Major budget airline goes out of business

US ultra low-cost airline Spirit Airlines is no more.

The airline cancelled all flights effective immediately on Saturday morning US time, and told passengers not to go to airports for their flights.

The airline's website homepage, where customers could previously make reservations, has a bright yellow banner declaring that Spirit was “winding down all operations,” The New York Times reported.

The budget airline had lost billions of dollars in recent years, filing for bankruptcy in 2024 and 2025.

The Trump administration offered a $US500 million federal lifeline, but the airline’s investors and government officials could not reach an agreement on how to structure a deal to save the company.

“Unfortunately, despite the company’s efforts, the recent material increase in oil prices and other pressures on the business have significantly impacted Spirit’s financial outlook,” the airline said. 

“With no additional funding available to the company, Spirit had no choice but to begin this wind-down.”

In 2023 n 2023, Miami-based Spirit was the seventh-largest passenger carrier in North America with a business model based on keeping costs very low and offering customers cheap tickets.

It had over 130 aircraft in its fleet and served 70 destinations.

Unaccompanied child flown to the wrong airport

You'd expect airlines to take special care of unaccompanied children in their care.

Not always.

News emerged over the holiday that budget US carrier Spirit Airlines issued an apology after it put a six-year old unaccompanied minor on the wrong flight.

The airline admitted the boy was "incorrectly boarded", which is bulldust speak for "we stuffed up".

The boy, named Casper, was traveling from Philadelphia to be picked up by his grandmother, Maria Ramos, in Fort Myers, Florida, but instead arrived in Orlando, a city which is a four-hour drive away, Travel Mole reported.

Spirit Airlines apologised and offered to compensate Ms Ramos for the drive to Orlando. Which would seem the minimum they could do.

“I ran inside the plane to the flight attendant and I asked her, ‘Where’s my grandson? He was handed over to you at Philadelphia?'” she told a TV reporter.

The airline said: “We take the safety and responsibility of transporting all of our guests seriously and are conducting an internal investigation."

Spirit Airlines later said it had fired the gate agent responsible, US network ABC reported.

 

It is apparently not the first time an unaccompanied minor has been put on a wrong flight.

In 2019, a child was boarded on a United Airlines flight to Germany by mistake when he was supposed to be flying to Sweden, Travel Mole reported.