It’s a miserable experience flying as a regular passenger on Spirit Airlines. The seats are uncomfortable and incredibly close together.

Even boarding the plane tends to be miserable unless you paid extra for an early spot. Anyone who doesn’t risks having their bag gate-checked.

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it’s a bad experience unless you buy a bigger seat, more legroom, or early boarding.

Spirit charges for water, soda, coffee; and tea, as well as any snacks you want. It’s an a la carte experience that the airline has truly embraced.

You may not want to fly Spirit Airlines but the option exists. That holds other airlines in check and puts a limit as to how high basic seat prices can go.

You may not book a Spirit flight; but thousands of people do everyday. That keeps every other airline honest.

Is Spirit Airlines going out of business?

Spirit Airlines issued a “going concern” warning on August 12, to share that it had concerns about its ability to survive. That’s a technical document triggered by certain financial situations.

In this case, Spirit’s credit card processor wants more money upfront to cover for potential refunds should the airline fail. The actual warning Spirit Airlines filed with the SEC is kind of scary.

On March 12, 2025, the Company emerged from the Chapter 11 Cases in accordance with the plan. As part of the reorganization, the Company successfully restructured certain of its debt obligations, established new financing arrangements, and issued new equity securities consisting of new common stock and new warrants.

However, the Company has continued to be affected by adverse market conditions, including elevated domestic capacity and continued weak demand for domestic leisure travel in the second quarter of 2025, resulting in a challenging pricing environment. As a result, the company continues to experience challenges and uncertainties in its business operations and expects these trends to continue for at least the remainder of 2025.

Your Spirit Airlines flight status/Is My Spirit flight cancelled?

Here’s the good news, while routes may get cancelled on an individual basis, any Spirit bankruptcy filing likely remains months away. Until then, you can check on your flight in multiple ways:

• The Spirit app: Not the best for day-of tracking, but good from a few days out.
• Spirit customer service: Cancel or make changes like adding bags or choosing seats. Text or WhatsApp us directly at 855-728-3555 with “Hello”. Send us feedback or let us know if you have a complaint.
• FlightAware: This service shows if there are widespread cancellations and whether that’s airline or airport/destination.

Spirit shared some of the steps it has taken to survive:

• The implementation of network and product enhancements, including its Premium Economy travel option.
• Consummation of sale-leaseback transactions related to certain of its owned spare engines,
• Other discretionary cost reduction strategies, including the pilot furloughs announced in July 2025.

“After considering the measures taken, minimum liquidity covenants in the Company’s debt obligations and credit card processing agreement require financial results to improve at a rate faster than what the company is currently anticipating,” it shared.

Spirit still plans to pursue more cash-saving steps including:

• The sale or other monetization of certain aircraft and real estate.
• The sale of excess airport gates.
• Capacity, elimination of certain fixed costs and other transactions to raise additional liquidity

Spirit Airlines faces a cash crunch

Spirit, no matter how you look at it, needs more money. That’s because of its credit card processor.

“The company is also in discussions with representatives of its credit card processor, which has requested additional collateral to renew its credit card processing agreement, which expires on December 31, 2025. The level of collateral required to be posted could result in a material reduction of unrestricted cash,” it share.

Basically, the credit card processor (and likely any alternative providers) want more cash than Spirit Airlines SAVE has in order to do business going forward. And, since being a cash-only airline seems implausible, that puts the entire company’s future in doubt.

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“If these initiatives are unsuccessful, management believes it is probable that the Company will be unable to comply with the minimum liquidity covenants underthe Company’s debt obligations and credit card processing agreement at some point in the next 12 months, which would result in an event of default

And, while SEC filings can be technical and not reflect the real situation, Spirit also shared a note to its flight attendants’ union.

“We need to be direct,” the memo said. “Spirit is in a fragile financial position, likely more so than at any point in the previous 24 months.”

“We urge you to take an honest look at your personal situation, examine all your options, and prepare for all possible scenarios,” the memo continued. “Use this time to assess your financial situation and begin strategizing how best to weather the financial impact that flying cutbacks may have on your household.”

That pretty dark note was first reported by View From the Wing.

Spirit’s death would be bad for all passengers

The struggles of Frontier Airlines and Southwest Airlines abandoning the low-priced model has been bad news for people looking for low prices. Spirit’s death would be a knife in their heart, as in many cases the loss of a cheap alternative would give traditional carriers the ability to raise prices.

People might gut out a miserable Spirit flight to go to a funeral, a sporting event, or a business function just to save money. They will still generally have to attend those things even if the price goes way up.

“Spirit has been great for consumers who do not fly Spirit because they’ve helped drive down fares on other airlines too. And they’ve made flying more affordable – and entertaining! – for everyone,” View From the Wing’s Gary Leff wrote.

He’s also being practical about what happens next.

“I probably wouldn’t buy Spirit Airlines tickets for travel more than a couple of months out – within a period I’d be confident I could dispute the charges if travel weren’t honored,” he wrote.

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