Live data from Hacker News

Let's Buy Spirit Air

letsbuyspiritair.com

41–50 of 628 posts

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#41

I could easily afford any of their competitors but I always picked Spirit airlines. The pricing makes sense, pay more if you need more things. I liked Spirit because it was more akin to riding the bus, I got treated well every time by their staff and the experience was fairly consistent. Other airlines also have cramped sits, what little they did better than Spirit isn't worth the price, and the experience was incons…

American Airlines has actually had terrible customer ratings for some time (and I agree, they can be awful).

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/american-airlines-worst-...

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#43
Spirit was killed by illegal predatory pricing!! There's no reason the corporate criminals who do this stuff would go easy on competition run by different people. The answer is anti-trust enforcement (and related enforcing of the law) and much stronger regulation of businesses in general (if not outright public/government airlines)

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/who-killed-spirit-airline...

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#44

I could easily afford any of their competitors but I always picked Spirit airlines. The pricing makes sense, pay more if you need more things. I liked Spirit because it was more akin to riding the bus, I got treated well every time by their staff and the experience was fairly consistent. Other airlines also have cramped sits, what little they did better than Spirit isn't worth the price, and the experience was incons…

Spirit seemed to enjoy making their customers hate them. everyone who liked Spirit had to explain themselves (like you did) because their reputation was awful. It was a trainwreck of a brand.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#45

> The only thing missing is ownership that answers to the people — not to shareholders. Noble, but this will fail. Why would anyone do this? No incentive. These sorts of initiatives forget the toil of actually operating a business. You might as well get more pledges given that you'd have more control and the same profit share. It will regress to the same as the status quo.

Co-ops don't exist at all, right?

I dont know of any with such high capex

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#47
I remember reading about how the major airlines now are more of a "bank that happens to have planes," due to the loyalty programs being worth significantly more than the airline. Delta Air Lines earned $8.2 billion from American Express in 2025, surpassing ticket sales revenue. [1]

I primarily use my favorite's airlines credit card because it gives me perks such as priority seating, and free checked bags. I am pretty certain that the credit card fees (that is passed on to the merchant) does not come close to the value that I gain for my credit card loyalty. It is a stupid game that I am forced to play, because the credit cards also provide other benefits, such as fraud protection.

I am wondering right now if "Spirit Air 2.0" even has a fighting chance if they are not able to subsidize operating costs by also being a credit card company.

[1] https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/delta-air-lines-m...

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#48
Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them.

Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere

Private equity will likely sell the company for parts. There is no operational improvements for cash flow that they can do.

Useful watch (skip to 2:20): https://youtu.be/ggUduBmvQ_4?si=cyysP7aH_CIEDZRq

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#49

> The only thing missing is ownership that answers to the people — not to shareholders. Noble, but this will fail. Why would anyone do this? No incentive. These sorts of initiatives forget the toil of actually operating a business. You might as well get more pledges given that you'd have more control and the same profit share. It will regress to the same as the status quo.

Co-ops don't exist at all, right?

I wouldn't say they are common.

MEC was the only co-op I have ever been part of. I'm pretty sure they stopped being a co-op and sold it to private equity.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO this should have been written “to the customers and employees”. To me, those are the people who compose a business enterprise.

I’ve never seen that work. There is a fundamental tension between those groups. Hence, member-owned co-ops and employee-owned co-ops.

> I’ve never seen that work. There is a fundamental tension between those groups. Hence, member-owned co-ops and employee-owned co-ops.

Focusing strictly on shareholders (value) has been en vogue since the 1970s:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

Before that the general thinking was along the lines of:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_theory

Somehow companies managed to survive and grow before the 1970s.

Post reply on HN