Spirit Airlines Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Spirit Airlines ceased operations after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection twice in less than a year. The carrier’s shutdown followed a federal judge’s 2024 ruling that blocked its proposed merger with JetBlue Airways on antitrust grounds. Frontier Airlines had expressed interest in acquiring Spirit in 2022 before JetBlue submitted a higher offer.

A Spirit pilot told passengers on one of the final flights that the plane was the second-to-last to land. “We are the second-to-last plane to land – every other plane has landed; flights are not taking off again,” the pilot said, according to the New York Post. The pilot added, “We’ve been in the air since 1983, 43 years, and unfortunately, that’s over.”

Barry Biffle, who resigned as Frontier CEO in December after serving nine years as Spirit’s chief marketing officer, told the Washington Examiner that a Frontier-Spirit merger could have kept the airline operating. “Everyone knows I wanted to merge with Spirit.

We made an offer. But JetBlue came in and made what was believed to be the higher offer. Spirit could have survived if they had accepted our agreement and merged with us,” Biffle said. He added that he had spoken with dozens of former Spirit employees after the layoffs.

Frontier Airlines forecast a revenue increase following Spirit’s exit. The carrier anticipates a 3 percent to 5 percent uplift in revenue per available seat mile, according to CNBC. Before the shutdown, Spirit’s seats overlapped with 35 percent of Frontier’s seats and 31 percent of JetBlue’s seats.

Frontier previously overlapped with Spirit on roughly 30 percent of its flight routes, according to Frontier CEO Jimmy Dempsey.