By Alison Sider
Spirit Airlines CEO Dave Davis didn't want it to end this way.
"We didn't intentionally sell any tickets thinking we weren't going to be here," he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We thought we were going to get the liquidity we needed."
Davis apologized to passengers whose flights are being canceled.
After serving millions of travelers over its more than 30 years of flying, Spirit is shutting down. Its airport kiosks display a goodbye message. Employees have been alerted they are being let go. The airline's bright yellow planes have been parked.
Davis apologized to passengers whose flights are being canceled.
Spirit entered bankruptcy in August for the second time in a year, and its executives developed a game plan -- dubbed "Plan Charlie" -- in case the company's fortunes couldn't turn around. They hoped they would never have to use it.
But negotiations over a rescue deal between the government and Spirit's bondholders hit an impasse. After a Thursday evening phone call with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who championed a deal to provide Spirit a $500 million government bailout, Davis knew it was time.
For most of Friday, Spirit planes departed airports without interruption. The company's website was working and passengers could continue booking flights. Some even said they got promotional emails from the company with frequent-flier points offers.
But behind the scenes, Spirit was putting Plan Charlie into motion. By that evening, Spirit's board signed off on shutting the company down.
Spirit began canceling certain Friday evening flights and then scrubbed red-eyes. The airline expected its last flights to be at their gates by around 2 a.m. The goal was to have planes on the ground and crew members checked into their hotels when the airline announced it had ceased operations.
Executives decided upon Saturday as the time to call it quits, to avoid ending flights on a busier travel day. They debated trying to hang on until Tuesday but realized quickly that the airline would burn too much cash.
Announcing shutdown plans well in advance could lead to more chaos -- vendors might stop providing services, crews could stop showing up, aircraft could be scattered in foreign countries, and frustrated customers would vent their anger to airport gate agents.
"The wind-down has to be orderly. The only way to do that is to do it all at once," Davis said.
Customers who booked flights through Spirit using credit cards are set to receive refunds automatically. An initial group of about 150 employees will help close up shop, including getting over 1,000 crew members back home.
In the coming months, Spirit's remaining planes and aircraft parts will be sold, along with its headquarters and other real estate to repay creditors.
When Davis joined the airline last year, his task was to get the airline on a firm footing after its merger with JetBlue was blocked and a previous bankruptcy hadn't addressed some big problems.
But the war in Iran sent jet-fuel prices soaring, adding tens of millions of dollars a month in expenses and clouding Spirit's future.
Some industry officials argue it was always going to end this way for Spirit. Bigger carriers have outcompeted discounters by offering their own no-frills fares. Discounters have scrambled to try to adapt to changing customer tastes for a more premium travel experience.
Davis said Spirit's plan would have worked, if not for surging fuel costs. He also believes his airline isn't the only one in jeopardy.
"Everybody burning cash -- we just had a smaller pile to start with," he said. "They're not that far behind us in the race."
Write to Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 02, 2026 08:21 ET (12:21 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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