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PBS News Hour - Segments

How the collapse of Spirit Airlines is impacting travelers and the wider aviation industry

PBS News Hour - Segments

PBS NewsHour

News, Daily News

4.11K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2026

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Spirit Airlines has officially shut down. The low-cost airline went out of business this weekend after 34 years. It's left members of the flying public in a tricky bind and the larger industry with some serious questions. Stephanie Sy has our look at how we got here and what comes next for consumers. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0

Spirit Airlines has officially shut down. The low-cost airline went out of business this weekend after 34 years.

0:07.9

It's left members of the flying public in a tricky bind and the larger industry with some serious questions.

0:14.2

Stephanie Sy has our look at how we got here and what comes next for consumers.

0:19.3

Omna, on Saturday, the low-cost air carrier canceled all flights and announced customer service

0:25.5

was no longer available.

0:28.0

17,000 jobs are impacted and passengers are struggling with how to go about their scheduled

0:33.7

travel, leaving many stranded.

0:36.4

It's unfortunate, and they definitely do need to be sued because people pay their money

0:41.9

to be able to go where they want to go.

0:43.8

And for you to cancel and not have no type of backup resources for them or another way

0:48.3

for them to get to where they need to go, it's kind of like that's messed up.

0:51.8

We got our flight canceled two times.

0:54.2

First time was yesterday, and then they said to rebook the flight over again.

0:58.4

And then we did rebooked it.

1:00.3

But then this morning when we got here, there was like,

1:02.1

oh, we canceled all the flights because the spirit shut them down.

1:05.3

And when we get here, there was a guy so calm,

1:09.1

posting some signs saying that spirit ain't working no more.

1:15.0

So what are we going to do? There was ladies with kids on the floor.

1:22.0

All of this comes as jet fuel prices continue to soar due to the U.S. war with Iran.

1:27.2

It was not the only factor that

1:29.5

contributed to Spirit's closure, but it was an important one. For a closer look, I'm joined by

...

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