00:00So if you have a flight scheduled with Spirit Airlines, don't show up at the airport.
00:05There will be no one here to assist you.
00:08This morning at 3 a.m., Spirit Airlines ceased operations.
00:13So what that means is Spirit does not have airplanes in the air flying as of this morning.
00:20Also, their call centers are closed, and they don't have staff at ticket counters.
00:25So if you have a flight scheduled with Spirit Airlines, don't show up at the airport.
00:31There will be no one here to assist you.
00:34What Spirit Airlines is now going to do is go through an orderly liquidation process.
00:39And at the time, the Biden and Buttigieg, DOJ, bragged and said, as they canceled the option for this merger,
00:47that this was a victory for U.S. travelers who deserve lower prices and better choices.
00:53Now, many at the time said this was a disaster.
00:57This merger should have been allowed.
00:58If the markets are saying there needs to be a merger because there's health issues with one of the airlines
01:05or more than one airline,
01:06we have to take a look at it and make sure we make the right choices.
01:10And in this situation, history has judged the denial of the merger between JetBlue and Spirit through the Biden administration
01:17with, I think, a view that it was a massive mistake.
01:23The president was like a dog on a bone trying to figure out a way to keep Spirit afloat.
01:29He was concerned about the employees of Spirit.
01:33I was in the Oval many times hearing him talk about the employees and the customers.
01:37In the end, this was a creditor issue.
01:40Again, they have the final say of whether they want to do a deal with the government.
01:43But also from the government's perspective, we oftentimes don't have a half a billion dollars laying around in a spare
01:49account that we can put into a bailout of an airline.
01:53So there was creative thinking on how it could happen.
01:56Those two things never materialized.
01:59There was a significant effort by President Trump and the administration to make it happen.
02:05But in the end, a deal couldn't be reached.
02:07And so here we are today.
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