The bright yellow planes are grounded. Now the selloff begins.
Spirit Airlines, which abruptly canceled all its future flights over the weekend, secured court approval Tuesday to begin dismantling the once-busy budget carrier and to convert its parts into cash for creditors.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane authorized the airline’s plan for a rapid wind down of its remaining business activities, clearing the way for Spirit to move forward with liquidation.
“Today is a very challenging day. It’s not a day that anybody hoped would ever come,” Lane said as he ruled from the bench following an hourslong hearing in New York. The judge extended his “sympathy to the Spirit employees and their families.”
The company needed the judge’s green light to proceed because shutting down an airline is far from straightforward, with creditors, regulators, airport authorities and employees all tied into a process that has to be carefully unwound. More than 100 people tuned in to Tuesday’s hearing virtually, reflecting the broad interest in the case.
Spirit’s plan centers on selling off every possible asset — from its airplanes, engines and spare parts to gates and landing slots at airports — while also limiting additional payroll, leasing and other costs.
The liquidation marks a dramatic turn for Spirit, which filed for bankruptcy protection in August 2025 hoping to escape financial ruin. The airline’s parent company was attempting to restructure the business for the second time since November 2024 when it abruptly stopped operating flights early Saturday.
The shutdown itself was tightly choreographed. The company, Spirit Aviation Holdings Inc., said it made its going-out-of-business announcement in the middle of the night to ensure the jetliners making their final runs for the airline were safely on the ground and their crews accounted for.
Three days later, that sense of urgency carried into the courtroom, where the company’s lawyers asked the judge for expedited approval of their wind-down plan, arguing that speed would benefit Spirit’s creditors and customers.
“Any delay will cause chaos, confusion and cost the estate significant time and money,” the company said in a motion filed with the court, noting the airline was “not generating any revenue.”
Spirit attorney Marshall Huebner said Tuesday in court that rising jet fuel costs since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran “engulfed Spirit entirely.” The airline’s fuel expenses grew by roughly $100 million “in March and April alone,” he said, and rapidly drained Spirit’s liquidity and derailed its restructuring efforts.
He also apologized directly to Spirit’s employees and customers, especially passengers who he said may now be completely “priced out” of certain routes without the ultra low-cost carrier known for its unbundled “no frills” service.
Huebner described a swift effort by other airlines and other segments of the aviation industry to assist Spirit’s employees and customers once the airline’s end looked inevitable.
“The entire industry sprang into action to get our people home,” Huebner said. Spirit employed about 17,000 people and carried about 50,000 passengers on its final day of operations. The final flight, which traveled from Detroit to Dallas, landed after midnight Saturday.
According to court filings, Spirit’s assets include its fleet of 114 Airbus A320-family planes. Most of them — 66 aircraft — were leased, but the company owns 28 that will be part of the liquidation process. Another 20 of the planes it owns outright were already set to be sold under a separate, previously approved court deal. Spirit also owns 18 spare engines.
Spirit says it plans to initially keep a skeleton crew of 130 to 150 employees who will help oversee the liquidation process, including securing aircraft and coordinating logistics. The team, expected to include some corporate officers, will eventually shrink to roughly 40.
In the last two weeks, Spirit was in discussions with the Trump administration about a hoped-for rescue deal that fell through, eliminating what the company described as its last viable path forward. Of the potential bailout, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday, “We oftentimes don’t have half a billion dollars laying around.”
Duffy said other U.S. airlines, including United, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest, were offering $200 one-way fares for a limited time to travelers holding Spirit confirmation numbers and proof of purchase.
Airlines also stepped in to assist stranded Spirit crew members, he said, with some offering a preferential hiring process for former Spirit employees looking for work.