Spirit Airlines goes dark

The flying banana
Cancun, Mexico
November 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Goodbye, Spirit.

Airports across the U.S. and Central and South America this morning are witnessing a sad milestone: the shutdown of a major airline.

Spirit Airlines, the ultra low cost carrier known for its bright yellow planes, is winding down operations after months of speculation that it wouldn’t survive its latest brush with financial ruin. 17,000 employees are losing their jobs, and hundreds of thousands of customers are either stranded far from home, or can’t leave home in the first place.

As a ULCC, Spirit’s business model revolved around super-cheap fares, then charging additional fees for just about everything else. It earned the airline a somewhat tarnished reputation among travellers, who often complained, bitterly, about unfair charges and terrible customer service.

The company filed for bankruptcy twice over the last two years and was in the process of slashing its fleet and route network before the war in Iran dealt it the final death blow. Between spiking fuel costs and a failed bid for a government bailout, it simply ran out of runway.

In Spirit’s wake, other airlines will step into the void, but consumers will carry the cost. Even if they had never flown Spirit before, they benefited from its existence. The mere presence of a giant ULCC in the market put pressure on larger, traditional carriers to hold the line on pricing. With Spirit now gone, expect ticket prices to increase.

It’s a structural change that disproportionately impacts those least able to adapt. Customers who could only afford cheap tickets will no longer be able to fly as the entire pricing scale moves upmarket.

Sure, we lose a fan-unfavourite Yelp review whipping boy that over the years deservedly earned its bad-customer-service scars, but we also lose democratized access to air travel.

Worse, we lose the budget option completely, because if Spirit couldn’t make unbundled air travel fly, then no one can. Don’t expect cheap startups to pop up in the years to come, as it’s a business model that, at least in North American skies, no longer makes mathematical or economic sense.

I’ll miss seeing the bright yellow livery. I’ll miss the era when we all had choice and access even more.

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