{"id":255802,"date":"2026-05-02T20:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T20:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/255802\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T20:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T20:52:15","slug":"spirit-airlines-shutdown-leaves-passengers-stranded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/255802\/","title":{"rendered":"Spirit Airlines shutdown leaves passengers stranded"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The sudden shutdown of Florida- based Spirit Airlines left passengers scrambling to flight out of the airport Friday night. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey sent everybody over here,\u201d said Ashley Vargas, a traveler whose flight to Virginia was cancelled. \u201cThere\u2019s a huge flight and basically some guy is screaming that Spirit is going bankrupt.\u201d <\/p>\n

Danielle Huey and her family managed to leave on time to Pittsburgh after she spent the week in Orlando vacationing with family. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m actually really sad and upset about (Spirit shutting down) because I think it\u2019s one of the more affordable airlines,\u201d Huey said. <\/p>\n

Spirit was banking on a $500 million taxpayer-funded bailout to stay afloat. The discount airline had filed bankruptcy twice in recent years and a planned merger with rival airline Jet Blue fell apart. <\/p>\n

Travel Expert Clint Henderson said travelers booking a flight out of Orlando International Airport can expect to pay more. <\/p>\n

\u201cDelta has a pretty big stranglehold on Minneapolis Airport and they raised prices as soon as Spirit left,\u201d said Henderson. \u201cSo you can expect the same sort of thing to happen in Florida.\u201d <\/p>\n

Spirit employed about 1,200 people in Orlando. That hub offered service to more than 50 domestic and international destinations. <\/p>\n

Several major airlines, including American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, Allegiant Air, Frontier Airlines, Avelo Airlines, and Breeze Airways, have agreed to provide relief options for affected travelers.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

TOP STORIES FROM WFTV CHANNEL 9<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The sudden shutdown of Florida- based Spirit Airlines left passengers scrambling to flight out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[81891,2652,1060,2777,111192,22571,94267,13724,1061,28,17807,6308,23680,2365,3014,634,111193,115,139,141,140,24801,17775,17446,111191,111190,628,1045],"class_list":["post-255802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-american_airlines","tag-central_florida","tag-channel_9","tag-channel_nine","tag-danielle_hughey","tag-dave","tag-dave_jordan","tag-delta","tag-eyewitness","tag-florida","tag-greg","tag-greg_warmth","tag-houston","tag-international","tag-jetblue","tag-local","tag-minneapolis_airport","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando_international","tag-pittsburgh","tag-spirit","tag-spirit_airline","tag-spirit_airlines","tag-us","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}