Without Spirit, summer travel is a different country

Remaining budget players consolidating in bid to survive

In Wilmington, Delaware, two weeks after Spirit Airlines shut down in the middle of the night on May 3, the carrier’s lawyer Marshall Huebner stood before a bankruptcy judge and apologized — not to investors, but to passengers. “We apologize most specifically for those Americans who may now be priced entirely out,” he said, thanking customers who had relied on Spirit during its 34-year run, many of whom “could not otherwise have afforded air travel,” The Associated Press reported.

The piece of context that did not make it into Huebner’s apology is that rising jet fuel costs tied to the Iran war — which put a chokehold on Middle East oil shipments 11 weeks ago — have pushed up airfares and fees across the entire commercial aviation industry, not just at the discount carriers

In late April, the Association of Value Airlines asked the Trump administration for $2.5 billion in temporary financial aid; Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy rejected the request the day Spirit stopped flying. Airlines for America — the trade group representing Alaska Airlines, American, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest — argued that any federal help for budget carriers would punish the carriers that had already made “tough decisions,” AP said.

The remaining budget players are consolidating fast. Alaska finished its $1 billion takeover of Hawaiian Airlines in September 2024; last week Allegiant closed its roughly $1.5 billion acquisition of Sun Country Airlines. Former airline captain Shye Gilad, who teaches at Georgetown University, said the economics of cheap flying have fundamentally shifted: “Dynamic pricing has taken away one of the last structural advantages that low-cost carriers had,” he said, adding that the survivors “can’t just be the cheapest airline anymore.”

Dartmouth aviation systems expert Vikrant Vaze added that the surviving carriers have “very different levels of budget-ness,” meaning the practical replacement for Spirit’s $39 fare may simply not exist, according to the AP.

All of this lands a week before the traditional Memorial Day kickoff to the U.S. summer travel season.