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Discussion (74 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
> To our Guests: all flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available
That seems quite a bit stronger than “winding down”!
Still, a zero-notice shutdown is a bit much. Some people who have tickets for tomorrow probably went to bed already.
There's still the mechanics of winding down. All the planes have to be flown to suitable storage locations. With such an abrupt shutdown, they'll have mis-positioned aircraft all over their route system. Many planes are probably leased, so the lessor may have to arrange to take custody of the aircraft. It's probably better if the aircraft are leased - there's some lessor with funds to take care of the job and the knowledge of how to arrange it, since a handover and move happens at the end of each aircraft lease. Aircraft Spirit actually owns will have to be moved by a bankruptcy receiver, which is a lawyer trying to run what's left of an airline. Most major airports charge very high parking fees. LAX charges $1000 for the first day, and that goes up to $5000 a day on day four. They're not in the storage business.
There are probably a lot of middle of the night phone calls and meetings going on right now.
That seems pretty cheap to me actually. A random Google search suggests that an airplane costs at least $100MM, so $5k per day is 0.005% of the airplane's value.
Scaled down proportionally to a $100k car, that's only $5 per day, and considering that many parking lots charge $5 per hour, that seems like a pretty good deal.
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 across from a lounge, so we had a truly great experience for those couple flights to Dallas.
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/02/nx-s1-5807933/spirit-airlines... describes this in more detail.
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?
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 came from premium cabins over main). 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
You asked if this was caused by or related to bad customer service. This was 100% caused by the increase in jet fuel prices due to the war in Iran. Obviously huge swings in jet fuel prices affect budget carriers more than, say, United or American or Lufthansa or Singapore Airlines, which have many (many) more options when jet fuel prices rise.
Many countries, including many third world countries, have regional airlines. It has nothing to do with America in particular, and the usage of that term is not an American-ism. A good non-American example is Qantas and QantasLink, the latter being a regional airline, and the Aussies refer to it as such.
In this case, the bankcruptcy was handled by cancelling all flights with 1 day of notice. This level of ugliness is not necessary.
I initially meant that they should have finished the flights they already sold tickets for, in some timeframe like one month.
Changed the phrasing so it is more clear.
Sure.
Can you expand on this? How do you explain e.g. ecosystems around centuries-old redwoods?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens#Fire_adap...
Your statement might be true in a system with healthy safeguards ands competition, but that isn't the system we have in the real world today.
The capital will probably go to further the AI bubble, I really don't see how that would be more useful than enabling travel.
I don't live in the US but spirit has been the butt of jokes for years.
The market should decide and determines winners and losers, not the government.
So compete.
That being said, I suspect many people had never heard about Lehman Brothers before 2008...
edit: do folks not think more competition would be better for consumers? i'm no stan of capitalism but surely it could be made better, sheesh.