Spirit Airlines Cancels Flights on Saturday; Dominik Diamond Shares Retro Gaming Nostalgia

Spirit Airlines canceled all flights early on Saturday, stranding passengers across its network. The budget carrier's abrupt decision forced travelers to scramble for other travel options. "Even if they go back into business, never again," one traveler said.

The cancellations highlight the pressures facing low-cost airlines in a competitive market. Passengers reported delays and confusion at airports, with some missing connections or events. The carrier has not provided a timeline for resuming service.

In a separate development, British television personality Dominik Diamond reflected on reconnecting with retro gaming culture during recent visits to the UK. Diamond, who hosted the show GamesMaster for seven series in the 1990s, described holding a copy of Daley Thompson’s Super Test for the ZX Spectrum as the highlight of his month.

The game, released for the ZX Spectrum, brought back memories from 40 years ago when he first played it.

Diamond received the game from a person at the Forgotten Worlds store in Stewarton, a 30-minute car ride from Glasgow. The store stocks retro games, new games, arcade machines, comics, merch, figurines, and gaming-adjacent drinks and snacks. During a book signing there, planned for one hour either side of lunch, Diamond stayed nearly five hours due to the crowd size.

The event marked Diamond's first real professional appearance in the UK since living abroad for 17 years. He emphasized the genuine conversations with fans, contrasting them with brief interactions at comic conventions. "I can’t stand that thing they do at Comic Cons where you queue for two hours and get charged 50 quid for a signed photograph," Diamond wrote.

Days later, Diamond and his brother visited Pleasureland in Arbroath, one of the very few covered fairgrounds in the UK. They played classic arcade games including Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Gorf, and Defender, evoking stories from their youth. The fairground's familiar look and smell transported them back to their early gaming days.

A week after the Stewarton event, Diamond attended the OLL 26 Video Games Show in Norwich. He participated in a Q&A session followed by an unplanned signing, where attendees lined up with 90s artifacts for autographs. GamesMaster, last on television nearly 30 years ago, remains a vivid memory for fans, who recall it in encyclopedic detail.

At the Norwich show, Diamond and his brother touched a ZX Spectrum for the first time in decades. They marveled at the keyboard controls used for two-player games in the era. Diamond noted the physical relationship with old games, from purchasing at stores like Woolworths or Dixons to reading cassette inlays on the bus home.

The OLL 26 events concluded with Diamond's evening show, Dominik Diamond’s Retro Rumble. The production recreated GamesMaster challenges on stage with participants in their 30s and 40s, lasting two-and-a-half hours. Diamond described the atmosphere as joyful, like a family gathering, sidestepping modern world's complexities.

Weeks later, Diamond sat in Canada, tossing the Daley Thompson’s Super Test cassette in his hands. He credited retro gaming's lasting bonds, formed through shared stories and physical artifacts, as an antidote to digital updates and bugs in contemporary titles. The experience underscored why fans still queue for hours to connect over games from decades past.