WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The end of Spirit Airlines and its big yellow jets is leaving travelers with one fewer low-cost carrier option and raising questions about what comes next for budget air travel.
Spirit Airlines is now in bankruptcy court to sell off everything, including its planes, airport gates and potentially its headquarters.
WATCH BELOW: Spirit Airlines bankruptcy puts low-cost air travel in question
"The assets themselves, the planes, the gates at airports, potentially the headquarters, those can potentially be valuable assets," said Clint Henderson, managing editor of news at The Points Guy travel website.
For some travelers, the airline's disappearance is a real loss.
"A lot of people flew Spirit because it was so cost-effective, and everything is so expensive these days, it gave them an option to travel," one traveler told WPTV on Thursday.
Travel
5 new routes coming to Vero Beach's airport
A Treasure Coast entrepreneur, LeRoy Gillead II, has proposed buying up all of Spirit, rehiring the airline's workers and rebranding it as Florida Air Express, a low-cost airline based in West Palm Beach. Court papers show Gillead is looking to raise as much as $250 million from private investors.
Henderson is skeptical about that happening.
"This seems like a pie in the sky thing. If they can get the money together, maybe they'll establish a new low-cost carrier, but right now they don't fly any routes at all," Henderson said. "It would be much more likely in the end that you'll see the assets of Spirit divvied out to the highest bidder, and that's probably going to be major airlines."
The deadline for bids comes in July.
Henderson said low-cost carriers are disappearing, and the best advice for travelers is to put the work in on finding a bargain.
"I think the low-cost carrier model is kind of busted in the U.S. All the low-cost carriers really struggle to make money," according to Henderson.
He said Frontier and Allegiant are still in the low-cost category, and finding cheap air fares means searching more.
"Be airline agnostic; that's the best advice I have for consumers," Henderson said. "Go with the cheapest airline you can find. Use Google Flights and don't try to be loyal to one airline."
For those big yellow jets Spirit was known for, it likely means they will be painted a different color.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
