{"id":256001,"date":"2026-05-03T00:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256001\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T00:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:13:11","slug":"south-florida-airport-passengers-looking-for-other-ways-home-as-spirit-airlines-shuts-down-after-34-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256001\/","title":{"rendered":"South Florida airport passengers looking for other ways home as Spirit Airlines shuts down after 34 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spirit Airlines <\/a>abruptly announced it would shut down its operations around 3 a.m. Saturday, canceling all flights<\/a> and sending travelers scrambling for new ways home. The South Florida-based airline, which had been operating for 34 years, advised customers not to go to the airport.<\/p>\n

The closure left many passengers stranded, including Christian Gilliard, who arrived at an empty Spirit terminal after getting off a cruise. “Dang. Now what?” Gilliard said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gilliard needs another way to get back to North Carolina. “I don’t fly very often so this is not something I was expecting to run into,” he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some flyers learned about the shutdown before getting to the airport, while others found out only after arriving.<\/p>\n

The shutdown<\/a> impacts approximately 17,000 employees who are likely out of a job. Spirit Airlines CEO Dave Davis released a statement overnight, attributing the failure to rising costs.<\/p>\n

“The sudden and sustained rise in fuel prices in recent weeks ultimately has left us with no alternative but to pursue an orderly wind-down of the Company,” Davis said. “Sustaining the business required hundreds of millions of additional dollars of liquidity that Spirit simply does not have.”<\/p>\n

Regarding refunds, Spirit stated that all customers who booked directly through the airline will receive compensation. However, those who booked through a travel agent should contact that agent for their money back. Compensation for flights booked through points, rewards, or credits will be determined later through bankruptcy proceedings.<\/p>\n

Several competing airlines have pledged assistance. American, JetBlue, Delta, and Frontier have offered to help both Spirit employees and customers. United Airlines<\/a> is offering discounted flights on non-stop routes that both carriers operate, provided seats are available.<\/p>\n

Mike Hanna, a senior vice president at United, detailed how travelers can access the discounted fares.<\/p>\n

“When you go to United.com\/specialfares,<\/a> you’ll use your Spirit confirmation number as well as your receipt and your MileagePlus number,” Hanna said. “You just input that into our system, and we will offer you these capped fares.”<\/p>\n

The news was a relief for some who narrowly avoided the travel chaos. James Reidy, whose brother was scheduled to fly Spirit today, was glad he could warn him ahead of time that “there’s no yellow plane waiting for him at FLL.” Reidy was happy he flew out early himself, stating, “I’m pretty happy that I was flying out early so that he would not have to run into the same inconvenience that everyone else had to run into.”<\/p>\n

Spirit has a website<\/a> with more information on the closure.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spirit Airlines abruptly announced it would shut down its operations around 3 a.m. Saturday, canceling all flights and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15765,28,30,29,1771,20577,3014,1063,1854,807,19324,18447],"class_list":["post-256001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-american-airlines","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-fort-lauderdale-hollywood-international-airport","tag-frontier-airlines","tag-jetblue","tag-miami-international-airport","tag-north-carolina","tag-south-florida","tag-spirit-airlines","tag-united-airlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256001","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=256001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}