By Grady Andersen, Staff Writer

Behind Spirit Airlines’ latest bankruptcy filing, President Donald Trump has considered sending a massive bailout to keep them in the sky.

After two bankruptcies in the past 13 months, Spirit is on the verge of liquidating all assets. This has been caused by the Iran War and the subsequent spike in jet fuel prices.

“We’re thinking about it, helping them out, meaning bailing them out or buying it. We would be getting them virtually debt-free. They have some good aircraft, assets. When the price of oil goes down, we’ll sell it for a profit,” Trump said when asked if he would consider the possibility of the government buying the airline. 

The current estimate of the total bailout is expected to be upward of $500 million. This would be the first time that the government bailed out a specific airline since 9/11.

“With a possibility of them being bailed out, I think the government would have a priority and say ‘Hey Spirit, you guys need to increase your safety practices and quality of flights,’” freshman Philosophy, Politics, and the Public and economics major Benedict Olusegun Dada says.

As the company evaluates its options on what to do next, they have slowly begun to move out of markets, which has caused airline ticket prices to rise in those locations.

“If I were an airline and saw Spirit leaving the air … I’ll push more flights, and there could be an incremental increase in prices … I can see the formation of a monopoly because no one’s there to provide that service,” Olusegun Dada said.

Detroit-Wayne International Airport, an operating base for both Delta and Spirit, saw prices increase as much as 30% for some routes after the announcement of Spirit’s possible liquidation. Minneapolis-St. Paul jumped up 23% on some routes. It is expected that liquidating would allow more free rein over ticket prices, especially for Spirit’s main competitors – Frontier and Allegiant.

Spirit is one of the nation’s few ultra-low-cost carriers, designed to get people to destinations without any amenities. Between charging for carry-ons and keeping a standardized fleet of aircraft, it can typically maintain cheaper fares than competitors.

Before 2020, they were largely successful and were starting to become a staple in the airline industry. In November 2014, investment bank Morgan Stanley named Spirit the top growth airline for its investors. It had one of the best on-time records, second only to Delta. It is also one of the safest airlines in the U.S., as it has not had a fatal crash in the air for over 30 years.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the airline industry harder than others, and that included Spirit. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, they received $330 million in federal loans that helped them pay employees until Sept. 30, 2020. However, they announced that roughly 30% of their employees would take a leave of absence after this.

With Spirit growing a mounting debt, Frontier Airlines, another ultra-low-cost carrier, announced plans to acquire the company in February 2022. It was quickly shot down, as stakeholders were hoping for a more lucrative deal from JetBlue. After a previous attempt was declined, Spirit stakeholders agreed to let JetBlue buy all shares in July 2022. However, this was blocked by a federal judge in January 2024 on antitrust violations.

At the time of publishing, Spirit is still in the air and offering flights, though numbers are greatly reduced.