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rapatel0
Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them.
Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere
Private equity will likely sell the company for parts. There is no operational improvements for cash flow that they can do.
Useful watch (skip to 2:20): https://youtu.be/ggUduBmvQ_4?si=cyysP7aH_CIEDZRq
gizmo686
Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility? This seems like a textbook case of the free market pushing prices down to cost. Having alternative revenue streams pushed that minimal price down; but even without that, there is no reason to think the market would have done anything other than push prices to the lowest level possible in that environment as well.
gruez
Company makes too much money: "they're extracting monopolist rents! They need to be a regulated utility!"
Company makes too little money: "there's no money in this industry! They need to be a regulated utility!"
gorgoiler
A more fair assessment would be: company runs a utility => they need to be a regulated utility!
The core part of air travel doesn’t really feel any different to a bus or metro or train. Off the tarmac then yes it absolutely feels like a Verizon store, as does some of the in-flight service, but there’s always been this weird feeling as a traveler that every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decals on it. Airline alliances are surely the ultimate example of this.
ericmay
Yea that's a good one. The problem is folks don't have patience. They see an airline fail and instead of waiting until a new competitor enters the market, as they inevitably will, they want to start regulating or look to other "solutions" but these things take time to work themselves out. It's a free market, not an instant free market.
devilbunny
Meanwhile, first class today is not very much more than coach cost in the regulated era.
Try flying Delta. It isn’t the cheapest option, but you really do get better service.
If you want to feel special, do Aeromexico first class. The checked bags are waiting for you before you can even walk there on a domestic flight.
Spirit was cheap. And if you’re poor, you need cheap. If you aren’t, buy better service and don’t complain that it’s just Greyhound on a plane.
throwaway2037
I like the EU model. The regulators set a "bare minimum" set of requirements. They have much better minimums that North America, and the fares are (still) cheaper per kilometer travelled. Also, I love the penalty system when flights are late.
lostlogin
Company, always: "We need government subsidy". Then hell yes to regulating what they do.
mysecretaccount
Even with your uncharitable framing I agree with both quotes.
xnx
And similar illogical arguments on regulated transportation: "the trains are too crowded! We need more money."
"No one is riding the trains! We need more money."
Humorist2290
Company offers a service that is considered essential to function in society, and the overwhelming majority of people _must_ pay for as if it were a tax: "this seems like something generally useful to the public! They need to be a regulated utility!"
rapatel0
Power companies are the classic example. If power companies were forced to compete, their costs + competition tend to drive them out of business. As a result most power companies are forced to operate in really tight constraints with very limited but predictable margin.
I'm not saying that this a better outcome (power companies have their problems too). I was just commenting that this issue parallels the historical solution that was applied to utility companies.
granzymes
Power companies are a classic example of a natural monopoly because they require a ton of extremely expensive physical infrastructure to connect every house to the grid that would be wasteful to duplicate for every competitor.
The whole point of airplanes is that they require no physical infrastructure between point A and point B.
You can have competing power companies generating the power if the grid is owned by the state (or a regulated monopoly). Coincidentally, that is a good mental model for airlines because airports are often state-owned or if not are highly regulated.
gwerbin
In this case prices are _below_ cost, no?
thrance
If we let the free market do its work, there'd be no airlines. Jet fuel is heavily subsidized, the State injects massive amounts of money into airports and plane manufacturers, etc.
Honestly, with the looming climate crisis, we should probably just let them fail one by one and let alternatives (who can actually be profitable) take off.
carlosjobim
In a free market, every working citizen could easily afford more expensive airline tickets, since they could keep their entire income with no taxes deducted.
SecretDreams
When a necessary service is pushed towards being unprofitable / breakeven due to "free market pressures", it probably should have some kind of backstop to ensure the service doesn't completely fold - because it is necessary. I think the suggestion to treat it like a utility was trying to emphasize this.
I'd also feel similar I'd my primary water, electricity, or internet provider was on the brink of failing due to "free market pressures".
nilamo
Consumer air travel is not a necessary service, though.
willio58
Airlines basically were a regulated utility until they were unregulated to the point where normal people can barely fit in a seat and there’s basically no amenities anymore. It used to be kind of nice to fly. That’s laughable now.
eru
Now you have to option to pay as much as you used to (inflation adjusted) for a ticket, and get first class service with all the leg room you want.
kelnos
On the other side of that coin, when airlines were heavily regulated, most people couldn't afford to fly at all.
The "regulation vs. no regulation" stance is the wrong way to look at it. Airlines are still regulated, of course. Maybe some of the regulations we do have are unnecessary, some of the regulations we got rid of we should really bring back, and perhaps there are others that we never had that we need.
wallst07
What other things changed besides regulation?
My guess is MANY more people fly and are able to afford to fly vs before. There are probably many others things that changed.
It's also very nice to fly.... in first class.
pc86
> Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility?
Because the majority of the HN crowd defaults to "a massive government bureaucracy would do this better" unless it's even tangentially related to their industry in which case it's "regulations bad" and "move fast break things."
rapatel0
I'm definitely not this type of person. see other comment
striking
Because the amount anyone would actually pay is substantially below cost for most routes, but it's still a service that many people depend on (either directly or by the indirect economic impact of travel). It's a genuine force multiplier that is unaffordable without being subsidized; making it a utility would just shift the subsidy from credit card points programs to the government.
crazygringo
> Because the amount anyone would actually pay is substantially below cost for most routes
This is absolutely not true. If all the airlines were prohibited from making money with anything else (miles, credit cards) then airfares would rise across the board and there would still be plenty of demand. Not as much, but still plenty.
appreciatorBus
If airlines didn’t exist, people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years. There’s nothing magical about air travel (or any other transport mode) that makes it worthy of subsidy .
ajross
> the amount anyone would actually pay is [...]
That's.... like a pretty shocking erasure of the idea of a demand curve given the forum here.
To be glib: no, that's not how it works. Increase the price and fewer people will fly, but the demand won't drop to zero. Decrease it and you make less money per ticket but the size of the market is bigger. At some point there is a local maximum, to which the market seeks.
But conditions change occasionally and the equivalent supply curve is moving rapidly because of the oil shock (i.e. it's more expensive to put planes in the air to service tickets you already sold). And things like the mess with Spirit are what happens when the market readjusts: the rest of the industry will (probably) backfill some of the lost capacity, but not all of it, and prices will (probably) rise a bit to a new equilibrium.
forgotaccount3
> indirect economic impact of travel
Like what?
Nearly all 'goods' are going to travel more efficiently by rail and truck. And I say nearly all to cover the outliers like maybe an organ flying across country for transplant.
So if it's not the distribution method of choice for goods, then leisure? It's probably a global positive if people fly less. People will end up going to more local vacation destinations instead of aggregating all of those resources into a few popular locations that end up being massively overcrowded. This in turn reduces carbon impact because driving 3 hours is significantly less impactful than flying for 3 hours.
If you are just talking about all of the labor that has built up to support this inefficient and wasteful enterprise, that's probably for the best to reallocate that labor elsewhere. It will happen eventually, unless you think cheap oil is a permamenent feature, so why not happen sooner than later?
miki123211
This is like saying that movie theaters make money on popcorn, so they should just start selling popcorn and exit the movie business entirely. The reason those loyalty programs work is because of the flights.
For a much deeper dive on this, see https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/gary-leff-fre...
(there's a well-formatted text transcript)
antasvara
I read it more as "you buy an airline because you want to run an airline, but what you actually end up running is primarily a credit card company." That doesn't mean you stop doing flights, it just means that the part you want to do is the part that loses your company money.
This sort of thing all the time when (for example) a movie lover opens a movie theater. Running a profitable movie theater is a lot less about movies and a lot more about maximizing concession revenue.
an0malous
The point still stands that a dependency on creating a profitable airline company is a credit card company
cromka
And then you have RyanAir in Europe with no credit card or loyalty program offerings. They did have a loyalty subscription program, but it cost more than it generated.
Best not to generalize.
rapatel0
When I lived in europe, RyanAir made most of it's money in the terminal. This is why every RyanAir terminal has a maze like exit from security (ikea-esque) before you get to the actual terminal.
The RyanAir CEO was even quoted that he expected some tickets to be come "zero-fare" Link: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/22/ryanair-fli...
The point stands, airlines don't make money on flights. Flights are loss leaders.
notahacker
tbf, Ryanair generates a third of its revenues from other ancillary offerings (including kickbacks from insurers and car hire firms as well as its legendary fines and fees) so it does fit the general pattern of it being unprofitable to simply sell tickets in competitive markets...
wolvoleo
Those other companies do too So it's not distorting the competition IMO. If none of them had kickbacks then the prices would be overall higher but people would still fly because most of us don't just fly for the hell of it but because we have places to go.
fundatus
And Ryanair is the largest airline in Europe! And one of the largest in the world.
tim333
And it got that way mostly be focusing on cheap flights rather than other nonsense.
chadgpt1
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nunez
They make a lot of money from loyalty programs and credit cards, but the legacy airlines do make money on flying alone. The margin they make on that is razor thin, but they do make money from the core product.
Spirit was designed to be ultra low cost, which attracts flyers that are much more price sensitive. Higher Jet A costs means higher ticket prices, which means lost customers, which means lost revenue. Pulling a JetBlue and adding higher tier product offerings to attract the business travelers that _actually_ makes money for airlines would've required an overhaul of their entire business, which they couldn't afford to do.
I agree that Spirit will be chopped up by whoever buys them. It happened to Braniff, PanAm, and a whole bunch of other airlines that weren't thrown a lifeline.
(JetBlue tried to acquire Spirit to prevent this outcome, but the acquisition didn't pass antitrust. Everyone knew that that acquisiton failing was a death sentence to Spirit, but it was what it was.)
eru
> I agree that Spirit will be chopped up by whoever buys them. It happened to Braniff, PanAm, and a whole bunch of other airlines that weren't thrown a lifeline.
But that's not necessarily a bad thing. If the company is worth more to the market and society when sold as pieces, so be it.
bdunks
This is a common narrative that simply isn’t true.
American Airlines has the largest loyalty program.
In last week’s report to shareholders they project it will grow to $1.5B in pre tax revenue, against a total 2025 pre tax revenue of $54bn (50bn passenger revenue).
The core business of airlines is still airlines. Optimizing TRASM & CASM, with tremendous effort on upsell and cross sell of premium services (seats, bags, food), at every point in the passenger flow.
tylervigen
It can both be true that (1) most of the revenue and operations focus is on the core airline and (2) most of the profit and valuation is driven by the loyalty program.
This is true for American Airlines: https://viewfromthewing.com/new-report-says-aadvantage-is-wo...
hnav
profit != revenue. Airlines have thin margins and the argument is that they're getting most of their profit from the financial side of things. This is the end state of any endeavor in capitalism: up the value chain there's always the business of trading imaginary units.
boppo1
Can you elaborate on your claim about capitalism and all activities being about trading imaginary units? My uni gave me a degree in finance & I can still basically explain CAPM off the top of my head, but I'm unfamiliar with this aspect. Always interested in expanding my understanding.
gtowey
Or they could actually charge ticket prices that cover the cost of doing business and stop treating their passengers like a it's a time-share sales pitch the whole way.
tomhow
They can't do this most of the time because for most of the year on most routes, supply outstrips demand (i.e., many/most flights on most airlines fly at least a little bit empty, often significantly empty – overall load factors are about 80-85%). They have to charge fares that customers will be willing to pay, even if that means losing money on a given flight. They can only charge profitable fares on the routes and times of year when demand surges (peak routes, holiday periods, major events). They have to keep their network capacity high enough to satisfy the peak demand, but for most of the year and most of the network, demand is lower, so they have to settle for break-even or loss-minimization. (For the record, I co-founded a flight search startup that became a fare optimization platform.)
dannyw
Was that Flightfox? If so, I loved using it, helped me save so much money but also time :)
It sounds like there’s a problem with having too many flights that are barely full and hence unprofitable. AFAIK the federal gov spends significant money subsidising many “small airport” routes even if they’re barely used.
chadgpt1
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acheron
Sounds like a good way to lose all your customers to the other airlines that charge less.
AlexandrB
Yup, and this is exacerbated by how services like Google Flights work. There's little visibility into any kind of "quality" metric, but prices are always front and center. So why would you optimize based on anything else?
hedora
Southwest used to do this, but then somehow got a CEO that burnt it all down instead of raising ticket prices by $20-30.
Before them Alaska Air was similar, and is now similarly bad.
Having the customers actually own the airline seems like a reasonable approach. The trick is kicking all the assholes off the board, so they can’t fire leadership for treating customers decently while turning a sustainable profit.
wolvoleo
True, Alaska skimped on maintenance so much they killed a plane full of passengers that should never have died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261
I can't fathom how this airline was allowed to keep existing.
stackskipton
Consumers only look at bottom line. There is basically two markets with airlines, higher end market with credit cards and premium seating; lower end where consumer solely looks at ticket price.
kulahan
A huge number of businesses survive on whales, it's becoming really apparent. I'm kinda surprised how common it is.
I wonder if this will be the next "market" to exploit if ad revenue ever dies down too much, or if it's one that's always been there, and I've simply never been a part of.
lotsofpulp
They do, it’s just barely enough to cover the cost of doing business and volatility.
gordon_freeman
> "Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments."
If that's the case then how RyanAir survived and is thriving?
ggm
It isn't the case. It's a simplistic gloss on a complex finance outcome.
Some flights make money.
Some flights lose money.
Some finance structures make money while looking like losses to acrue tax benefits for other activities.
Sometimes the money is being made by holding companies not operating companies. Sometimes the assets are worth more as spares than operating.
All companies are complex. I do not think "flights don't make money" is true for all airlines, all flights.
bombcar
Because people take "airline X makes $50k profit, and makes $55k off of the credit card, so therefore it makes all money from credit cards" which is true from a certain accounting point of view, and also entirely false, in that it's all accounting tricks and the credit card would be worthless without an airline.
wolvoleo
Credit cards aren't really a thing in Europe and even where people might have them they don't make money. There's no kickback schemes, cashback etc.
red_admiral
Bag fees and other ways to get passengers to pay above the headline price. Like this kind of thing: https://hallofshame.design/ryanair-when-every-page-is-a-dark... and https://darkpatterns.uxp2.com/pattern/ryanair-travel-insuran...
addandsubtract
Not to mention that loyalty programs and credit card bonuses don't exist in Europe.
Petersipoi
This isn't true. European airlines do have loyalty programs with "miles".
Air France, British Airways, Finnair, Turkish Airlines, just to name a few, all have miles programs.
They just aren't tied to credit cards because the EU caps interchange fees to 0.3%, so there simply isn't enough money to have a meaningful credit card point system.
roncesvalles
Because it's nonsense. It's from some YouTube video that went viral a few years ago.
the_gipsy
RyanAir notoriously uses cheaper secondary airports.
altmanaltman
Because their social media strategy is fire
4k0hz
Airlines were heavily regulated in the US and essentially operated as government contractors until 1978 [1]
tt24
Yeah and it was an absurdly expensive activity limited to rich people
jollyllama
You say that, but flying economy was much better back then. Less fights, more legroom. You've got to fly business today to get close.
bsder
And most families only had a single car prior to 1980.
What's your point?
Did airlines get cheaper due to deregulation or because technology and engineering made operating them cheaper?
victorbjorklund
Was it cheaper or more expensive for the public to fly on them during that time or after deregulation?
hedora
As I understand it, everything about the industry was better back then too.
Case in point: Old Perry Mason shows where characters regularly drive to the airport, pay for a ticket and get on a plane. Flying was actually faster than driving back then, even when measured by time between deciding to leave and arriving at destination!
(Yes, tickets used to cost a bit more. Whatever. Figure in the price for camping in the airport for 4-5 hours, and then tell me the current system is cheaper!)
missedthecue
"Yes, tickets used to cost a bit more"
Tickets used to cost 4-8x what they cost now, depending on route. It wasn't a couple percent extra. A lot of what made flying seem like such a glamorous activity was that everyone but the upper classes was excluded.
An economy class round trip from the US to Japan in the 1970s with Pan-Am was $8,900 in 2026 dollars. About $15,000 if you flew first class.
tt24
It would be prohibitively expensive for poor people to fly. I understand why you wouldn’t care about that, but some people are poor and still need to fly if you can believe it.
Nican
I remember reading about how the major airlines now are more of a "bank that happens to have planes," due to the loyalty programs being worth significantly more than the airline. Delta Air Lines earned $8.2 billion from American Express in 2025, surpassing ticket sales revenue. [1]
I primarily use my favorite's airlines credit card because it gives me perks such as priority seating, and free checked bags. I am pretty certain that the credit card fees (that is passed on to the merchant) does not come close to the value that I gain for my credit card loyalty. It is a stupid game that I am forced to play, because the credit cards also provide other benefits, such as fraud protection.
I am wondering right now if "Spirit Air 2.0" even has a fighting chance if they are not able to subsidize operating costs by also being a credit card company.
[1] https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/delta-air-lines-m...
hattmall
>Delta Air Lines earned $8.2 billion from American Express in 2025, surpassing ticket sales revenue.
Just to be clear, that isn't what the article says. It says more than what "most" airlines generate in ticket sales. Not Delta, or any major US carrier. As interesting as that sounds, it couldn't logically make sense and it only represents about 15% of Delta's revenue. It's not even a straightforward revenue stream, it works for profitability because they are able to book most of the revenue immediately and able to mark down the future expense because of how loyalty rewards are obligated.
doctorpangloss
Yes, but how does stating the obvious - that airlines make almost all their money from flying planes, and that different lenses of the loyalty program's intrinsic value is accounting parlor tricks, and that the main reason they like the credit cards is because it drives people to fly with their loyal choice more - how does that drive more listeners to your podcast? Checkmate, reasonable guy.
carlivar
This isn't really a bad thing. Any company that monetizes credit cards can only do so because of their real, core product. They aren't really just banks like people claim. If they didn't fly people places reliably the whole thing collapses.
It's really just a surprising morph of their economic model in the post regulation era.
fluffyllemon
> It is a stupid game that I am forced to play
You are not forced to play it. That is a just story you tell yourself. You can make a different choice.
oezi
All loyalty programs are stupid. People waste their time on 1-2% savings. It is insane.
dml2135
2% savings on all of your consumer spending isn't insignificant, when compounded over time.
yolovoe
That's one free round trip international flight per year in a lot of cases. Plus sometimes other benefits like theft insurance, warranty extension, phone insurance, etc.
You're subsidizing everyone else if you're not trying to get the best loyalty program.
RotaryJihad
This sort of reminds me of a gas station that only sold gas at the pump. No convenience store, no smokes, no snacks, no cokes. I think it was Swifty? I know it was yellow signage.
Anyway, point is they failed and went under and my recollection is that just selling gasoline alone was not profitable. The extra coin comes from selling snacks, beer, smokes, etc.
onefiftymike
I used to work for a company with about 1200 gas station/convenience stores. They tracked "Light product break even". Basically the profit to earn on fuel to make the store break even. It was like 2 cents per gallon most of the time. So they could be super competitive on fuel and still be profitable. It was pretty crazy to see that.
And it was Swifty - definitely a no frills experiences!
toast0
> I primarily use my favorite's airlines credit card because it gives me perks such as priority seating, and free checked bags.
That's a reason to have an airline credit card, it's not a reason to use it (other than for purchasing that airline's tickets)
risfriend
> how the major airlines now are more of a "bank that happens to have planes"
Here is a decent video explaining it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggUduBmvQ_4
bullan
This loyalty program is the business is oversold imo, done to death by every content creator. It's the data, the data blah blah
The $8.2billion from American express pays basically is buying tickets and ticket extra, it buys them some points, lets ignore multiples for now, it buys them 8.2billion points, which they give to customers which then buys tickets.
If Spirit accepts USDC instead it wouldn't be that much different.
the_red_mist
re: "bank that happens to have planes"
this isn't unique to airlines. this applies to all exceptionally mature companies/industries who believe there is no more room for growth. any significant profit they make gets paid out as dividends to investors who then put the money elsewhere instead of reinvesting into the company
notepad0x90
I could easily afford any of their competitors but I always picked Spirit airlines. The pricing makes sense, pay more if you need more things. I liked Spirit because it was more akin to riding the bus, I got treated well every time by their staff and the experience was fairly consistent.
Other airlines also have cramped sits, what little they did better than Spirit isn't worth the price, and the experience was inconsistent: some times you'll get nice flight attendants, a comfy plane, and a good check-in/check-out, other times you didn't. can't plan around them. With Spirit I could plan around exactly how bad my experience would be reliably. Just about any inconvenience was some fee away to address it.
Frontier was the cheap airline that just wasn't worth it. On the flip side, AA was overpriced with snobbish (just my experience, very limited) staff. Because it's a "cheap" airline, Spirit came with low expectations, and it only exceeded them to the most part.
I shop at walmart compared to whole foods and other "better" chains for similar reasons. "great value" as walmart's motto goes, it isn't about the price, it's about the value you get for what you pay for. Spirit was the "great value" airline.
I don't think this effort to buy it will prevail, I only wish the GME betters were in on this action. The airline's value hasn't gone away, similar to Gamestop. The people like it, the demand for it there, the airlines assets and staff haven't lost their value. I don't see how it isn't a good investment. This attempt to buy it is to little, too late. but if it came in actual stock purchase agreements, I'm down for it. But donating random cash to some site as a pledge, I don't know about that.
jabedude
The reason people don't like Spirit has less to do with the airplanes and more to do with the typical Spirit passenger. Most of modern life in America is an elaborate series of choices to maximize the distance between yourself and Spirit airlines passengers. All the usual euphemisms apply: 'good school districts', 'safe suburban neighborhoods', etc
maerF0x0
This. but also with frontier.
- People using devices without headphones
- People having loud phone calls on speakerphone with vulgar language
- People with bad body odor
- People looking to optimize their outcomes, even at the expense of others and net deleterious. (Speaking in numbers, willing to take +1 point of selfish outcome at the cost of several others' -1 leaving a net negative for the group)
shaftway
> Most of modern life in America is an elaborate series of choices to maximize the distance between yourself and Spirit airlines passengers
So much this. I regret that I have but one upvote to give.
thehappypm
Spirit seemed to enjoy making their customers hate them. everyone who liked Spirit had to explain themselves (like you did) because their reputation was awful. It was a trainwreck of a brand.
0xbadcafebee
The only bad experience I ever had on Spirit was from their garbage passengers, never had a problem with the airline itself, flew them probably 20 times. But then again anecdotal evidence is also garbage, so who knows, maybe we were just lucky. Or maybe a vocal minority made it sound worse than it was.
paul7986
Or the big airlines were paying for all that disparaging marketing on the down low. I wouldnt be surprised.
cromka
As an European who's lived in the US, Spirit was actually just as "good" as Ryanair. Sure, you can hate on both of them, but they're cheap and moce you from place to place. I can endure any discomfort for 3h if it meant I could save 100 or 150 bucks flying from NYC to Miami/FLL in high season.
I had much worse experiences with Frontier and promised myself never to fly them again. On one occasion we had to wait for 2h on the plane on tarmac after landing at MacArthur airport because... the airport staff was not responding to pilots' calls. Somehow they didn't know the plane was landing. It was 1 AM or so and while it might not have been Frontier's fault, to not be able to sort it out for 2 hours was telling. Had other issues, too, this one was most ridiculous.
WarmWash
The reason people hated spirit was the same reason they flew spirit, it was cheap.
notepad0x90
They did things differently compared to other airlines, so it does warrant an explanation. People pay for the cheapest flight, and expect things like free bag checkin. Other airlines will charge everyone more, even if you had no bags and provide free bag checkin. I've had flights where I only had a small backpack and nothing more, I don't want to the "priced in" fee assuming everyone will check a bag. Spirit gave you exactly what you paid for, which is how it should be. No marketing mind games to trick you into thinking you're getting some luxury service. Even in first class most domestic airlines provide a subpar experience, might as well be for a good value like Spirit did. International flights are different though, and the bar is much higher there due to length of flights.
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sodafountan
My friends used to joke that it was like flying in a tin can, or that the wheels would fall off mid-flight. The jokes were endless.
I liked Spirit, though, great cost savings, and I didn't mind the minor inconveniences that came with it.
Aside from being known for being a cheap airline, the brand itself was pretty solid... I think it had everything working to its advantage. The bright yellow exteriors of the planes, a catchy name. I think people knew exactly what Spirit was and what they offered, which is the sign of a good brand.
paul7986
loved Spirit and flew with them 8 different round trips from BWI to many destinations. So cheap (clothes in bookbag) and never had an issue. They will be missed!
micromacrofoot
the "temu" of airlines if you will
wait a minute... what if?
phainopepla2
> With Spirit I could plan around exactly how bad my experience would be reliably
Talk about damning with faint praise
notepad0x90
with other airlines my experience would also be bad, just unreliably. you're getting cramped sits and bad service on united and AA as well.
xeromal
Agreed. I make decent money as a software engineer but I've probably flow 50+ times with Spirit. Like you said, they are predictable and reliable. What I appreciated about their staff is that they were extremely friendly but also capable of putting entitled people in their place. Oftentimes on AA and United, assholes got their way but on Spirit, they squashed it fast.
The only people surprised by Spirit were people who don't read warning labels and then you should only be surprised once. Heck, I paid 3$ for coffee on spirit but they would gladly bring refills and were proactive about almost like a restaurant. On AA and United, you usually had to go up and ask.
On top of that, you could get the big front seat (tm) which wasn't first class but pretty good about 150$ if you waited until your flight to bid. I got it a bunch and it came with free snacks and drinks and it was much cheaper than buying business
I'm gonna miss it.
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chasil
American Airlines has actually had terrible customer ratings for some time (and I agree, they can be awful).
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/american-airlines-worst-...
Nicook
Amercian is imo the worst airline out there, and the only one I refuse to fly with. At least the budget airlines are cheaper and honest for horrible service.
tristor
> I liked Spirit because it was more akin to riding the bus
This is exactly why I would never be caught dead on Spirit. Sartre got it right, "Hell is other people." My issue with Spirit and other budget airlines as a frequent traveler was never about the planes, the staff, or the operations, it was always the other passengers. It's bad enough dealing with people in general in the circumstances we all find ourselves in stuffed into an airplane, but budget airline travelers are generally exactly the sort of folks who ride the bus, which is why nobody wants to ride the bus in the US.
I say all this as someone who enjoys public transport when I'm in Europe and has no problem flying budget airlines in Europe like KLM Cityhopper or EuroWings, because everyone across society uses public transport and budget point airlines in Europe. In the US though, public transport and budget airlines are nearly only used by people who you'd rather not be stuck near for hours at a time for fear of being attacked, coughed on, or otherwise somehow harmed even if minimally which is entirely avoidable by just not.
notepad0x90
I'm not paying hundreds of dollars for a glorified bus ride. I've had issues with passengers on other airlines too. There is no expectation of me as a passenger behaving a certain way, and therefore the likelihood of being mistreated by passengers or staff a like is low. As you noted, other people pay more thinking "higher class" people fly delta or whatever, and to protect that image and experience I expect mistreatment from staff and other passengers alike on those flights.
I would rather deal with someone putting up their nasty leg on the chair next to me, or listen to a movie with speaker on for the whole flight, than deal with rude flight attendants that won't respond to my needs, or dirty looks from other passengers because I'm wearing something comfortable.
Aside from what I see on social media posts though, I've never seen anything extreme like that flying on spirit in all the years.
bijowo1676
it is economic segregation, the only type of segregation that could work in US
Drupon
>I shop at walmart compared to whole foods and other "better" chains for similar reasons. "great value" as walmart's motto goes, it isn't about the price, it's about the value you get for what you pay for. Spirit was the "great value" airline.
Yeah it's not a secret that you can get by in life on the cheap if you have cheap, trashy tastes.
atomicfiredoll
Be kind... When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
notepad0x90
name calling aside, i think you missed my argument. If you think my taste is trashy, by my argument, your taste is also trashy, you're just dumb enough to spend extra money so you feel like you're above others. That's the point of the whole "value" thing, if more money gets you more value, that's great, if not then you're saying paying more for less is less trashy? It's like a person paying for a $15 wine and a $70 wine, the quality in that range isn't all that different, you're acting like you're paying $10k to fly singapore airlines when you're just flying cramped on united just like on spirit, but you're paying more.
And you sort of made another point I had: people like you, and companies who cater to people like you come with all that haughty snobbishness that's just unpleasant and degrades the experience. Good taste has to do with appreciation of value and quality, not polishing of one's ego, or pretending you're superior to others.
amazingamazing
> The only thing missing is ownership that answers to the people — not to shareholders.
Noble, but this will fail. Why would anyone do this? No incentive.
These sorts of initiatives forget the toil of actually operating a business. You might as well get more pledges given that you'd have more control and the same profit share. It will regress to the same as the status quo.
nerdsniper
I pledged $1,000. I have been daydreaming about a customer-owned airline for years now, just about every time I walk through an airport. This might not have much chance of succeeding in its purchase of Spirit’s assets, but I’d love to watch things unfold if it did.
> These sorts of initiatives forget the toil of actually operating a business.
For most businesses the size of Spirit Airlines, the owners typically do not operate the business. They pay people to do that. I don’t operate REI, even though I’m one of its many owners.
rkagerer
Thank you. There's a lot of criticism and skepticism here, and it's nice to see an optimistic comment.
I've no idea if the proponents of this plan are reputable, but the concept reminds me of the early years of WestJet, when they made a big fuss about being employee owned and had (back then) a markedly better customer experience. For US residents reading this, I'm told they were a bit like Southwest Airlines.
Even if the naysayers are correct and the probability of this panning out is low, you'll never hit the pitches you don't swing at, right?
iknowstuff
aren't there plenty of state owned airlines?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government-owned_airli...
nerdsniper
Not in the USA. Also, the state’s interests often aren’t super well-aligned with the customers’ interests. Too many conflicts of interest for my taste.
neonstatic
wow, it's almost like you will become... a shareholder?
corvad
I'm not sure that's even noble as by buying you would be a shareholder...
UqWBcuFx6NV4r
Yes. Reminds me of the “anarchists” that don’t realise that they just want to recreate the government but with their people in charge.
mjevans
Some of them want to create a monarchy with them in charge... Remember to be on the lookout for that trend too.
danaw
co-op: one member, one vote. members elect leadership with standard term limits. emphasis on services, price and patron returns. dividend according to use not capital investment. members have direct engagement in financials. public companies: votes scale with shares. large institutional investors and other large share holders have most say in leadership. emphasis on "shareholder value" (eg extractive value). dividends according to shares. shareholders have only limited visibility into finances. they're very different, concluding otherwise is misguided
paulddraper
“The only thing missing is ownership that answers to the people — not to shareholders.”
Like, all people in the world?
Customers? Employees?
What does this mean?
EDIT: It’s shareholders, but each person has one vote regardless of share count.
nerdsniper
IMHO this should have been written “to the customers and employees”. To me, those are the people who compose a business enterprise.
JumpCrisscross
I’ve never seen that work. There is a fundamental tension between those groups. Hence, member-owned co-ops and employee-owned co-ops.
JackFr
But the customers and employees don’t actually put up the money for the enterprise.
If you assume there is an airplane — great, run the airline for the customers and employees. But the cost of the airplane can’t be handwaved away.
morkalork
Co-ops don't exist at all, right?
tunapizza
Few people know this, but Desjardins, a Canadian financial service cooperative, is hugely popular in the province of Quebec (and also Ontario), and has close to CAD $400 billions in total assets.
morkalork
The largest exporter of pork and poultry from Canada ($9B in revenue!) is also a 100 year old co-op from Quebec.
doubled112
I wouldn't say they are common.
MEC was the only co-op I have ever been part of. I'm pretty sure they stopped being a co-op and sold it to private equity.
throw0101c
For the Americans in the audience: MEC ~ Canadian REI.
See perhaps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers%27_co-operative
bombcar
Vanguard is "kind of" like a co-op, in that it is owned by its mutual funds which are owned by its customers.
Fidelity is still better in some metrics, however.
dragontamer
This really doesn't feel like a Co-op to me.
It sounds more like a credit union. (first $5 goes to your ownership share / vote, and the rest of your money goes to your account).
amazingamazing
I dont know of any with such high capex
tonyarkles
This is a really interesting thing, both from an ownership structure perspective and from a "there is nuance in the details" perspective. I did a bit of a deep dive into this a few years ago when there was a local refinery strike. The refinery is a co-op and is also part of a larger co-op system.
I'll lay out the specifics here from what I learned. I'm not convinced either way, yet, that it could work for an airline.
So here's the ownership structure:
- Co-op Refinery Complex (CRC) - produces fuel
- Federated Co-operatives (FCL) - owns the refinery, also owns food and agriculture distribution warehouses, negotiates bulk pricing
- 200-ish independent regional Co-ops jointly own FCL
The CRC is highly profitable. FCL is profitable. The independent regional co-ops are not, on their own, all individually profitable. Some of these exist in small rural centres, some of them exist in larger cities. The urban ones are generally profitable, the smaller ones not so much. The rural ones, though, are largely the lifebloods of their communities; it's not unusual for the Co-op Grocery Store and Co-op Gas Station to be the only sources of food and fuel for miles and miles. While these do sometimes run at a loss, they make up for it with their annual Patronage cheques from FCL: when the CRC makes a profit and when FCL makes a profit (from the CRC and from their distribution network), those profits get returned back to the member co-ops on a pro rata basis: buy more from FCL, get more at the end of the year.
At the far tail end, each of these independent co-ops is a member-owned co-op. At the end of the year I end up getting a patronage cheque based on how much fuel, food, and building supplies I bought that year. It's not large, but getting a $100 cheque in the mail is always nice :).
In this situation, though, it all works because the not-so-profitable pieces own both their upstream wholesalers and a crazy-profitable refinery. (The refinery sells to other customers outside of FCL as well).
One of the other critical pieces that the strike/lockout/overall "labour dispute" really made clear to everyone: the independent Co-ops, FCL, and the upstream CRC are all member-owned co-ops, not worker-owned co-ops.
---
So let's look at how an airline co-op might be structured. The first parallel that I could see would be flipping the regional airline model on its head; currently the big players like Delta and United run a bunch of their smaller routes through regionals (SkyWest, Republic, etc). If a bunch of them got together, they could in theory jointly one one of the majors. The wrinkle there, as others have pointed out, the majors aren't profitable as airlines, but rather through their credit cards and loyalty programs. Alternative, then? Do a bunch of regionals get together and buy a bank? Let the bank be profitable, let the major airline handle traffic between the regional hubs?
I know quite a bit less about worker-owned co-ops, but generally speaking aviation is incredibly capital intensive. Starting a worker-owned co-op airline is probably not possible. A single, say, 737 Max 8 costs $121M. That capital's gotta come from somewhere.
fragmede
Starting one from scratch, sure, but Spirit already has the airplanes, no?
empath75
I'm disappointed at how gullible people are about this.
Spirit as an asset is worth less than $0. Buying it would be a commitment to set money on fire for a decade.
antoniojtorres
Random side note. Why do many of these (presumably) LLM stamped out sites have the same aesthetic where they all need a pulsating indicator at the top as if to indicate some sort of urgency aesthetic?
grahamnorton39
Or the thing where they have a bombastic display of numbers, rehashing either emphatically trivial information, or information presented elsewhere, as if they’re the most important figures in the universe. e.g.
> *0* hedge fund owners. Zero
or including the date Spirit collapsed (despite already mentioning it earlier on the page!). Why not also include “*6* letters in ‘Spirit’” while you’re at it?
addandsubtract
Templates need to be filled. Breaking template rules requires actual thinking.
mplewis
You know the answer. An LLM wrote it.
danaw
assuming it's an llm site, the implication here is some action needs to be taken before private equity buys it for scraps (inferred from the homepage copy)
whether it's an llm, a template or bespoke made from bytecode doesn't really matter does it?
sMarsIntruder
I agree, but I started noticing the em-dash usage spike.
danaw
i was one of the weirdos that used em dashes pre-llms but yeah it can def be an indicator
tbrownaw
But without a sense of urgency the marks might stop to think first.
pm90
The real solution should be a massive intercity bullet train program that connects major transit hubs, like the interstate highway buildout. The massive infrastructure spend would kickstart the US economy and provide thousands of jobs.
Brendinooo
Bullet trains would be good in tighter networks of cities. Southern Cal, Acela corridor.
But I'm just not sure the demand would be there for longer distances unless it's so cheap that it's worth the extra time.
Like what's China to Kunmung, a 6 hour flight vs a 12 hour train, at a comparable cost?
foolfoolz
even SF to LA would have trouble with a high speed rail because the price would likely be the same as a flight
tecleandor
In Spain, a similar length high speed train route would be Madrid-Barcelona, that's 400miles and takes 2h 30min.
If you offer me the same price for flying than for taking the high speed train, I'll take the train every time.
In practice it'll take less travel time, no security lines or theater (no problem bringing your water bottle or whatever), you can bring more luggage, you can stand up/walk/visit the bar during the trip, you go from city center to city center so you don't have to spend an extra in taxis... I just arrive there 20-30 minutes before the train leaves and that's all.
pahkah
Oh I don't know — I travel the Boston-DC route a lot and fly only because it's significantly cheaper than taking the train. If prices were comparable I would take the train even without it being "high speed", I think there's a market for high speed rail if the prices were as low as flights!
999900000999
Sounds good if you live on the East Coast.
Even with Japanese level high speed rail NYC to LA still takes much much longer than flying.
You need to buy land. Disrupt wildlife, and various ecosystems.
The government should of bailed out Spirit instead. They served a public good.
Allowing lower to middle income people to travel helps everyone.
nerdsniper
Trains have been proven to be able to go at least 375mph [0]. That would make NYC->SF take 6.9 hours to travel the 4162 km. The current average flight time from NYC to SF is 6.7 hours.
So, it's at least technically possible.
China is doing R&D on a partial-vacuum train (basically Musk's hyperloop thing) with a target of 1,243 mph[1]. That's probably a pipe dream, but worth mentioning nonetheless.
> The government should of [sic] bailed out Spirit instead.
I'd be okay with this if all the taxpayers were granted equal shares that their collective money could have purchased at an imputed no-bailout price.
0: L0 Series SCMaglev
1: T-Flight train
haldujai
> The current average flight time from NYC to SF is 6.7 hours.
What's your source for this? I take this flight a lot and I find it hard to believe it's more than 5.5-5.75 on average. Looking at the last few weeks for one of them[0] supports my experience.
Maybe your number has TSA/airport time included.
999900000999
That's straight math. Not assuming any stops or slow downs.
According to Gemini this hypothetical train would take about 18 hours.
It would also cost hundreds of billions of dollars and a decade to build.
Doesn't do much for seeing Uncle John next Tuesday.
I like trains. I like them a lot. But they don't work over long distances. Particular when you have dozens of state and city jurisdictions to cross.
Each of them get a vote.
Honestly I'd be happy just to have quality HSR on the East Coast. Boston to Richmond takes like 12 hours right now.
Maybe the West Coast could get a Seattle to San Diego route.
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hnhnhnhnhnhnhn
Far too expensive
bravoetch
Why do people want to generate jobs? I'd rather generate a jobless utopia where we all do art.
HWR_14
Because today the options are "jobs exist" or "people starve in the street".
Jtarii
Starvation is not a likely outcome from job loss in the western world.
Jtarii
Hate to break it to you but the average guy that does manual labour would more likely become a criminal than a musician if you deleted his job.
What's that saying about idle hands.
Jobs root people to their communities and give them purpose in life.
ksherlock
Scenario: It's Friday night. You don't have to work tomorrow. Are you more likely to pull out your hammer and chisel and work on a classical marble sculpture -or- get shit faced at a dive bar? Hey, maybe the vomit splatters will evoke Jackson Pollock!
brookst
Check out the etymology of “utopia”
testemailfordg2
A similar large scale success in India decades ago:- AMUL is an Indian multinational dairy cooperative, founded on 19 December 1946. With a turnover of US$6.2 billion (2022) and 3.6 million farmer-members, it is the world's largest dairy cooperative and a household name for milk and milk products across India.
The cooperative was born out of exploitation: farmers in Kheda, Gujarat, were forced to supply milk to Polson Dairy, which held a monopoly and paid farmers unfairly through commission-taking agents.
AMUL returns 85% of every rupee earned back to farmers — far above the global average of 33% — and procures milk at rates 15–20% higher than private dairies.
AMUL's democratic governance ensures farmers elect board members who represent their interests, and the Managing Director of each unit is appointed by this farmer-led board — not the state government — preventing political interference and corruption.
AMUL demonstrates how a business can achieve large-scale commercial success while prioritising social justice and environmental care — through collective ownership, democratic governance, equitable profit-sharing, and community investment — offering a powerful model for cooperatives worldwide.
drumttocs8
Sorry, why would I invest in a failed airline with an anonymous collective with no defined leadership?
How could it do anything but fail?
bombcar
It's almost always better to create a new airline ex-nihilo as you get brand new planes, which are better than older ones.
ivraatiems
This is almost exactly the opposite of what most new airlines do. The fastest, cheapest way to get a good plane is to buy an old plane from an existing airline (preferably one going out of business, so you get a deal) and renovate it a little.
reddalo
Ryanair is the best performing budget airline in Europe and they only buy new planes, because it's way cheaper to run them. Less time on land for maintenance = less wasted money.
fakedang
Good luck trying to get any planes with the current backlog. Unless you enjoy flying in the 737 Max.
toast0
The 737 MAX is fine enough. But it's not like you can order those for immediate delivery either. There's almost 5,000 pending orders, and Boeing can make on the order of 500 of them in a good year.
bombcar
We'll call it Apple Air™ and the 737 Pro Max - 99% of our budget will be legal fees.
corvad
I get the idea but this seems very much something not credible, like who's behind it, what are the guarantees, etc.
tech234a
It seems to be an Instagram user: https://www.instagram.com/spiritair2.0/ and his own account is https://www.instagram.com/hitherehunter/
bhhaskin
Sounds like someone is selling securities without a license tbh.
apublicfrog
> Important Legal Notice: This is a non-binding pledge of intent. No money is collected at this stage. All references to profit-sharing, dividends, voting rights, and ownership are proposed concepts only — not confirmed arrangements. Nothing on this site constitutes a securities offering, investment contract, or financial instrument of any kind. The final cooperative structure must be reviewed and approved by qualified securities and aviation counsel. Participation does not guarantee ownership, financial return, or membership in any final entity. This is a movement, not an investment product.
From skimming, I see at least 5 places where this is reiterated on the page.
burnt-resistor
LLMs make time-sensitive frauds easier and faster to stand up to take money from idiots.
I'm surprised they don't also include a team page with a bunch of ChatGPT-generated photographs of fresh-faced fake people to really sell it.
directevolve
Not that this isn’t a scam, but they’re currently asking for pledges to contribute, not cash.
washingupliquid
This is reminiscent of the CHAZ takeover in Seattle when the protesters planted like 4 potatoes in a urine-soaked park and called it "the People's Garden" or whatever.
Spirit was an objectively terrible airline. Their business model failed. They folded. The end. This is why you can't fly Braniff or Southern Airways anymore in 2026. Failed businesses go under, they don't live on in perpetuity.
skarz
Is this real? I examined to their source code and found an exposed TypeScript RPC which indicates the following:
totalMembers: 4954
totalPledged: 5678872
averagePledge: 1146.320549
However the numbers on the website appear to be hardcoded in with very dramatically different numbers.
Boss0565
This is vibe coded as fuck and anyone can submit a pledge, so no
jermberj
Yeah, I'm starting wonder if this is bs. They don't have a twitter account like the pledge form indicates. The youtuber that purportedly started the campaign only has like 36k subscribers, so it's not clear where such a high level of pledges would be coming from and the rpc endpoint response vs page count is pretty suspicious.
skarz
[dead]
KaiserPro
[dead]
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Airlines aren’t really selling flights anymore—they’re selling financial products and using seats as the funnel.