If you're familiar with late-night TV, you know Spirit Airlines is a frequent punchline.

This past Monday, though, was a funeral for the joke.

The high price of fuel took its toll this weekend because yesterday, Spirit Airlines shut

down.

Oh, no, I have three more weeks of shows to do.

Now I won't have Spirit Airlines jokes?

Quick, somebody check on Arby's.

Spirit Airlines, a frequent punching bag of comedians like Stephen Colbert, had announced over the weekend it was shutting down immediately.

You're probably familiar with Spirit as the extremely cheap airline.

The quality of service had become a running joke on the internet.

But despite its reputation, their shutdown is serious.

Will Guysbond is a reporter at the air current,

an aviation news and analysis outlet.

I think for all the folks, there are thousands of employees there and the pilots and the consumers who were stranded. It's obviously sad. But again, not surprising.

Spirit had been in trouble for a while.

The company was in debt.

There was talk of a merger, but then came the war in Iran, which, while it's had a major

impact on all airlines, especially affected Spirit.

Spirit alone in a bankruptcy filing said that between March 1st and April 30th,

their incremental fuel cost was nearly $100 million. I mean, that is sort of a stunning amount

in the span of only two months. I would say anyone who was sitting here who was next to me

and was an airline CEO, they would say it's always been tough. Now, yeah, when fuel goes up in

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