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You may need to create a new email yourself." data-email-share-nonce="a78c8c4074" data-email-share-track-url="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/19/editorial-spirit-airlines-needs-to-stay-aloft-bankrupt-or-not/?share=email"><span></span><span class="sharing-screen-reader-text">Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)</span></a></li><li class="share-end"></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div></header><div class="article-content"><div class="article-content-wrapper"><div class="header-features default"> <figure> <div class="image-wrapper"><img alt="Editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis on Spirit Airlines bankruptcy for Wed, Nov 20, 2024. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)" title="Editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis on Spirit Airlines bankruptcy for Wed, Nov 20, 2024. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)" subtitle="" class="lazyload size-article_feature" data-sizes="auto" data-src="https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/CTC-L-STANTISCARTOON-112024-01.jpg?w=452" data-srcset="https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/CTC-L-STANTISCARTOON-112024-01.jpg?w=452 620w,https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/CTC-L-STANTISCARTOON-112024-01.jpg?w=568 780w,https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/CTC-L-STANTISCARTOON-112024-01.jpg?w=742 1020w,https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/CTC-L-STANTISCARTOON-112024-01.jpg?w=929 1280w,https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/CTC-L-STANTISCARTOON-112024-01.jpg?w=1350 1860w" ></div> <figcaption> Editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis on Spirit Airlines bankruptcy for Wed, Nov 20, 2024. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune) </figcaption> </figure> <div class="meta"><img class="avatar avatar-85 photo coauthor-avatar lazyload size-85x85" data-sizes="auto" data-src="https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chicago-tribune-2.png?w=85" data-srcset="https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chicago-tribune-2.png?w=85 85w" alt=""><div class="coauthor-avatar-container"><div class="byline">By <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/author/the-editorial-board/" title="Posts by The Editorial Board" class=" author-name" rel="author">The Editorial Board</a> | Chicago Tribune</pre></div><div class="time">UPDATED: <time datetime="2024-11-20 08:21:53">November 20, 2024 at 8:21 AM CST</time></div></div></div></div><div class="article-body"><div class="body-copy"><div class="wp-remixd-voice-wrapper"><script type="text/javascript" id="remixd-audio-player-script" src="https://tags.remixd.com/player/v5/index.js?cb=%%CACHEBUSTER%%" charset="utf-8" async></script></div><p>Tucked in the far corner of Terminal 3 at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, mostly unseen by business travelers, are the counters for Spirit Airlines, an ultra-low-cost airline that in 2010 became notorious as the first U.S. carrier to charge passengers for carry-on bags. Few things at ORD are as painful as Spirit’s torturous sizers and, if you watch TikTok, you’ll know that Spirit and its oft-harried customers don’t always keep their calm.<p>But whatever the airline on which you travel, Chicago passengers need Spirit to stay in business.</p><p>Simply put, competition from Spirit lowers fares at O’Hare to prominent business and leisure destinations like New York City, Dallas and Las Vegas on carriers like United Airlines and American Airlines. Many ULCCs, as they are called, avoid competing head-on with the majors, so airlines like Allegiant or Frontier mostly fly quixotic routes to underserved airports. But Spirit flies many of the same routes as the big guys and its competitors have to match its prices, at least for some fares. They’ve also copied many of its charges.</p><p>Spirit <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/18/spirit-airlines-bankruptcy-protection/">filed for Chapter 11</a> bankruptcy protection Monday and, even as it did so, CEO Ted Christie put out a memo insisting that everything would remain the same for travelers, positioning Chapter 11 as a positive step and never once typing the work “bankruptcy.” And, indeed, the carrier remains in the air. But anyone who has been involved with a company in Chapter 11 knows that it rarely ends up as simple as that.</p><div class="s2nPlayer k-wQoDAMss" data-type="float" data-s2n-api="dfm_stn_player_script_id_wQoDAMss"></div><script> function dfm_stn_player_script_id_wQoDAMss( getS2NApiForPlayer ) { if( typeof window.MNGAuthentication !== 'undefined' ){ const s2nApi = getS2NApiForPlayer( document.querySelector('.k-wQoDAMss') ); s2nApi.float = ! window.MNGAuthentication.isUserSubscriber(); } }</script><p>Spirit’s financial woes are rooted in several factors post-pandemic, but the largest include a lack of affection on the part of its customers, always tricky to surmount. As important, major carriers have become more sophisticated in strategically matching Spirit’s fares by segmenting their own offerings to include a pared-down Basic Economy and the like, dramatically undermining Spirit’s price advantage. In essence, all U.S. airlines, including the once-affordable Southwest, have become like each other, and that often left Spirit mostly unloved and insufficiently competitive. But if it went away, fares still would immediately rise.</p><p>Flyers would have been best served by a merger between Frontier and Spirit, both ULCC birds of a feather that needed to grow to compete. That’s what the two airlines had planned to do in 2022, but then JetBlue swooped in with a higher offer, only for the Department of Justice in one of its numerous overreaches to persuade a federal judge that such a merger would hurt competition and lead to higher fares. Stockholders in Spirit, likely to be wiped out now, would certainly disagree. If there is hard-to-dispute evidence of Justice getting an antitrust ruling wrong, it’s when a party to a potential merger Justice blocked then winds up in Chapter 11. The reality is that bad mistakes were made years ago when United, Delta and American were allowed to gobble up major rivals like Northwest, TWA and Continental. These days, United, American, Delta and Southwest rule the skies; smaller carriers now have to be allowed to merge to provide for heftier price competition. In the case of Spirit, a federal judge erred badly.</p><script id="95f79a6bddcf4e4eb895c63f57e7df4c"> (new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=fa8632bf-0eb6-4c47-8b84-b4278343aedb&cid=38d5daa3-18ac-4ee1-a905-373c67622f25'; cnx.cmd.push( function() { cnx( { playerId: "fa8632bf-0eb6-4c47-8b84-b4278343aedb" } ).render( "95f79a6bddcf4e4eb895c63f57e7df4c" ); } );</script><p>Let’s also note that airfares in America are much too high overall, especially for short trips. Just check the fares for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They price many people out of the market entirely.</p><p>Europe, thanks mostly to the size and ruthless efficiency of the budget Irish carrier Ryanair, offers far cheaper travel. By contrast, plenty of forces on this side of the Atlantic, including restrictions on foreign ownership, have joined to keep airfares unaffordable for too many Americans.</p><div class="dfp-ad dfp-cube_article" id="div-gpt-ad-cube_article" style="visibility:hidden"> <div class="htlad-cube_article" data-unit="chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/cube_article" data-targeting=""></div> </div><p>So even if you never plan to board one of their garish yellow jets, you want Spirit to stay right there in Chicago O’Hare’s Terminal 3, L concourse, doing its thing in the corner. Otherwise, alongside those fancy new airport terminals, we’ll be getting even higher fares.</p><p><em>Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2019/07/03/submit-a-letter-to-the-editor/">here</a> or email <a href="mailto:letters@chicagotribune.com">letters@chicagotribune.com</a>.</em></p></p> <div class="time mng-originally-published">Originally Published: <time datetime="2024-11-19 11:35:48">November 19, 2024 at 11:35 AM CST</time></div></div></div><div class="article-bottom-share"><div class="article-share" id="sharing-bottom" ><div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-facebook"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-facebook-17797896" class="share-facebook sd-button share-icon no-text" href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/19/editorial-spirit-airlines-needs-to-stay-aloft-bankrupt-or-not/?share=facebook" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Facebook" ><span></span><span class="sharing-screen-reader-text">Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)</span></a></li><li class="share-bluesky"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-bluesky-17797896" class="share-bluesky sd-button share-icon no-text" href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/19/editorial-spirit-airlines-needs-to-stay-aloft-bankrupt-or-not/?share=bluesky" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Bluesky" ><span></span><span class="sharing-screen-reader-text">Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window)</span></a></li><li class="share-x"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="sharing-x-17797896" class="share-x sd-button share-icon no-text" href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/19/editorial-spirit-airlines-needs-to-stay-aloft-bankrupt-or-not/?share=x" target="_blank" title="Click to share on X" ><span></span><span class="sharing-screen-reader-text">Click to share on X (Opens in new window)</span></a></li><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button share-icon no-text" href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/19/editorial-spirit-airlines-needs-to-stay-aloft-bankrupt-or-not/#print" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span></span><span class="sharing-screen-reader-text">Click to print (Opens in new window)</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button share-icon no-text" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Editorial%3A%20Spirit%20Airlines%20needs%20to%20stay%20aloft%2C%20bankrupt%20or%20not&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chicagotribune.com%2F2024%2F11%2F19%2Feditorial-spirit-airlines-needs-to-stay-aloft-bankrupt-or-not%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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