Spirit Airlines has ceased operations.
Now you may not care because you didn't fly Spirit, and have heard a lot of bad things about the airline, or more specifically, the behavior of its customers, but you should. Thousands of people are going to lose their jobs, and ticket prices on all airlines are going to skyrocket.
My wife and I were regular flyers on Spirit, and we actually found that it was not only much cheaper than the alternatives, but a better flying experience as well. We didn't mind the "pick what services you want" model of pricing, which so many complained about, because the pricing was upfront (no, the fees weren't hidden), and we could purchase a "Big Front Seat" that was basically First Class for only about $80 more than economy.
When Spirit quit serving the route we needed, we had to switch to the primary airline servicing Minneapolis, and the price per ticket almost doubled, and the seats were worse. It made us miserable. By every single measure, things got worse.
Spirit didn't die because it could not have survived. It died because the Biden administration and Elizabeth Warren killed it.
SHUTDOWN: Biden’s DOJ killed Spirit airlines by blocking its merger with JetBlue forcing it into bankruptcy twice. Spirit is likely shutting down now and JetBlue will lose $1B this year. Together they could have survived, now both will likely fold. When government puts their… pic.twitter.com/o7IHvAIfTO
— @amuse (@amuse) May 1, 2026
Spirit and JetBlue, both low-cost airlines, were set to merge in 2024, strengthening their finances and giving each access to a larger market. Neither was doing great, but it would take two low-cost airlines to make them a more viable competitor in the marketplace.
Apparently Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy's strategy to "return power to regular people" involved using government regulatory power to bankrupt Spirt Airlines. Of course Murphy will never apologize for the damage his stupidity caused. https://t.co/O5hhTjEpQc
— Izengabe (@Izengabe_) May 2, 2026
Stockholders liked the deal. The unions liked the deal. The customers liked the deal, but Elizabeth Warren didn't like it because she insisted it would reduce competition in the airline industry and lead to higher prices.
Did I say that the cost to fly to Detroit jumped almost a 100% when Spirit quit serving our route?
What are the consequences for Biden’s DOJ and a federal judge being 100% wrong? Nothing. Biden and the judge said Spirit and Jet Blue’s merger would be too powerful, wiped out $3.8 billion for shareholders & now airline is gone.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 2, 2026
Warren got the Biden administration to pursue an antitrust suit to kill the merger, and our Secretary of Transportation, oh-so-technocratic Pete Buttigieg, mobilized the department to break with tradition and oppose the merger, putting up additional roadblocks.
Spirit Airlines died tonight at the hands of the socialist crusader, Elizabeth Warren
— Yogi (@Houseofyogi) May 2, 2026
She must be so proud to add another casket to her achievements.
Tonight at 3am, Spirit turns off the lights. 14,000 jobs gone. 30+ smaller airports lose service.
JetBlue offered $3.8 BILLION…
Spirit Airlines died tonight at the hands of the socialist crusader, Elizabeth Warren
She must be so proud to add another casket to her achievements.
Tonight at 3am, Spirit turns off the lights. 14,000 jobs gone. 30+ smaller airports lose service.
JetBlue offered $3.8 BILLION in cash to buy Spirit in 2022. Shareholders, flight attendants union, literally everyone voted yes.
The combined company would have held 9% of the US market against a Big 4 that already owned 80%.
For anyone who understands numbers: 9% isn’t a monopoly against 80%.
Warren said no.
She wrote letters. She pressured Buttigieg. Biden’s DOJ sued. A federal judge killed the deal in January 2024.
Her argument: the merger would cost consumers $1 billion a year.
Now look at her collateral damage she dusts under the rug.
510 pilots gone in the months after. 1,800 flight attendants furloughed in December.
14,000 jobs in 2023. 7,500 last week. Zero tonight.
And that’s just the people in Spirit uniforms.
Catering goes. Fuel guys go. Baggage crews, gate agents, airport coffee shops, hotels and rental cars in 70 cities Spirit flew to. Every airline job carries 3 more on its back.
40,000 people out of work because of one woman’s moronic crusade against the market.
And the math ain’t mathing.
Spirit abandoned 90 routes during the death spiral. Fares on those routes are up 14% on average. Oakland to Newark: $135 to $288. Fort Myers to San Juan: $92 to $219. Kansas City to Newark up 66%.
That’s reality. Not some BS number from a “study.”
So @SenWarren tell me how this saves the consumer money?
Cheap carriers in a market drop fares 21% across the board. Southwest did this in the 90s and saved Americans $68 BILLION over 20 years.
Warren killed it. That’s what moronic politicians led by socialism do.
Then with her own blind arrogance, she tweeted Spirit’s collapse is “a Biden win for flyers.”
A win.
14,000 people are reading termination letters tonight.
And she’s taking credit.
This is socialism in 2026.
A senator who’s never made payroll thinks she knows how to run a market better than the people who own and work in the company.
She saved you a billion on imaginary paper.
She cost you ten times that in real life.
She didn’t protect consumers from anything.
14,000+ will go from working to welfare.
She will make sure to blame billionaires, hardworking tax payers, AI, capitalism and whatever monster they will make up tomorrow hiding under your bed.
Higher taxes. Fewer jobs. More expensive everything.
She called it a win. I hope you enjoy winning.
It was a full-court press from the Biden administration, based on an entirely fictitious argument that amounted to "better to let Spirit Airlines die" than allow the merger. It never made sense, because if Spirit died, there would be no competition between Spirit and JetBlue.
Nowhere in this article do they mention the Biden administration stopped a merger that might have saved the airline and that Democrats did a victory dance over it.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) May 2, 2026
This is the most pervasive media bias. It’s not the outright lies. It’s what they purposely omit. https://t.co/gO2H0kLHic
The tale of Spirit's failure is infuriating enough, but many Americans will never hear it because it does not fit The Narrative™. The big stories that were written after Spirit abruptly stopped operating failed to mention the most important reason why this happened. Nobody wants to write that Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg along with the U.S. Justice Department under Biden made this happen, so they don't.
Here's Biden Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg bragging about blocking the Spirit Airlines merger with JetBlue that would have saved the airline from bankruptcy. I don't think America has ever had a more incompetent Secretary of Transportation than Mayor Pete. pic.twitter.com/Pgdjf5Ng6U
— Izengabe (@Izengabe_) May 1, 2026
When the merger fell apart, Elizabeth Warren did a victory lap, bragging about how she saved consumers and prevented "runaway airline consolidation." She argued that the merger would reduce competition, but that assumed that Spirit was thriving and could continue operations without the merger.
Utterly extraordinary. Arsonist and firefighter. https://t.co/Q0PZhKLdp8
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) May 2, 2026
Everybody sane knew that this was not true, and the airline went bankrupt, wiping out billions in investor equity.
I've warned for months that a @JetBlue-@SpiritAirlines merger would have led to fewer flights and higher fares.@JusticeATR and @USDOT were right to stand up for consumers and fight against runaway airline consolidation.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 6, 2024
This is a Biden win for flyers! https://t.co/lJFGS3ucv3
Bankruptcy doesn't always mean cessation of operations; debt can be restructured, and finances improved. But the finances of Spirit without a merger were never going to work. It was already very lean; the problem was structural, and likely would have been solved or ameliorated by the merger.
Without a merger, death was inevitable.
The bankruptcy of Spirit Airlines is a direct result of the policy failures of Biden Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Here's Buttigieg bragging about blocking the JetBlue Sprit merger that could have saved the airline. His incompetence in office was just breathtaking. https://t.co/m4a7dCaMPO
— Izengabe (@Izengabe_) May 1, 2026
Of course, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg will pay no price. They got to grandstand, be smug about their power, attack capitalist pigs, and do victory laps. Nobody who would ever vote for them will blame them, and many will just shrug and say bad things about the airline, largely because they dislike the class of people who fly on the plane.
BREAKING: The US government announces a relief plan for Spirit Airlines customers and the company's 17,000 employees.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 2, 2026
Details include:
1. United, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest are all capping ticket prices specifically for Spirit customers who now need to rebook cancelled…
BREAKING: The US government announces a relief plan for Spirit Airlines customers and the company's 17,000 employees.
Details include:
1. United, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest are all capping ticket prices specifically for Spirit customers who now need to rebook cancelled flights
2. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines are offering reduced fares on high-volume Spirit routes
3. Allegiant has committed to freezing fare prices across routes that overlap with Spirit, and Frontier is offering up to 50% off base fares until May 10th
4. Most major US carriers are extending travel pass benefits and spare jump seats to Spirit pilots, flight attendants, and other employees who need to return home
5. Major US carriers also offer Spirit team members preferential employment interviews
Spirit Airlines officially shuts down after 33 years.
The thing is, those people you dislike so much will still fly, if not as often, because they will no longer be able to afford it. Prices for everybody will go up, as they did for us a while back when Spirit cut our route, and competition will be much less than before Spirit collapsed.
Warren and Buttigieg were all high and mighty about "protecting consumers" and ensuring competition, and what we got was fewer choices and higher prices, a bunch of people out of work, and massive disruptions.
All of this was predictable, and many predicted it. This was not some obscure unintended consequence. All it took was a basic high-school-level understanding of economics.
But today's socialists don't even have that. They have passion. They have rhetoric. They have performative outrage.
And they harm everybody.
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