This is Planet Money from NPR.

About a month ago, Aran Darling booked a ticket with Spirit Airlines for a work event in New York City.

And if you've been following the news about Spirit, you know that Aran was not feeling great about that decision.

I just started checking the flight status every two hours. And I did that for

like 72 hours straight. Because after filing for bankruptcy for a second time, Spirit is having

even more financial issues. Now it looked like it was about to go into liquidation and could maybe

disappear forever. And I would even call them and be like, hey, is there something?

Because I got a little worried that whoever was, like, in charge of updating the flight status,

maybe they were even, like, you know, let go.

When the day of his flight finally came, his departure was sort of a running joke with a staff at the airport.

They were like, oh, you're flying with spirit.

And I was like, kind of looked at them, and I were like, oh, you're flying with Spirit? And I was like, kind of looked at

them and I'm like, uh, I mean, I guess I'm one of the last. Aran did make it to his destination,

but Spirit's fate is a little more up in the air. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Emma

Peasley. Spirit used to be the

king of ultra-low-cost carriers. They're notorious for low fares and charging for basically everything

else. And while maybe they weren't the most beloved airline, for a time they were the fastest growing.

Now the question is, can Spirit make it through a week?

Today on the show, what happened to Spirit?

First, the rise.

We'll go back to 2014 when the budget airline was flying high.

We'll talk with then CEO Ben Baldanza about his radical vision for cheap air travel,

...