Farewell, then, Spirit Airlines. After 34 years, two bankruptcy filings, tens of thousands of dollars in fines for deceptive fare advertising, and at least one instance of a passenger urinating on the cabin floor after being denied bathroom access, you are no more.
While some will celebrate the collapse of Spirit—you don’t get to be the most complained-about airline in North America across multiple years without making a few enemies—others will be less happy with the news. Approximately 17,000 people are now out of work. Countless passengers have been stranded in airports without their luggage. Last weekend, Reuters called Spirit aviation’s “first Iran war casualty,” which suggests the collapse might be the lead-off domino in a global cascade of airlines going under.
