A Spirit Airlines Airbus A321 airplane taxis at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving from Fort Lauderdale on March 30, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Kevin Carter getty images
Just hours after Spirit Airlines collapsed, its rivals revealed their own new flight plans.
Airlines had actually been working on their rerouting for months as Spirit’s demise became more and more likely. Some new flights will start this week. This comes after Spirit suddenly ceased operations on Saturday night, leaving thousands of customers stranded.
The quick move shows how carriers are competing for Spirit’s valuable assets, such as airport gates and a customer base that has less of a choice when booking. Analysts say airfares could rise even higher than before this year following fuel-driven increases.
Even though Spirit’s already reduced summer schedule was only about 1.5% of U.S. domestic capacity, it could have a broader impact on the industry and travelers’ wallets, Barclays airline analyst Brandon Oglensky said in a note Monday.
He added, “In addition to the direct revenue gains from Spirit’s former network, we also suspect that the removal of excess point-to-point capacity could significantly benefit industry pricing for virtually all airlines, leading to even greater unit revenue results in the near term.”
For now, other airlines are announcing their own new flights as they look to fill the gap of Spirit’s absence and compete for Spirit’s routes and gates.
Breeze Airways is launching a flight from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Charleston, South Carolina. The carrier also plans to run year-round service from Atlantic City to Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina and Tampa, Florida.
jetblue airwaysThe No. 2 airline, previously at Spirit’s home hub Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida, announced new flights from there to several destinations including Barranquilla and Cali in Colombia; baltimore; Charlotte, North Carolina; and indianapolis. It also said it would add new nonstops from its South Florida hub to Chicago; Detroit; Houston; Nashville, Tennessee, and Ponce, Puerto Rico.
“We are making the move to Fort Lauderdale to ensure continued availability of air service in this market,” JetBlue President Marty St. George said in a release announcing the changes.
JetBlue is also expanding capacity from Fort Lauderdale to Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport; Raleigh-Durham; and Santo Domingo and Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic.
waiting for autumn
A JetBlue Airways plane is parked at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on January 31, 2024.
Joe Raddle | getty images
This is nothing new for carriers. Late last summer, a few days after Spirit applied for A second bankruptcy protection in less than a year, airlines also added service to airports where Spirit had a large presence. At the time, Spirit was working on cutting flights to reduce costs as it tried to emerge from bankruptcy, with the goal of doing so in mid-2026.
That didn’t happen, and negotiations for a loan of up to $500 million by the Trump administration to keep the airline afloat collapsed late last week.
Spirit, the country’s famous budget carrier, collapsed after years of complex problems – some within management’s control and some outside management’s control – that ultimately became so overwhelming that they were difficult to overcome.
Along with launching new routes, airlines including United Airlines, Frontier Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue and others moved quickly over the weekend to cap fares for stranded passengers who had booked flights on Spirit.
Spirit said it is automatically processing refunds for customers.
United said about 14,000 Spirit customers booked tickets on United on Saturday. Southwest said it took more than 20,000 people.
“If you fly with us during this time, I think you’ll love what comes with your ticket on the world’s largest airline,” David Kinzelman, United’s chief customer officer, said in a note early Saturday. “We can take you around the country and around the world with more flights across the Atlantic and Pacific than any other airline. Plus, you’ll get friendly and reliable service from the best team in the industry.”
Following the collapse of Spirit, the industry is now looking at other budget airlines.
The rise in fuel prices since the US-Israel attacks on Iran in February has been particularly devastating for low-cost airlines, which do not have the huge credit card and corporate travel customer bases that larger airlines enjoy.
Spirit’s potential one-time merger partner and fellow budget carrier Frontier The results will be reported on Tuesday and its executives will face questions about their plans and prospects for the year.
