In what seems like record time, Spirit has now exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The airline is now $795 million of debt lighter and $350 million richer thanks to additional equity investments. It has a mere seven directors on the board who split between finance and industry experience. One of those is CEO Ted Christie who remains at the controls flying the plane, free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.
Now what?
As the press release says, “Today, we’re moving forward with our strategy to redefine low-fare travel with our new, high-value travel options.” What exactly does that mean? It depends on who you ask. Reuters thinks this means Spirit is now targeting affluent travelers. Ted told CNBC that he’s definitely looking to attract people away from Southwest now that bags don’t fly free. And I say that we still don’t quite know what the airline wants to be. But one thing I can say is that it has not been quiet.
Spirit is a much smaller airline than it was even a year ago. In March 2024, the airline flew just over 4.9 million seats on nearly 26,000 flights. This March? It scheduled just under 4.2 million seats on under 22,000 flights. April is down more than 17 percent on seats year-over-year.
It has left several cities since 2023 including Aguadilla (PR), Charleston (WV), Denver (CO), Los Cabos, Manchester (NH), Monterrey, Ponce (PR), and Puerto Vallarta. (I’m not counting Cap-Haïtien and Port-au-Prince since those presumably will come back eventually when it’s safe.) Meanwhile, it added Birmingham (AL) last year and then this year are the two newbies Chattanooga and Columbia plus a slew of new routes that were added just this past weekend.
The Chattanooga and Columbia adds were already somewhat interesting. It shows Spirit going for small cities with little to no competition that are big enough to support sub-daily flying to Florida and Newark. It’s very Allegiant-y. There may not be a whole lot of those readily available, but then again, the airline’s recent changes show yet another shift.
This past weekend, Spirit added 36 new routes. Ok, technically that’s 24 brand new and 12 that are returning after an absence with some dating back to pre-pandemic times. Here’s a map:
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
Every single one of these routes is flying sub-daily. This is a big change from Spirit’s previous value proposition where frequency was the name of the game compared to other low-cost operators. Now, it wants to spread its wings as far as Frontier and Allegiant do thanks to low frequencies.
The two largest gainers this week? They just happen to be major Southwest cities: Baltimore and Nashville. Let’s just take one city to show just how things are changing. Here’s Baltimore.
Here’s a chart that shows departures in July 2025 by destination from BWI versus July 2019.
Data via Cirium
Look at the black lines. Those show service from BWI back in 2019 when the airline hit its high point at the airport. Note that there is not a single route with less than 1x daily frequency. Now look at the yellow. There are still some with more frequency, but the airline had already dipped its toe into flying sub-daily with Cancún, Miami, and Punta Cana. But this week, look at those eight new markets, all flying either 2x or 4x weekly.
What’s interesting is that many of these are markets that Spirit has served in the past. The difference now is it will serve them far less often. Combine that with Southwest’s recent moves to eliminate differentiators and Spirit may think it has a real chance. Then again, Southwest eliminating differentiators means it can make fares even lower and make it up on ancillaries. I’m not sure how this will work, but again, it’s very low frequency so there’s limited risk.
This week’s new adds all look similar, though they likely weren’t added for the same reasons. BWI and Nashville look like an attempt to strike while Southwest is hurting. Detroit was the next biggest add, and that’s a historically important market for Spirit. Besides being its former home base, it’s also a city that other ULCCs haven’t really tried to win. This looks like an attempt to reinforce with this sub-daily strategy.
The new two largest adds were in Charlotte and Raleigh/Durham. I find that interesting since a lot of ULCCs appear to have taken an interest in those markets as of late.
Perhaps my favorite add of all, however, is the decision to fly 2x weekly from New Orleans to Comayagua which is the new airport in Honduras that replaced Tegucigalpa. TACA used to fly to New Orleans for decades until 2005 when it left. Spirit has flown to San Pedro Sula since 2021, starting at 3x weekly. It has grown from there and this summer will now hit 1x daily. With the sub-daily strategy, Spirit can continue to gently ease into experimental markets much easier than it could previously. And whey work like San Pedro Sula, it opens new doors to other opportunities.
We don’t know if this most recent load is a complete picture of what we can expect from Spirit, but it is good to see the airline actually making real network changes for the first time in a long time.
39 comments on “Spirit is No Longer Bankrupt… Now What? BWI Gives Us Clues”
Spirit changes course and direction every six months. Going after affluent flyers? Well, no one will be “affluent” in America soon as the economy craters into a deep recession, or better yet a depression, where the uber rich and the MAGA sect will hopefully find themselves in soup kitchen lines drowning their sorrows in chicken stock. As to Spirit, it will merge, be broken up, or find another strategy by Labor Day, as it often does. It’s only value are its planes and pilots. Nothing else.
Interesting take for sure. I’m glad sky high inflation, super high air fares, and normalizing of seasonal air traffic had nothing to do with it.
The present ULCC rapid expansion that was countered by the Legacy 3 probably doesn’t have anything to do with it either.
(All sarcasm for those without sarcasm detectors)
Another disheartened Dem spilling the “facts”. LOL
Did you get your masters degree from Trump University? You crack me up every time with your screeds.
Screeds? LOL
screed: noun
a. lengthy discourse
b. an informal piece of writing (such as a personal letter)
c. a ranting piece of writing
Which one of those definitions fits my comment, Sean?
Everyone take a drink!
With regard to less frequencies on these new routes, economically that may be smart. Demand is weakening – I just flew for the first time in 6 months and both flights were only about 70% full – and friends and family have shared that some of their recent flights were only 1/2 full. Spirit can always add frequency if conditions change.
Anecdotal experience…
Traditionally, Spirit, Frontier, & Allegiant are airlines that I REALLY try to avoid, but a week or two ago, I flew Spirit for the first time in MANY years, largely because even with the $80ish buyup each way for an exit row seat, it was the best option for a 2-day roundtrip booked fewer than 36 hours in advance.
The fare didn’t include a carryon bag (the same as United’s basic economy fare, but not other most other legacy airlines’ BE fares), but other than that, the Spirit flight was… Very normal and similar to what I’ve gotten used to flying basic economy on Delta/JetBlue/American, so a much more positive experience than I expected. That wasn’t really a surprise, but to me still speaks to the relative lack of differentiation (or “race to the bottom”, if one wants to put it that way) between/among basic economy fares on legacy airlines and basic fares on ULCCs, other than carryon bags, legroom (which matters to me; 28″ vs 30-32″ is a big difference) and IRROPS.
Finally, and as an aside, I noticed that Spirit’s bag sizers for personal items at the airport are an inch larger in each dimension (yes, I brought a measuring tape, just in case I had to argue my case) than the limit stated on its web site.
I left a comment to similar effect on last Friday’s weekly review: Airlines of all types have converged to a very similar passenger experience. A “Go Savvy” bundle on Spirit isn’t much different from a main cabin fare on any of the legacies, and the base “Go” fare is almost identical to United’s Basic Economy offering.
My theory is that we’ve reached the end of the era where an airline could differentiate by being “no frills” or including extras. Every airline will now offer the full spectrum of options, to maximize their ability to price discriminate across different passengers.
ULCCs will have to differentiate in their network planning and their actual cost structure (e.g. provide a similar bundle at lower cost, not just a smaller bundle).
> My theory is that we’ve reached the end of the era where an airline could differentiate by being “no frills” or including extras. Every airline will now offer the full spectrum of options, to maximize their ability to price discriminate across different passengers.
> ULCCs will have to differentiate in their network planning and their actual cost structure (e.g. provide a similar bundle at lower cost, not just a smaller bundle).
I agree with this but not quite 100%. I think you’ll still see some implicit differentiation (in reputation/perception if nothing else, as those are very difficult to quickly improve), especially on the more premium and business-focused offerings. For example, even with the premium seat/service offerings, I don’t think Frontier & Spirit will attract as many business travelers as the legacy airlines do, even if they do start to get more corporate travel over time. For economy/basic economy, however, yes, I think you’re right. In the cheap seats, the major differentiators that I see (other than international network) are seat pitch, carryon bag inclusion, and relative reliability/service reputation, but those are definitely converging, and on the leisure side I’m not sure how much most occasional flyers really know or value those differences.
I think it will be interesting to watch what types of innovation or new policies/perks/services/etc (if any) that airlines come out with to help differentiate themselves, and how quickly the competition reacts. In my opinion it took far, FAR too long for the legacies to implement basic economy fares to compete with ULCCs (if just to put butts in the seats that would otherwise go empty). Going forward, I suspect that the legacies will be much quicker to copy the competition if/when another airline comes out with something new that seems to work and be popular with pax, or that generates additional ancillary revenue.
I’ve been flying Frontier and Spirit a lot this last few years as I’ve had status with them and I agree the flight itself has become much the same especially once upgraded into an extra legroom seat. Where the differences really show is service when something goes wrong. Spirit even when calling the vip line left me on indefinite holds, app is completely worthless, gate agent was rude and just generally has a bad CS morale.
Frontier has had ups and downs this last few years but they have brought back phone support and I’ve generally found them accessible and helpful of late. Unfortunately with low frequencies, unreliable schedules and flight delays there is only so much they can do.
Southwest on the other hand has been excellent and helped get me out of airports when I was stranded by the other carriers.
So while the product can merge to be the same, until the customer service and flight reliability increases to match I can’t see business or any time critical travel moving to Spirit and Frontier despite how much they try. I’m ticked off about Southwest getting rid of bags but if that means they can reduce prices to better compete with Spirit and Frontier I would choose them anytime just for customer service alone for when things go wrong.
> So while the product can merge to be the same, until the customer service and flight reliability increases to match I can’t see business or any time critical travel moving to Spirit and Frontier despite how much they try.
Agreed 100%. I haven’t had to deal with too much in terms of IRROPs in recent trips, but that’s definitely a major concern for me with ULCCs, and a big reason why I tend to advise non-avgeeks to be cautious when booking ULCCs, especially on routes with sub-daily frequencies. If a person’s trip timing is flexible at the last minute (e.g., for retirees seeing grandkids occasionally,, the it may not be as big of a deal if things go wrong and their flight (and often trip) gets cancelled (take the refund, do the trip another time), but for those who have booked time off from work and have other non-refundable deposits on hotels etc, it can really mess them up, and I know people who have missed entire trips because a flight on a sub-daily ULCC route was cancelled.
I did too under similar circumstances and totally agree. Had a perfectly pleasant flight, wouldn’t hesitate at all to book spirit again. The seat also felt more comfortable than I expected – better than ULCCs in Asia or even the legacies intra-Europe. Not sure if I’m imagining things though.
The legroom is an issue for work purposes – even in the blocked middle rows, it is so tight though it makes it difficult to work. There’s only so far you can contort yourself to open a laptop on your lap and type.
So this is a problem unless you’re in the exit row or big front seat. I think I would even prefer getting the basic package and paying for exit row + bag vs getting the package with the blocked middle.
The legacies have cheapened their product, raised fares quite a bit the last few years, and diluted their loyalty programs significantly that Spirit can be a very good option.
“It has a mere seven directors on the board who split between finance and industry experience. One of those is CEO Ted Striker who remains at the controls flying the plane, free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.” Who managed to leave his taxi curbside with Howard Jarvis in the backseat.
What I’d really like to know is, which board member decided they picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue after reading this post?
The same board member that decided they picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines!
There is a really good opportunity out there for someone to grab a lot of extremely angry Southwest customers if they do it right. The social media response has been interesting since they announced their new policies.
There’s an opportunity to pick up customers from Southwest for any specific trip, but any customers they acquire won’t be loyal in any meaningful way. Spirit’s model requires them to re-win customers for every flight they book, with the rare exception of people who fly a single city pair very frequently.
This gets a bit into game theory, but my hunch is that any publicized tactical policy adjustment by a US airline to try to lure Southwest pax would be quickly copied by many of the other airlines, thus costing everyone without really generating much of a gain.
For example, if an airline were to (say) offer a status match for Southwest elites or offer free checked bags on routes to/from WN strongholds (MCI, BWI, etc etc), I think many others would follow suit, and most of the airlines know that, so they’d prefer to avoid it.
That said, perhaps there is (or soon will be) some targeted marketing offers going on behind the scenes that are focused on higher value customers whose WN loyalty might be up for grabs.
Looks like Frontier is first out the gate with an offer designed to lure disaffected Southwest customers, complete with working references to “Love” into the marketing: https://news.flyfrontier.com/frontier-airlines-is-ready-to-be-your-new-love-low-fares-free-bags-and-more/
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
It will be fun to see how this plays out. I definitely look forward to future posts & podcasts on this topic.
Does Spirit have a corporate bylaw saying it can only enter markets with multiple competitors? Its crazy to me that they seem to always be the 3rd or 4th airline on a route. Maybe instead of going head-to-head(-to-head) with a crappier brand, product, schedule, etc… maybe try to open up some new markets?
This is what happens when the CEO is up in “the tower.”
There are at least 5 airlines actively throwing darts at the map and trying out any unserved city pair that might have demand (Allegiant, Avelo, Breeze, Frontier, Spirit). The obvious candidates have all been tried, and they’re pretty far down the list into city pairs that only have enough demand for maybe 2x weekly.
Finding new markets is one of the most fun exercises, but the problem is that everyone is doing it.
with the major carriers including JetBlue & Alaska, there are just fewer opportunities for all the LCCs to thrive in spite of Southwest’s problems. Expect a merger between these carriers or at least one to go away in the near future.
I snorted at the Airplane! reference. Well done. Now excuse me as I get back to my lasagna.
Wait, what! Why aren’t you having fish?
All the sub-daily service is interesting. My guess is that there is a pretty sharp drop in demand once you go from daily to sub-daily: Passengers need to plan their trip around your schedule, and most passengers searching on Google Flights or other aggregators won’t even see you if you don’t fly on one of their selected days.
In theory I’m squarely in the target market for Spirit and other ULCCs. I live near a non-hub airport, and fly my family to leisure destinations several times per year. I am willing to pay a premium for a nonstop, and pay to check bags on most flights.
At the same time, I find that I almost never fly sub-daily routes, because I’m specific about which days I’d like to travel and they don’t normally match. My home airport has substantial service from Breeze. I was excited when they ramped up service, but I’ve only flown them once, because the days never match!
I think sub-daily service will be an interesting long-term bet as the supply of 50-seat regional jets continues to decline, and the opportunity cost of daily service on a legacy grows. When people have fewer opportunities they might be more willing to schedule their trip around a nonstop flight.
The problem with that is that passengers also need to keep the possibility of IRROPS in the back of their mind, since a carrier that only has LTD service between your home airport and limited or no connection opportunities as backups creates risk for passengers.
The schedule and the stranding risk combine – my airport (TPA) has extensive service from Breeze, but in order to use them for a short trip I’d have to plan the trip around their schedule and run the risk of getting stranded or having to take a really long way back home if anything goes wrong with my return flight.
We just got Breeze service at my home airport to and from Washington, DC. I’ve taken it for one and a half round-trips. I was close to taking our Orlando flight home from Maimi (would have taken Brightline to MCO) but the flight left too early from Orando before the first Brightline train arrived (I instead flew to Chicago non-stop for a 3 hour train ride home).
It’s a round-trip from IAD on Friday and Monday mornings only. For me it’s a good schedule, one vacation day and a nice 3 day weekend. If I didn’t have the privilege of being a professional employee for the Monday morning return with a flexible work schedule it would be a terrible schedule. The hotel near IAD and the Breeze flight was cheaper than taking United Sunday night flight home. I also saved $19 on Airport costs since I was able to take the city bus both to and from the airport instead of needing a $20 taxi home Friday night.
What is more concerning than the routes they’ve added is the routes they’ve exited. An airline like Spirit needs to thrive in markets like BQN, SJD and PVR. I don’t believe there is enough VFR traffic 2 days a week in the ultra-competitive markets they’re choosing to go into. I like the play for BWI and BNA and think there is room for Spirit at DTW, but who thinks it’s a good idea to compete in markets like DFW-RDU or short haul LGA flying that has frequent RJ flying in place?
NK’s emergence from chapter 11 and the market changes it is doing have to be seen within the larger context of all of the industry turmoil including the challenges which are well-discussed on the latest AirShow podcast.
NK, like everyone else, can only move as fast as known data and macroeconomic and airline industry data is changing very quickly.
– Two US airline commercial accidents have created uncertainty and fear; even if the effect will not last, it is real right now.
– The swings in weather have been severe and ATL was severely handicapped for a couple of days. DL is by far tied more to its ATL operations than any other US airline. Severe IROPs happen at every airline but winter weather seems to have a bigger negative impact in southern hubs.
– The government travel cutbacks are significant and are not likely going to change for almost 4 years. DCA is being impacted by reduced capacity at the airport – it is subject to far more ATC delays than it has had in decades, if ever. AA, WN and UA all have large DC area operations.
Specific to NK, they are trying to find opportunities and they, like most of the ULCC sector, do that in leisure related small markets and by siphoning off demand in legacy carrier markets. I do not expect either strategy to change.
What may change given the leisure downturn is that the big 3 might become more aggressive in pushing back on ULCCs. Now that NK is out of chapter 11, the ability for the big 3 is greater for them to push back against NK.
And WN is clearly early in the execution of its restructuring. A large portion of the US airline industry remains strategically in-flux.
Not shocking at all.
The legacies killed the ULCC’s with the Basic economy fares, combined with better frequency and overall customer service.
Also, as people are willing to pay more for “experience” these days, its not surprising that all the ULCCs and LCCs are forced to change their business models to get a share of those passengers who want a better experience when flying.
The only surprise to me is why did it take this long. Prior to the pandemic, the first class fare premium over coach was not that drastic. I used to do it regularly on longer duration flights. These days not so much as the demand (and therefore price) has gotten out of control.
My anology has traditionally been:
WN = Walmart, JetBlue = Target, Frontier, Allegiant = Dollar Stores, Spirit = the corner “mart” in a marginal neighborhood. Not sure where Breeze and Avelo would be, or if this all still holds.
Hahaha, I like this. How about five Below for Breeze. I’ve never flown Avelo and don’t know their product.
K Mart.
Seriously.
The one incontrovertible truth about ULCCs is that NOBODY will choose one unless they have no other options.
Allegiant definitely knows this; Breeze and Avelo also seem to know it. They offer sub daily flying between markets that have no other (nonstop) options.
It is abject lunacy for Spirit and Frontier to compete on any route with any airline that is not a fellow ULCC.
Basic economy by the majors has destroyed the “we’re cheaper” value proposition which is the entire raison d’être of a ULCC. Nobody in their right mind would choose Spirit or Frontier with sub daily (or even once daily) flights in a market when other options exist with multiple flights per day in the same market, possibly on several other airlines?
Connecting cities to a new airport in Honduras? Great idea! Flying to Punta Gorda, Provo, Lakeland and New Haven? Give it a try! Competing on DFW-EWR, CLT-DTW and BNA-ORD? Are you freaking kidding me? If that’s the strategy, their next bankruptcy will be Chapter 7. And it won’t be that far into the future.
It’s the less than daily service that prevents Spirit from attracting business and higher profile customers. No one wants to be stranded and told the next available flight is 2 or more days away while the big four offer daily or twice daily flights and can handle connects with confidence.
Another weakness is Spirit is know for it customer service…not!!!! Again, why bother with an airlines that treats its PAX as undocumented aliens.
In the long run, better to pick a footprint that Spirit can support, build a loyal clientele, and show respect to those filling the seats.
Gee….sounds like Southwest when it started in the 70’s. Might be a winning formula.
One under-the-radar change that Spirit made in the last month: They removed the option to check a bag from their “Go Savvy” and “Go Comfy” fares. Previously, both fares included either one carry-on or one checked bag (but not both). You had to make the choice at booking, and there was no easy way to make different selections for different passengers on a booking.
Now, both fares just include a carry-on. A checked bag is now always a paid add-on, except with Big Front Seat fares.
As someone who travels frequently with children, I was bummed to see this change, though it does align their offering more closely with the industry standard. I’m not sure if the timing was influenced by the Southwest decision to charge for check bags.