A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 taxis at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving from Boston on September 1, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Spirit Airlines on Friday filed for bankruptcy protection, just months after the budget carrier failed to secure better financial footing when it came out of Chapter 11 protection in March.
Spirit debtholders agreed in its previous bankruptcy, which began in November, to exchange debt for equity, but the carrier avoided bigger changes to cut costs, like getting rid of planes or more dramatically shrinking the carrier’s footprint.
The Dania Beach, Florida-based airline said under this bankruptcy, it will reduce its network and shrink its fleet, cuts that it said will reduce costs by “hundreds of millions of dollars” a year.
“Since emerging from our previous restructuring, which was targeted exclusively on reducing Spirit’s funded debt and raising equity capital, it has become clear that there is much more work to be done and many more tools are available to best position Spirit for the future,” Spirit CEO Dave Davis said in a news release on Friday.
Spirit had just gotten out of bankruptcy in March after four months, only to be dragged down by continued high costs and weaker U.S. domestic demand. The carrier had struggled for years as it dealt with a glut of U.S. flights, a Pratt & Whitney engine recall and a failed takeover by JetBlue Airways, a deal that was blocked in court.
Spirit’s aircraft lessors had reached out to rival airlines in recent weeks to gauge executives’ interest in some of the carrier’s planes, according to people familiar with the matter.
Spirit is the United States’ largest budget airline, followed closely by rival Frontier Airlines which has tried and failed to merge with Spirit repeatedly since 2022. Frontier on Tuesday announced 20 new routes that compete with Spirit to win over its struggling competitor’s customers.
