By Doyinsola Oladipo and Sabrina Valle
NEW YORK, May 3 (Reuters) – Spirit Airlines said on Sunday it had almost completed refunding passengers and returning its crew to their home bases following its decision to cease operations over the weekend.
Spirit abruptly canceled flights early on Saturday morning, stranding passengers and staff around the U.S., the Caribbean and Latin America, after collapsing under financial pressures that included a sharp rise in fuel costs due to the Iran war.
The carrier had more than 4,000 domestic flights scheduled through May 15, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Most customers who booked with credit or debit cards were refunded by Saturday evening, with a small percentage still being processed, the company said.
Traveler Jessica Stanton said she had flown on Thursday to Boston, Massachusetts, from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for her college graduation. On Friday, she received an email that her return trip had been canceled.
“I haven’t received anything else. No messages about a refund. Nothing,” said Stanton on Sunday afternoon.
In response to a request for comment on Stanton’s case, Spirit said refunds may take time to show in guests’ accounts.
The airline had filed for bankruptcy twice after a proposed merger with JetBlue was blocked by the administration of former President Joe Biden in 2024.
“They were bleeding money and so this was in the works for some time. They were going to have to liquidate,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” On Fox Business Network’s “Sunday Morning Futures” program, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blamed Spirit’s shutdown on the Biden Administration.
President Donald Trump proposed $500 million to save Spirit as a surge in jet fuel prices, a consequence of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, presented a headwind to the airline’s planned exit from bankruptcy this summer.
A group of lenders pushed back against the proposal, which could erode the value of their positions, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. A Spirit board meeting ended without an agreement to rescue the company on Friday.
“Sustaining the business required hundreds of millions of additional dollars of liquidity that Spirit simply does not have and could not procure,” Spirit CEO Dave Davis said in a statement on Saturday.
“This is tremendously disappointing and not the outcome any of us wanted.”
Multiple U.S. carriers – including Frontier, JetBlue and Southwest – introduced discount fares to help stranded passengers and plans for new summer routes. Airlines like Delta and American Airlines were also offering temporarily lower fares to Spirit passengers.
A final group of about 1,500 crew members was re-based over the weekend.
(Reporting by Sabrina Valle and Doyinsola Oladipo in New York, additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Nia Williams, Noeleen Walder and Nick Zieminski)
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