Why American low-cost airlines fail
On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti
WBUR
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Spirit Airlines, known for cheap flights, suddenly closed earlier this month. Budget airlines seem to do fine in Europe. Why can’t they survive in the U.S.?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, this is Paige Sutherland, On Point Senior Producer. |
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| 0:32.3 | Now, stick around for today's show. |
| 0:38.4 | WBUR Podcasts, Boston. |
| 0:46.6 | This is on point. |
| 0:48.3 | I'm Magna Chakrabardi. |
| 0:50.0 | On Saturday, May 2nd, Spirit Airlines Flight 1607 had just landed at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport when the pilot made an announcement to his crew and passengers. |
| 1:02.7 | We are the second to the last plane to land. Every other plane has landed tonight and not taken off again. |
| 1:10.9 | And as we landed and turned on our internet, we got a notice from our union that we're going to be ceasing operations at 3 a.m. Eastern time today. |
| 1:25.7 | It was 12.07 a.m. in Dallas, 107 a.m. Eastern time. |
| 1:31.1 | Spirit Airlines would cease to exist in two hours. |
| 1:34.9 | It's funny as we sit here, I'll speak for myself. |
| 1:39.1 | I don't remember any of the bad times. |
| 1:42.1 | Just the good months. |
| 1:45.5 | The pilot had heard the news from his union. |
| 1:48.9 | According to Spirit Airlines itself, some 17,000 other employees heard that their company had closed not from Spirit, but from media outlets. |
| 1:59.3 | The DFW pilot had been flying for Spirit for 14 years, |
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