Spirit Airlines died as it lived: lots of angry customers and no one to pick up the phone. Early yesterday morning, when America’s much-hated airline announced that it would suspend operations immediately, Spirit left tens of thousands of passengers at airports across America scrambling to figure out what to do next. Others arrived to pick up the plane, only to find the check-in booths abandoned with a goodbye message posted: All Spirit flights have been canceled, and customer service is no longer available.
Ghost’s end was sudden and surprising, but not unexpected. The budget airline had been through it for a long time: one failed merger after another, two bankruptcies within a year, and finally, rising fuel costs due to the Iran war that turned bad into worse. When hope for a last-minute rescue by the Trump administration faded, Spirit Airlines had no choice but to ground its yellow planes altogether. (A company spokeswoman declined to comment.)
The illusion that many of Spirit’s enemies feel is now free—unlike everything else Spirit has ever offered. The airline lured customers with cheap fares, then nickel-and-dimed them with hidden surcharges. Want to book online? That came with a “passenger use” fee of up to $28 each. Carrying bag? That was $33, or more if you waited until the last minute. Or how about a printed boarding pass? Another $10 a pop if you ask the airport agent. Even the water came with a price tag: $4.50. And that was before the back seat wretchedness, constant delays, and unreliable customer service. People have called Spirit the “sky school bus” and “the airline equivalent of gas station sushi.” In one 2014 poll, respondents said they would rather sit next to a snake on a plane—a real reptile, not a movie—than Flying Spirit.
For all the justified kvetching, America is about to learn a hard lesson: The only thing worse than a world with a Spirit is a man without a Spirit. Ghost haters “will eat their words,” Katy Nastro, a travel expert at Going, a discount airline website, told me. The airline operated with a unique ironic understanding: In exchange for low airfares, most travelers would be willing to put up with basically anything. When a passenger e-mailed Spirit in 2007 to complain, Ben Baldanza, then the company’s CEO, responded with a casual response and quit: “Let him tell the world how bad we are,” he wrote. “He’s never traveled with us before and he’ll come back if we save him a penny.”
And Baldanza was right. Even including all the additional fees, Roho was definitely among the cheapest options. Especially if you need a last-minute ticket, Spirit was giving you the cheapest option “nine times out of 10,” Nastro said. I owe some money for my marriage to the Spirit plane of $58.19. In 2017, I had just started dating my now-wife when she moved halfway across the country, and a spontaneous flight brought us together. My flight was delayed and the seat was like a park bench, but the price was right, and now I have a life partner.
In other words, Spirit was an airline for the masses—the kind of people who pack their sandwiches instead of paying $21 for a turkey wrap at Hudson News. Because Spirit was so focused on budget travelers, the airline operated in many small cities that otherwise had few other options. And it was the only airline that offered direct flights on certain routes.
Even if you swore by the Spirit—and many people did—you’ve definitely benefited from the airline. Spirit paved the way for other low-cost airlines, and the entire industry has had to cut prices to keep up. Consider what happened when Spirit began flying from Houston to Kansas City in 2014. The airline launched its flight at $150, more than half the average price offered by the only airline at the time, United. Within months, United had dropped its fare to $180, and Spirit had dropped to $90. The same thing happened so many times and in so many places that it now has a name: The Spirit Effect. According to one study, in markets with low-cost airlines such as Spirit and Frontier, airfares are 21 percent lower on average compared to markets without them.
In response to the airline’s success, many airlines now have their own “Basic Economy” fares that allow you to pay extra for baggage, seat selection, and more. (For the most part, Spirit was a victim of its own success.) None of that is going away now that Spirit is gone. Instead, everyone will be stuck paying more for less. Without competition from Spirit, airlines have one less reason to lower prices. One analysis found that airfares rose by an average of 14 percent on routes that Spirit dropped between 2024 and 2025. And 2026 is already shaping up to be the most expensive summer travel season in years. “This is the worst time for the worst outcome,” Nastro said.
The Paradox of the Spirit is this: It was a terrible plane to fly. But it also allowed more people to fly than ever before. When you’re forced to squeeze into the middle seat in row 27, it’s not hard to feel nostalgic about the time when flying was so fun and comfortable. In the 1950s, Pan Am passengers on coach were served guinea fowl. Round trip flights from Los Angeles to New York it cost $208 in 1958; in today’s dollars that is $2,377. Just since 1995, the average airfare in the United States has dropped by 41 percent. Now cheap flights are getting harder and harder to find. Spirit is gone, and other budget airlines—Jet Blue and Frontier—are also struggling. Soon, a $4.50 bottle of water will be seen as a real golden moment of travel.
