can pay more, but I haven’t needed to pay over $70 for a ticket traveling the short distances I need to go in the past 5-7 years.

          For those not from around here my trip distance would be a little farther than London to Berlin.

          • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            SW switched seating, this year I think, to be the same as other airlines. It’s not completely random anymore.

            • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              That’s good, when I flew to PHX for work earlier this year I specifically choose another airline even though they didn’t have points just to avoid that. Probably a good move for them

      • atoro@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Spirit isn’t that bad, as long as you know what you’re getting into. Frontier, on the other hand…

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Plus they had to buy aluminum foil tape the other day to patch up the new speed holes in that one port o prince plane.

  • heavy@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    I feel like it’s probably better to have more competition in the space, but Spirit and Frontier are godawful.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      1 month ago

      The problem is that they are awful, but consumers are very price sensitive when they buy tickets. You get what you pay for.

      • pearsaltchocolatebar
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        1 month ago

        We usually take a look at Spirit before booking flights, and with all of their add on fees it often ends up being more expensive.

        • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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          1 month ago

          Yeah, but a lot of that comes from the legacy airlines in the US becoming low cost carriers.

          I won’t be surprised when it happens to the EU when more flag carriers go bankrupt.