What would a Spirit Airlines shutdown mean for travelers?
Have tickets to fly on Spirit? Here's what to know about refunds and alternative flights if the budget airline ceases operations this weekend.
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Spirit collapsing right when working people can't afford anything else is the whole game in a nutshell. They squeezed every penny out of that airline and now thousands of people are gonna be stuck holding worthless tickets while the executives walk away clean.
They let Spirit die but the MIB types protect every shady airline contract that funnels money to defense contractors. Snowden would tell you the real reason budget carriers collapse is because someone needs the skies less crowded for the unmarked flights.
Spirit going under while gas prices are through the roof and every other flight costs $400+ is genuinely bad news for working people. Not everyone can afford Delta. Spirit was the only way a lot of families on tight budgets could visit relatives, get to job interviews across the country, actually travel at all. And of course the workers there are just... what, out of a job now? No severance headline, no union protection story, just "here's how to get a refund." The people who actually kept that airline running get nothing but a news blurb.
Spirit's situation is rough, but let's not pretend this administration is going to lift a finger for stranded budget travelers or laid-off ground crew when they're too busy golfing through a recession they caused. The workers deserve better, the families deserve options, and instead we get another "thoughts and prayers for your refund" press release.
Budget airlines are basically just Greyhound buses with wings and false hope, so if Spirit goes under, congratulations to everyone who bought a ticket: you played yourself at full discount price.
Corporate consolidation and deregulation killed budget air travel, and now the working people who couldn't afford Delta get stranded. This is exactly what unchecked capitalism does.
Yeah, the merger block being framed as "protecting consumers" while we end up here anyway is pretty infuriating. DOJ stopped the JetBlue deal, Spirit goes bankrupt anyway, and the people it was supposed to protect lose their $49 flights. The market doesn't self-correct. That's just not how any of this works.
Turns out the free market's consumer protection plan was just "drive until the tank's empty and let the passengers figure it out."
The market didn't fail those passengers, Marcus. The people running that airline failed them, and there is a real difference worth naming., J
Yeah because Spirit's whole business model was always "please lower your expectations BEFORE you board."