I’m a Boomer (late-era, but still), so I’m used to the “good old days” when life was relatively stable when it came to transportation. We had cars, taxis, busses, trains and airlines to get us from point A to point B easily when I was growing up. Bus and train travel seem to have lessened in favor of simply having a car or flying these days.
Since the deregulation of airlines in October 1978 (when then-president Carter signed an act allowing for free commerce and removing government control), the first large carrier to succumb to financial problems was Eastern Airlines in 1981. They had been one of the most-recognized ways to fly since the 1920s. Others such as Southeast and Aloha later shut down as well.
Now a more recent competitor, Spirit Airlines, abruptly ceased operations within 24 hours, including all scheduled flights and customer service. They were attempting to finalize a merger with JetBlue, another modern carrier, but talks stalled and the company ended up needing a bailout of $500 million (against $8 billion in debt) which the government failed to approve. They had already filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2025.
17,000 employees are officially out of work, and people depending on their services have been scrambling to find alternate flights and log into a website for information on refunds for purchases the airline will no longer honor. It’s the first major shutdown of an airline in 25 years. The current fuel crisis during the Mideast conflict with the US has not helped matters for planes which require large quantities to fill tanks.
When deregulation lowered ticket prices by as much as forty percent over the old system of price-setting, it opened the door for price wars over the years. Competitors found it easy to take advantage of Spirit’s bankruptcy problems by offering deep discounted economy seats to fit the income needs of most travelers, and Spirit could not keep up with the demand for more services for lower costs against a growing negative balance.
In terms of customer satisfaction data, Spirit and JetBlue (which, as we said, failed to merge) ranked among the worst carriers in terms of flights being canceled. American and Frontier are on the high-end tier of passenger on-time services. On the better customer experience, Delta and Southwest remain the best.
I never flew on Spirit or JetBlue, but I have flown American and Southwest. What truly matters is reliability and safety when one needs to use air travel. By the way, the last major airline accident was in 2009, and Spirit never crashed (neither has Quantas, if I may throw a movie trope in here).
So our modern world has seen another shutdown of a business most of us know. Airlines may not rank in the same category as department stores or restaurant chains, but they are a recognized part of daily life, making their absence keenly felt.
With good fortune and cool-headed diplomacy, the international conflict can be ended and normalcy restored, but nobody is holding out hope. The modern way of life seems more filled with the sounds of “hail and farewell” than of dependable legacy. Another airline is gone, and somehow we will move on to the next bankruptcy crisis while paying more at the pump.
The planes are grounded, but the spirit lingers on.
*(Quantas also ran propeller planes before the era of jets, and among those flights were some fatalities, all before 1951 and several occurring during WWII action, so their record of modern era crash-free status remains valid.)
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