Spirit Airlines and the future of cheap flights

精神航空与廉价航班的未来

Planet Money

2026-04-30

25 分钟
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It’s way more than fuel costs that pushed Spirit Airlines to the brink of liquidation and led President Trump to muse about “buying” them. Many low cost airlines are struggling due to a canny and calculated set of strategies from bigger airlines that we can think of as ‘revenge of the legacy carriers.’  Today on the show, we go back in time to when Spirit was riding high and pressuring the whole industry to cut costs. We talk with then-CEO Ben Baldanza about his radical vision for cheap air travel and then travel to the present day to hear how legacy airlines beat Spirit and other budget airlines at their own game. Plus, what happens to us passengers if Spirit does go away.  Newsletters:Greg’s weekly deep diveThe brand new Indicator link roundup Related Episodes: People Express and how flying got so bad (or did it?) Book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life is in stores now.  Support: Planet Money+ Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts. Find us on Socials:  Facebook / Instagram / TikTok  This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Greg Rosalsky, Jacob Goldstein, Zoe Chace and Emma Peaslee. It was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Alex Goldmark. It was fact-checked by Vito Emanuel and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.  See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
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  • About a month ago, RN Darling booked a ticket with Spirit Airlines for a work event in New York City.

  • And if you've been following the news about Spirit, you know that Aaron was not feeling great about that decision.

  • I just started checking the flight status every two hours.

  • And I did that for like 72 hours straight.

  • Because after filing for bankruptcy for a second time, Spirit is having even more financial issues.

  • Now it looked like it was about to go into liquidation and could maybe disappear forever.

  • And I would even call them.

  • And be like, hey, is there something?

  • Because I got a little worried that whoever was like in charge of updating the flight status,

  • maybe they were even like, you know, let go.

  • When the day of his flight finally came, his departure was sort of a running joke with the staff at the airport.

  • They were like, oh, you're flying with spirit?

  • And I was like, kind of looked at him and I'm like, I mean, I guess I'm one of the last.

  • Oren did make it to his destination.

  • But Spirit's fate is a little more up in the air.