Budget carrier Spirit Airlines officially shut its doors Saturday, laying off its employees and cancelling all flights after rising fuel costs pushed the struggling company over the brink. The price of jet fuel has spiked since the American–Israeli war on Iran started in late February, leaving Spirit—which had already declared bankruptcy twice in less than two years—unable to sustain its business operations.
“The sudden and sustained rise in fuel prices in recent weeks ultimately has left us with no alternative but to pursue an orderly wind-down of the Company,” CEO Dave Davis said in a statement released Saturday. Davis added that the company required “hundreds of millions of additional dollars of liquidity that Spirit simply does not have and could not procure.”
The sudden collapse of the airline left employees and customers across the country stranded, as hundreds of flights were cancelled without warning.
The carrier’s demise will result in a loss of 15,000 jobs, the company said, including employees and contractors paid by the airline. Without the competition from Spirit’s budget offerings, the cost of flying may also increase on many routes. The low-cost airline accounted for 5 percent of all flights in the U.S. last year.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration floated a $500 million bailout which would have seen the U.S. government take control of the company, but creditors ultimately rejected the proposal.
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