{"id":258641,"date":"2026-05-05T01:38:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T01:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258641\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T01:38:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T01:38:24","slug":"orlando-spirit-airlines-staff-face-job-hunt-after-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258641\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Spirit Airlines staff face job hunt after layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Hundreds of people who call Central Florida home will be out of work and will face different job prospects as they try to move on from Spirit Airlines.<\/p>\n

The airline confirmed in a filing Monday that it had 796 Orlando-based employees, including pilots, flight attendants, desk attendants and maintenance workers.<\/p>\n

Many of those employees served for years and thanked Spirit on social media for giving them a chance to carry out their dreams.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been blessed and I am grateful that I was able to fulfill my dream and passion for what I love to do,\u201d one worker, Sylvia, wrote, adding that she planned to attend a vigil Wednesday for workers to honor their service to the airline.<\/p>\n

The workers will face different job markets as they begin to hunt for a new set of wings. Customer-facing jobs are currently rare, with few listings posted on employment sites.<\/p>\n

Others, such as pilots and mechanics, should be able to find work quickly, Embry-Riddle\u2019s Dr. Blaise Waguespack explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery airline is hurting for maintenance people,\u201d he said, before turning to other positions: \u201cEvery airline is trying to manage costs the best they can right now, especially with fuel. So, it may not be as easy, unfortunately, for those folks to quickly find employment with another airline if they want to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, the Association of Flight Attendants wrote to the Department of Transportation, asking that flight attendants be prioritized as Spirit\u2019s assets are sold to ensure accrued vacation time does not go unpaid.<\/p>\n

They also asked that attendants be given a temporary stipend to help them pay bills and extend healthcare coverage to minimize any financial impact to workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpirit Flight Attendants are not just some asset to be written off in this process,\u201d AFA President Sara Nelson said. \u201cTheir lives matter, and the livelihoods of all Spirit workers must come before the profits of shareholders.\u201d<\/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

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

\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Hundreds of people who call Central Florida home will be out of work and will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[76498,20426,38840,28656,20372,77892,20371,26443,6731,24913,53194,112085,112086,18662,16501,101862,558,78679,112087,22874,6025,4949,60581,112088,47,20334,20576,36550,258,7373,112089,112090,2889,686,112091,2365,9793,20559,259,1274,77898,139,141,140,79577,15015,10258,32542,10255,17446,77900,112092,1316,19593,8848,1798,107,17491,62598,1617,1265,85517,5519],"class_list":["post-258641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-76498","tag-air","tag-airbus","tag-aircraft","tag-airline","tag-airliner","tag-airlines","tag-airplane","tag-airport","tag-aviation","tag-bankruptcy","tag-bare","tag-barefare","tag-base","tag-best","tag-buildings","tag-business","tag-carrier","tag-cheap","tag-commercial","tag-cost","tag-destination","tag-distance","tag-fare","tag-fl","tag-flight","tag-flights","tag-fly","tag-fort","tag-ft","tag-going","tag-hangars","tag-holiday","tag-hollywood","tag-hub","tag-international","tag-jets","tag-landing","tag-lauderdale","tag-low","tag-off","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-out","tag-passenger","tag-plane","tag-rates","tag-runway","tag-spirit","tag-taking","tag-tarmac","tag-tourism","tag-tourist","tag-transport","tag-transportation","tag-travel","tag-trip","tag-two","tag-usa","tag-vacation","tag-wings","tag-yellow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258641","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=258641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}