Spirit Airlines ran a pretty bad business.

They haven’t had a profitable year since 2019 and their guidance for 2026 was 44% lower than their peak in 2023. That doesn’t mean they never had a chance. They were doing fine up until 2019, but things changed.

-After Covid, many airlines ramped up sales of premium/luxury revenue. Spirit, Frontiers, and Allegiant had none of those options. They all started to struggle.

-Then 25+ of Spirits planes were grounded due to engine powder metal issues.

-When JetBlue came in with an offer to buy, management stopped working on their serious structural issues and basically kicked the can while they waited for the deal to close. That deal was canceled due for antitrust reasons. You could argue both ways on this one, but the truth is JetBlue had no interest in creating the cheaper alternative to the big 4. They were buying Spirit to eliminate a price competitor, acquire Spirit’s Florida Latin gateway dominance, solve their pilot shortage, and accelerate their fleet.

-Spirit took on a staggering $8.1B in debt and they were ready to throw in the towel in 2024 with $1.1B debt coming to maturity in late 2025.

You can’t really blame a political party for this one. It was poorly run. Sure we can say oil prices did it, but…the writing has been on the wall for them.

Revenue (Not profit)

2021: $3.23B

2022: $5.07B (+57.0%)

2023: $5.36B (+5.8%)

2024: $4.91B (−8.4%)

2025: $3.7B combined predecessor + successor (−24.6%)

Truthfully this is part of a capitalist society. Some companies make it and some don’t. We move on.