00:00Spirit Airlines is officially gone. 34 years, 17,000 jobs all vanished at 3 a.m. on May 2nd.
00:06But how did they go from the cheap option to no option at all? Here's what happened.
00:11Spirit invented budget flying as we know it, charging for every little thing like carry-on
00:16seating and printing your own boarding pass, making the base fare so low that it was basically
00:21untouchable by the competition. But after years of ruling the budget airways with a dollar store
00:26crown, Delta United and American launched basic economy fares and copied Spirit's playbook.
00:31Competition was so heated, in fact, that by 2022, Spirit was trying to sell. JetBlue offered over
00:36$36 billion. The Biden DOJ sued to block it, and the federal judge agreed. Per court record,
00:43Spirit's stock fell 47% that day. After two bankruptcies in under two years, the airline
00:48wasn't looking good. Then, the Iran war spiked global fuel prices. Her aviation analysts? Spirit
00:54had no margin left to absorb it. But they did have one last glimmer of hope. A $500 million
00:59government bailout. But it collapsed when creditors rejected it. Saturday at 3 a.m. came,
01:05and the lights went out. Now, this whole thing matters because according to consumer advocacy
01:09researchers, you didn't have to fly Spirit to benefit from it. When Spirit flew a route,
01:14legacy carriers dropped their fares to compete. Now that ceiling is gone. Transportation Secretary
01:19Sean Duffy blamed Biden and Buttigieg for blocking that JetBlue deal. But critics at the Cato
01:23Institute say the Trump administration also bears responsibility for that bailout that was
01:28left on the table and didn't close. So here's the big question. Did the government kill Spirit,
01:32or did Spirit's own decisions seal the deal? Drop your take in the comments and follow us here for more.
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