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Let's Buy Spirit Air

letsbuyspiritair.com

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Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#511

Post by ivraatiems »

reddalo wrote: post #301
ivraatiems wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is almost exactly the opposite of what most new airlines do. The fastest, cheapest way to get a good plane is to buy an old plane from an existing airline (preferably one going out of business, so you get a deal) and renovate it a little.

Ryanair is the best performing budget airline in Europe and they only buy new planes, because it's way cheaper to run them. Less time on land for maintenance = less wasted money.

Ryanair was founded more than 40 years ago. An established budget airline choosing to strategically make an expensive choice isn't the same as a new airline starting up.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#512

Post by lokar »

thekoma wrote: post #394
ab_testing wrote: post #92

I am not sure what the site intends to do, but doesn’t spirit have eight billion in debt with about one billion in payments due immediately. The planes and other assets belong to the debt holders. Unless this site plans to raise a couple of billion, I don’t think they are buying any airline .

What do you think the debt holders will do with the planes and the other assets?

Spirit, like many airlines, leases most or all of the planes

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#513

Post by skarz »

Is this real? I examined to their source code and found an exposed TypeScript RPC which indicates the following:

totalMembers: 4954

totalPledged: 5678872

averagePledge: 1146.320549

However the numbers on the website appear to be hardcoded in with very dramatically different numbers.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#514

Post by the_red_mist »

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…

re: "bank that happens to have planes"

this isn't unique to airlines. this applies to all exceptionally mature companies/industries who believe there is no more room for growth. any significant profit they make gets paid out as dividends to investors who then put the money elsewhere instead of reinvesting into the company

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#515

Post by cortesoft »

gorgoiler wrote: post #158
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!"

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…

The question is whether we feel air travel is as essential to everyday life as busses and trains are.

In other words, do we need to make sure everyone can afford to take a flight somewhere?

Or is air travel a luxury that we can allow the market to set a price for?

Maybe flights are simply too cheap, and we should just allow airlines to fail, which will limit supply enough to bring ticket prices back up to a level that is sustainable for airlines as a business.

Of course, this means that a lot of people are going to be priced out of being able to fly places for non-essential reasons. Which, given the environmental impact, might not be a bad thing, although it will make life very different for most people.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#516

Post by MarchApril »

reddalo wrote: post #301
ivraatiems wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is almost exactly the opposite of what most new airlines do. The fastest, cheapest way to get a good plane is to buy an old plane from an existing airline (preferably one going out of business, so you get a deal) and renovate it a little.

Ryanair is the best performing budget airline in Europe and they only buy new planes, because it's way cheaper to run them. Less time on land for maintenance = less wasted money.

Used, high quality machinery is always in demand, but I think "used" and "planes" have the ability to subconciously sow some doubts in many people. I personally never heard of any airlines with 100% used planes in their fleets. I definitely would choose an airline with 100% new planes. I guess I'm another victim of marketing.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#517

Post by ehremington »

tecleandor wrote: post #493
foolfoolz wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even SF to LA would have trouble with a high speed rail because the price would likely be the same as a flight

In Spain, a similar length high speed train route would be Madrid-Barcelona, that's 400miles and takes 2h 30min. If you offer me the same price for flying than for taking the high speed train, I'll take the train every time. In practice it'll take less travel time, no security lines or theater (no problem bringing your water bottle or whatever), you can bring more luggage, you can stand up/walk/visit the bar during t…

there will be no theater until a terrorist attacks it and then it will be exactly the same

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#518

Post by jodrellblank »

chadgpt1 wrote: post #307
eru wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, would you close schools, because they didnt make enough money? Yes, of course. We should separate school and state. > Airlines are highly subsidized anyway, treating them as regulated utilities falls short of taking public ownership as public institutions, where services just cost money/subsidies. How are they highly subsidized? And where? Perhaps we should fix that, instead of adding to the problem? Two…

You'd force an entire generation of children to simply not be educated?

> "Today I learned that a new account starts getting rate limited upon receiving its first downvote. Yay?"

Your comments are one-line thoughtless mic-drops, the system is working.

> "If a service cannot be provided for a cost below what someone will pay, the service should not be provided as providing that service is a lose-lose situation."

It can be a win-win situation, not everything is about profit. See also:

> "How did poor people who needed to fly fly when flying was expensive?"

If a poor person can fly somewhere to get a better job, they stop being a poor person. That's a win for them personally, and a win for society, and a win for future government tax income. It's also a win for the airline which moved them and got paid for it. The only time it's not a win is if you have a myopic focus on "but it costs money now and that's bad".

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#519

Post by tim333 »

fundatus wrote: post #342
cromka wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then you have RyanAir in Europe with no credit card or loyalty program offerings. They did have a loyalty subscription program, but it cost more than it generated. Best not to generalize.

And Ryanair is the largest airline in Europe! And one of the largest in the world.

And it got that way mostly be focusing on cheap flights rather than other nonsense.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#520

Post by empath75 »

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'm disappointed at how gullible people are about this.

Spirit as an asset is worth less than $0. Buying it would be a commitment to set money on fire for a decade.

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