Copyright The Street
Over the last year, Florida-based budget airline Spirit Airlines has faced challenges serious enough to cast its entire future into doubt. After claiming that it has fully emerged from a bankruptcy for which it filed in November 2024, Spirit Airlines refiled for Chapter 11 protection in August 2025. The airline’s total losses are now expected to top $804 million in 2025 and $3 billion since 2020 while cost-cutting measures such as replacing its core fare model with classes and significantly downsizing its route network and workforce have brought tepid results. Spirit “obligations require financial results to improve faster,” filing says On Nov. 11, Spirit Airlines reported a third-quarter loss of $317.5 million amid an operating revenue drop of nearly $250 million from the same period in 2024. Expenses, meanwhile, totaled $1.09 billion. “After considering the measures taken, minimum liquidity covenants in the Company’s current debt obligations and cash flows to maintain current operational obligations require financial results to improve at a rate faster than what the Company is currently anticipating,” Spirit representatives wrote in the filing with the Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC). “Management believes there is substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.” The filing additionally reports $646.6 million in cash, $8.8 billion in total assets, and $6.7 billion in various liabilities related to the two bankruptcies. The ultra-low-cost carrier has previously also used the “substantial doubt” phrasing in a SEC report filed last August. A short history of Spirit Airlines’ struggles, two bankruptcies Both filings named struggles around getting enough liquidity to bring down payments to creditors, while also keeping up operations and expanding enough to stay competitive for the long term. “The Company has continued to be affected by adverse market conditions, including elevated domestic capacity and continued weak demand for domestic leisure travel in the second quarter of 2025, resulting in a challenging pricing environment,” Spirit wrote in the earlier filing. More on travel: Major airline launches surprising flight between Las Vegas and Paris United Airlines CEO gives stark warning on Olympic Games The highest rooftop in Barcelona is in a surprising place US government issues sudden warning on Switzerland travel The latest filing reports that Spirit remains in the state of a debtor-in-possession under the supervision of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and borrowed up to $275 million in revolving credit to make more pressing debt payments and continue operations until the end of the year. In October 2025, the same court approved a $1.23 billion restructuring package that includes $475 million in new debtor-in-possession financing. Ever since, Spirit has been on a drastic cost-cutting mission that makes its future look increasingly grim. At the start of November, two senior executives overseeing budget and human resources left the airline while Spirit also confirmed that it is cutting 150 corporate jobs after already furloughing or downgrading at least 500 pilots earlier this year. After a long string of other route cuts and market exits throughout 2025, Spirit also announced that it would permanently stop flying to five cities including Milwaukee and Phoenix by the start of 2026.
