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Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

spiritrestructuring.com

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Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#101

Post by dlcarrier »

clintonb wrote: post #61

It’s strange to see so many commenters celebrating the death of a company and the loss of so many jobs. I flew Spirit a few times. The first time sucked because it was an emergency and I had no other option. The last few flights were great. We got the large seats up front for $75 extra. That plus parking at SJC was still cheaper than flying Southwest out of OAK. The staff were friendly, and the gate was conveniently…

It's a class thing.

Enjoying Spirit Airlines a-la-cart benefits is like enjoying the extra features in an Android phone or using a car to get somewhere quickly instead of waiting around for public transit. If you aren't showing the worlds that you can afford to go without, you aren't upper class.

Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#102

Post by dlcarrier »

instagib wrote: post #82

Management chased every quarter with little care about the long term future. Took their profits and ran to other low cost airlines like frontier to make them ultra low cost per friends in the industry. Spirit tried to merge a few times but failed due to their balance sheets. Then bankruptcy protections. Follow the price of oil and airlines run into issues during those times when it goes above $100.

Jet Blue was for the merger, but Elizabeth Warren and Sean Duffy were against it. That's not a balance sheet problem, it's a problem of not pleasing the people in power.

Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#103

Post by [deleted] »

sys_64738 wrote: post #86
clintonb wrote: post #61

It’s strange to see so many commenters celebrating the death of a company and the loss of so many jobs. I flew Spirit a few times. The first time sucked because it was an emergency and I had no other option. The last few flights were great. We got the large seats up front for $75 extra. That plus parking at SJC was still cheaper than flying Southwest out of OAK. The staff were friendly, and the gate was conveniently…

A company that isn't a going concern should be liquidated immediately. Taxpayer money should not be sunk into something that has no future.

[deleted]

Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#104

Post by gib444 »

esseph wrote: post #90
gib444 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> meaning that flights are often longer Got any sources? I found: Europe average flight length (2024): 1,157km [0] USA average flight length (I could only find old data, 2005): 1,110km [1] (even if we index this up based on upward trends, maybe another 150km, that doesn't seem a huge difference to me?) > The US is big And Europe is big too. It's actually a bit bigger than the USA by land size. Btw, IAG is a global ai…

You need to look at things like average distance and median distance, do some filtering for most common destinations (example: NYC to LA, San Francisco to Miami, Denver to DC, etc), fuel costs, but also operating costs. Salaries and everything cost much more in the US than they do in Europe. Cost Per Seat Mile is $0.07 for RyanAir and $0.12 for Spirit, not counting fuel. Spirit hovers around 80% capacity while RyanAi…

Definitely a good point about CASM. Thanks for highlighting. I do see it's one of the lowest in the industry though

Fuel obviously plays a big part. Guess they also got unlucky with the engines (though could they have made better choices? Perhaps a Franco-American engine company like Ryanair ? ;)

> Salaries and everything cost much more in the US than they do in Europe.

Doesn't that mean they can charge more? We're regularly told the USA is rich and Europe is poor, so the customers must be able to pay more.

> Spirit hovers around 80% capacity while RyanAir is around 94%.

Spirit could have gotten better at filling seats. Perhaps learning from Ryanair. Or is there some thing in the USA that prevents exceeding 80% capacity? US customers not liking planes beyond 80% capacity?

It makes me think their business surviving was highly dependant on low fuel prices? So the collapse was a shock to nobody in the industry?

Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#105

Post by gblargg »

Kwpolska wrote: post #74
avazhi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you didn't know about the war in Iran and the effects it has had on oil and thus jet fuel prices, I'm not sure what you're doing on HN.

The war in Iran was the final nail in the coffin. But they were running out of cash for the past few years. If the Iran situation was so bad by itself, we would surely see other airlines failing now.

I wonder whether Spirit failing could push more customers to other airlines and serve to help them stay afloat.

Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#106

Post by esseph »

gib444 wrote: post #104
esseph wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to look at things like average distance and median distance, do some filtering for most common destinations (example: NYC to LA, San Francisco to Miami, Denver to DC, etc), fuel costs, but also operating costs. Salaries and everything cost much more in the US than they do in Europe. Cost Per Seat Mile is $0.07 for RyanAir and $0.12 for Spirit, not counting fuel. Spirit hovers around 80% capacity while RyanAi…

Definitely a good point about CASM. Thanks for highlighting. I do see it's one of the lowest in the industry though Fuel obviously plays a big part. Guess they also got unlucky with the engines (though could they have made better choices? Perhaps a Franco-American engine company like Ryanair ? ;) > Salaries and everything cost much more in the US than they do in Europe. Doesn't that mean they can charge more? We're r…

> It makes me think their business surviving was highly dependant on low fuel prices?

Basically.

The entire modern economy depends on the price of gas/diesel/jet fuel being between $X and $Y. If it goes outside of those parameters for too long, everything shuts down. Oil gets too expensive or too cheap to extract and refined and transport, then the money goes other places.

Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#107

Post by [deleted] »

esseph wrote: post #106
gib444 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely a good point about CASM. Thanks for highlighting. I do see it's one of the lowest in the industry though Fuel obviously plays a big part. Guess they also got unlucky with the engines (though could they have made better choices? Perhaps a Franco-American engine company like Ryanair ? ;) > Salaries and everything cost much more in the US than they do in Europe. Doesn't that mean they can charge more? We're r…

> It makes me think their business surviving was highly dependant on low fuel prices? Basically. The entire modern economy depends on the price of gas/diesel/jet fuel being between $X and $Y. If it goes outside of those parameters for too long, everything shuts down. Oil gets too expensive or too cheap to extract and refined and transport, then the money goes other places.

[deleted]

Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#108

Post by brohee »

Wurdan wrote: post #71
gib444 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IAG in 2025 had a record operating margin of 15.1%. Ryanair's gross profit margin for fiscal years ending March 2021 to 2025 averaged 19.1%. Some are (were?) doing just fine - in Europe at least. Sure, it's no Big Tech or banking, but it's not like the single low digit percentage of eg retail. Perhaps some USA airlines need some advice from across the pond?

The business model works fundamentally differently in the US and Europe due to geography. The US is big , meaning that flights are often longer, meaning that fuel is a bigger portion of the operating cost. And fuel is essentially something airlines can’t reduce the cost of compared to other operating costs where it might be possible to optimize for greater efficiency.

Europe has passenger trains that work. What would be a short flight in the US, e.g. London to Paris is done more my train through the chunnel than flying unless you got a connecting flight.

Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#109

Post by matwood »

gib444 wrote: post #79
matwood wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The immediate cause was rising fuel prices. The other issue sounds like it was poorly ran. More generally, it is also a low cost carrier at a time when, after years of competing on price, airlines are seeing people willing to pay more for a better experience. All other carriers are expanding their premium options, catering to the affluent part of the K economy (for the first time ever the majority of Delta revenue ca…

> Meanwhile, Spirit was dealing on the other side of the K who is also most impacted by increasing inflation, etc... giving Spirit zero ability to raise prices. Ryanair (Europe's biggest and most profitable airline) is managing it OK [0] What's difference about that side of the K in the USA vs Europe? [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c620506dvmjo

I can't speak for the EU, but this article was interesting. It sounds like a big part of it is that Ryanair's costs were simply less to start.

https://onemileatatime.com/insights/why-spirit-fail-ryanair-...

Re: Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations

#110

Post by gib444 »

matwood wrote: post #109
gib444 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, Spirit was dealing on the other side of the K who is also most impacted by increasing inflation, etc... giving Spirit zero ability to raise prices. Ryanair (Europe's biggest and most profitable airline) is managing it OK [0] What's difference about that side of the K in the USA vs Europe? [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c620506dvmjo

I can't speak for the EU, but this article was interesting. It sounds like a big part of it is that Ryanair's costs were simply less to start. https://onemileatatime.com/insights/why-spirit-fail-ryanair-...

Thanks for sharing. Interesting how fuel isn't mentioned once (other comments here have suggested it's mostly to do with fuel). Only possibly indirectly via cost per air seat mile (CASM), but AIUI airlines frequently exclude fuel from that

IMO Spirit's bad business decisions should be acknowledged.

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