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Let's Buy Spirit Air

letsbuyspiritair.com

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Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#151

Post by bullan »

Nican wrote: post #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…

This loyalty program is the business is oversold imo, done to death by every content creator. It's the data, the data blah blah

The $8.2billion from American express pays basically is buying tickets and ticket extra, it buys them some points, lets ignore multiples for now, it buys them 8.2billion points, which they give to customers which then buys tickets.

If Spirit accepts USDC instead it wouldn't be that much different.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#152

Post by neonstatic »

nerdsniper wrote: post #25
amazingamazing wrote: post #7

> 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.

I pledged $1,000. I have been daydreaming about a customer-owned airline for years now, just about every time I walk through an airport. This might not have much chance of succeeding in its purchase of Spirit’s assets, but I’d love to watch things unfold if it did. > These sorts of initiatives forget the toil of actually operating a business. For most businesses the size of Spirit Airlines, the owners typically do no…

wow, it's almost like you will become... a shareholder?

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#153

Post by Finnucane »

oceanplexian wrote: post #147
whazor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Southwest, but also Ryanair are profitable. Totally possible to make money off flights. But you have to follow the same model: use cheaper airports, a single modern aircraft type to simplify operations, high turnaround speed, charge a lot for extras.

It’s not enough to “make a profit”. Southwest has 30B in assets and makes $441M in profit. Like most airlines it’s a miracle of modern economics and should practically be considered a charity or a nonprofit. You would make more in treasuries or corporate bonds.

Corporate bonds won't take you to Disneyland.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#154

Post by directevolve »

rootsudo wrote: post #55

It’s kinda dumb. They don’t own any planes, and buying the spirit name means the bank/hesge fund gets paid because that’s probably the most valuable piece of property spirit has. The employees are all gone and shuttered, even if you go try to rehire them they are all jumping to any other company if they stayed to the end. The pilots and cabin crew lost seniority and you won’t be able to afford ALPA union pay or AFA p…

They haven’t raised a cent. They’re asking for pledges, not actual cash contributions.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#155

Post by filoleg »

lostlogin wrote: post #119
gruez wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company makes too much money: "they're extracting monopolist rents! They need to be a regulated utility!" Company makes too little money: "there's no money in this industry! They need to be a regulated utility!"

Company, always: "We need government subsidy". Then hell yes to regulating what they do.

Spirit wasn't asking for a government subsidy to get saved from bakruptcy. They were asking to be allowed to get merged with JetBlue (which could've saved them from bankruptcy) and got denied by the government. Those two things aren't the same.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#157

Post by smackeyacky »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #51

Awesome, I hope we see a lot more of this. Co-ops do work, REI is one, Modo is another and we could have many more. Over and over again companies are slowly destroyed by extractive shareholders or PE firms, the current structure of a public company is not the only possible shape.

https://youtu.be/GbIimta-TJs?si=3Sm-Dgl8DtfubFSt

A period documentary about the Meridian Triumph motorcycles co op. Sad, thoughtful take on a particular bit of British manufacturing history. That the co op started with a strike, had to trade exclusively with a single customer, and that the senior workers became the managers they hated.

Due to the structure of that co op there was no way for them to access the capital they needed to redevelop their products and it ended up in private hands as a result, leaving the workers with nothing. I don’t think I would wish a co op on anybody.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#158

Post by gorgoiler »

gruez wrote: post #102
gizmo686 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility? This seems like a textbook case of the free market pushing prices down to cost. Having alternative revenue streams pushed that minimal price down; but even without that, there is no reason to think the market would have done anything other than push prices to the lowest level possible in that environment as well.

Company makes too much money: "they're extracting monopolist rents! They need to be a regulated utility!" Company makes too little money: "there's no money in this industry! They need to be a regulated utility!"

A more fair assessment would be: company runs a utility => they need to be a regulated utility!

The core part of air travel doesn’t really feel any different to a bus or metro or train. Off the tarmac then yes it absolutely feels like a Verizon store, as does some of the in-flight service, but there’s always been this weird feeling as a traveler that every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decals on it. Airline alliances are surely the ultimate example of this.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#159

Post by emmelaich »

ajkjk wrote: post #66
wat10000 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the industry is extremely efficient. Why would we want to turn this into regulated utilities?

sounds like it's not efficient at all? it's barely functional as a business and is only surviving on grifty addons?

"Perfect efficiency comes at the point of collapse"

Don't know where I read that, but it seems apropos.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#160

Post by devsda »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #112
striking wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the amount anyone would actually pay is substantially below cost for most routes, but it's still a service that many people depend on (either directly or by the indirect economic impact of travel). It's a genuine force multiplier that is unaffordable without being subsidized; making it a utility would just shift the subsidy from credit card points programs to the government.

If airlines didn’t exist, people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years. There’s nothing magical about air travel (or any other transport mode) that makes it worthy of subsidy .

You can't think of a single situation where an airline route is infinitely better and probably the only viable option ?

Btw you don't need to completely disregard other modes of transport to appreciate bus :)

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