Spirit Airlines is in trouble, and it could be in part because major airlines co-opted the airline’s business model and beat it at its own game.
Major U.S. carriers like Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have co-opted strategies that made budget airlines like Spirit profitable before the COVID-19 pandemic, which rocked the airline industry, The New York Times reports. Now, Spirit — which has filed for bankruptcy twice in a year and is set to furlough about one-third of its flight attendants — and similar budget airlines are struggling to compete with mainstream airlines, according to the outlet.
