Posted on 04/23/2026 3:27:29 PM PDT by Miami Rebel
The Trump administration is in advanced discussions with budget carrier Spirit Airlines about a bailout, sources familiar with the negotiations told CBS News.
The financing package could include a loan of up to $500 million, in exchange for warrants that would allow the federal government to take a potentially substantial ownership stake in the beleaguered airline, the sources said.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is one of the chief proponents pushing the Trump administration to take an ownership stake in the carrier, multiple sources told CBS News.
The deal is not done and is subject to change, but could be finalized imminently, the sources said. The negotiations were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The talks come after Mr. Trump weighed in publicly Tuesday, suggesting that while he preferred another airline acquire Spirit, he wanted his administration to look at a rescue package.
A spokesperson for Spirit Airlines declined to comment, and said that the carrier was operating as normal.
The Department of Transportation also declined to comment. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said Tuesday that, while no decision had been made, "the clock is ticking." While the federal government has stepped in to help the airline industry broadly in the aftermath of 9/11 and during the COVID-19 pandemic, propping up a single carrier is an unusual move.
"A lot of people work for Spirit. We care about the people that work for Spirit in this industry," Duffy told CBS News. "The question will be, can we do anything to save Spirit and make it viable, or would we be putting good money into a company that inevitably is gonna be liquidated? And that's a decision that our teams look at and the president has to be briefed on and, and we'll make a decision together."
Spirit Airlines is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and employs about 15,000 people. About 6,000 of those employees are based in Florida.
Prices generally rise when an ultra low cost carrier exits the market. Spirit ended its last two routes at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport in December 2025. Both routes — St. Paul to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and St. Paul to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — involved Delta hubs. Within days, Delta raised fares, in some cases by as much as 50%.
When fellow ultra low cost carrier Frontier Airlines departed a market, average fares on that route increased, according to data from aviation analytics company Cirium.
In 149 markets where Frontier stopped flying between 2023 and 2025, average fares increased 15.5%, or about $18, per ticket. Prices rose only about 2.5%, or about 93 cents, in markets where Frontier continued to fly. Nearly 79% of those 149 routes saw average fares increase the following year. In the 91 routes that Frontier exited between 2024 and 2025, 85% saw fares rise, by an average of $26 per ticket.
In some markets, the prices were more pronounced: Flights between Fort Meyers, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, jumped $127 in the year after Frontier left, while trips between Cincinnati and Philadelphia increased by $83.
"Budget airlines are like weights when it comes to airfares," said Atmosphere Research Group airline analyst Henry Harteveldt. "They help keep fares down on the airlines that compete with them. When there are no budget airlines on a route, airfares take off faster than the planes themselves."
Now that just Mean. 😃
Bad idea.
I saw what you did there.
Let the airline fail. Actions are supposed to have consequences.
Based on the 2026 American Customer Satisfaction Index Travel Study, Spirit is the worst.
These were the scores out of 100 for the eight largest U.S. airlines in the ACSI survey:
Delta Air Lines - 79
American Airlines - 78
JetBlue - 78
Southwest Airlines - 77
Alaska Airlines - 75
United Airlines - 75
Frontier Airlines - 69
Spirit Airlines - 66
Every crash and delay will be blamed on President Trump. Foolish to even consider this.
I was caught up in that in Columbus, Ohio. The weather was so bad there no one was going to fly out of there. I could shrug it off.
I always liked Southwest. I was on Southwest flying into Phoenix or Denver (can't remember).
We were preparing to land. Then we passengers noticed we were on the ground and stopped. The
whole plane erupted into applause and laughter. It was the best landing I ever experienced. After
a pregnant pause, the pilot came over the p.a. system: "Like buttah!" Wonderful memory!
NO, don’t let them fail or their current customers may wind up on an airline I fly with!
Yep. If Spirit fails, then another airline will buy them out or it will go away.
Like Saturn or Oldsmobile.
N.
G.
O.
Period. ✖️
You might be too late. YouTube posters are already making bank on Waffle House brawls, Spirit Airlines brawls, and police bodyvam traffic stops. .
I hope they save it, a lot of my YouTube content comes from Spirit.
The beginning of this is where the Trump administration is correct - the Biden DOJ should not have blocked the merger of Jet Blue and Spirit airlines.
Jet Blue would have just taken Spirit’s profitable routes and shut down the rest of their network. Airline mergers have never been a positive for consumers.
“Jet Blue would have just taken Spirit’s profitable routes and shut down the rest of their network. Airline mergers have never been a positive for consumers.”
There was some overlap between the two, but not universally Spirit was stronger in the Caribbean routes out of Florida than was Jet Blue and Jet Blue was stronger in the routes within the North East corridor. Both, separately took some business from the majors with customers looking for lower fares on vacations (as vacations more than business trips have more additional out of pocket expenses not compensated by an employer). There would have been consolidation of gates, equipment, employees, planes and other stuff. But your assumption that Jet Blue will gut most of Spirit’s routes does not hold water. Actually service on some routes where spirit had the lead would be improved with the better fleet of planes that Jet Blue has.
You think mergers in the airlines have been bad for customers? Check out and compare the prices of airline tickets in the 50s, 60s and early 70s and adjust them for inflation and compare them to today’s prices. Airlines today are more cost accommodating to the average consumer than before all the bug mergers.
Airfares were higher when they were regulated by the government? Shocking. Post deregulation mergers have been bad for consumers. Period.
How have post deregulation mergers been bad for consumers?
Post deregulation more and more average consumers are flying.
We need to let that airline fail. We should allow the discipline of the market to hold sway.
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