Saying goodbye to this popular U.S. airline due to bankruptcy, here’s what you should do if you purchased a flight with them or planned to travel on Thanksgiving Day

If you’ve ever flown Spirit Airlines, you’ll remember its signature yellow colour and incredibly low fares. But now, the pioneer airline of “no-frills travel” is facing tough times: it has filed for bankruptcy. While this sounds alarming, don’t throw away your tickets just yet or cancel your travel plans, there’s still time!

Spirit says it will continue to operate flights during this process, but there’s a lot more you need to know, from what will happen to your frequent flyer miles to possible changes to your itineraries. What does this bankruptcy mean for travellers? Is it the end of Spirit as we know it or a new beginning disguised as chaos?

Read on to understand what’s really going on and how it could impact your next adventures. Don’t worry, there’s more clarity than turbulence in this story!

What has happened to Spirit Airlines?

It was last Monday when the news broke that the yellow airline has apparently officially requested bankruptcy protection after this pioneer of low-cost airlines in the United States struggled with a long list of quarterly losses and imminent debts.

These problems only grew just after their planned merger (which had cost 3.8 billion dollars) with JetBlue Airways collapsed last January, but that was not all, they also had an incident with the RTX Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan engines that caused many of their planes to be unable to take off.

Tell me about financial data…

In financial terms, the airline has listed its assets and liabilities, and they have estimated them in a range between $1 billion and $10 billion each!

With this agreement, Spirit hopes to reduce the total debt and provide the company with more flexibility to continue its economic activity.

The bondholders will also provide another $300 million in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing, which, along with cash, they hope will financially support the airline during this process.

The future “in the air”?

The airline intends to continue its operations and travel during this process and thus affect the least number of customers, that is, the airline will not interrupt its routes, so that customers can book flights and fly as if nothing were happening in the bank accounts of this airline.

Robert W. Mann Jr., the former executive of the airline and current president of RW Mann and Co. (an independent consulting firm) has already appeared before the media, explaining that, in the short term, there will be some changes and adjustments but that they cannot confirm that there will not be more cancellations while this whole economic process takes place.

They were already smelling bankruptcy

Spirit had already announced several capacity and pilot cuts last year to deal with the economic problems they have been going through since the engines of some planes stopped working as we have told you before.

What will happen to the flights that are already booked?

In principle, they should not suffer any modifications, at least not those that are scheduled in the short term. Mann confirmed that it was unlikely that trips that, for example, include the dates of Thanksgiving and Christmas would be affected, but there may be some modifications once winter begins, and even before the end of the year. Those who have a flight booked with this company will have to be glued to their phones in case any kind of change occurs in both the schedule and the itinerary, and they will be subject to the new rules of the Department of Transportation (in which travellers will only be able to choose a refund if they choose not to travel on the delayed flight or the alternative flight?

And what about my Spirit loyalty points?

In principle, you will not be able to transfer them to another airline, but do not give up yet. The future of Spirit is uncertain, but a great comeback is expected, and they will emerge from bankruptcy, who knows if with the change of government they will get more assets or end up merging with another airline.