Spirit Airlines has deferred all its new plane orders by about five years and is laying off 260 of its pilots in an attempt to keep the company strong enough to keep flying, after losing money since the beginning of the pandemic and having two merger opportunities snatched away from it.
Most recently, Spirit had agreed to be acquired by JetBlue, which wanted Spirit’s aircraft and routes as a path to its own rapid expansion, but that merger was opposed by the Justice Department and blocked by a Federal judge, despite Spirit’s testimony that it might not be able to continue if the merger was not completed.
JetBlue has also scaled back some of its plans in the wake of the ruling and has added a number of fees and route changes to help it return to profitability.
Earlier, Spirit had planned to merge with fellow ultra-low-cost carrier Frontier to form a nationwide discount carrier, but that plan ended when JetBlue offered a much higher share price for Spirit.
The pilot furloughs result in part from current route changes and in part from needing fewer crew members, as planes scheduled to be delivered in 2025 and 2026 are now moved to 2030 and 2031.
