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Spirit Airlines announced yesterday that it had exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was moving forward after only four months of restructuring. Under its plan, the company went private (meaning no more stock), $795 million in debt was wiped out, and $350 million in new money was pumped into the company. Now, Spirit needs to figure out how to make itself competitive with the slew of changes to the passenger experience that it has announced over the past year.
Spirit will continue to be led by Ted Christie, President and Chief Executive Officer, and the existing executive team. Christie commented the following on the restructuring:
We’re pleased to complete our streamlined restructuring and emerge in a stronger financial position to continue our transformation and investments in the Guest experience. Throughout this process, we’ve continued to make meaningful progress enhancing our product offerings, while also focusing on returning to profit.”
Spirit has pivoted from being just a low-cost carrier (and the butt of many jokes) to an airline that also offers a more premium experience. Spirit Airlines introduced bundled fares, priority-check-in, a new boarding process, and more back in August 2024. Go Big began on August 27th and the bundle includes Spirit’s Big Front Seats™ along with complimentary Wi-Fi, snacks, and drinks. I tested out the new service in September and have since flown it several times. Overall, I like Spirit. The planes are new, the Wi-Fi is fast, and the Big Front Seats™ are plenty comfortable. The airline just announced 23 new routes and it’s continuing to build out its network.
Will this be enough? We’ll have to see how Spirit fares. Unburdened by its past debt and well ahead of Frontier on the premium quest (Frontier does not currently have anything equivalent to First Class), it has a chance (albeit a rocky one given the way the economy seems to be headed).
Anthony’s Take: We’ll have to wait and see how Spirit comes out and what the airline out of bankruptcy looks like. It has fought off multiple acquisition attempts by Frontier, but will either airline be able to survive on their own?
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
