Spirit Airlines Photos From Beginning to End

Spirit Airlines’ original color scheme on a DC-9-21 at Boston Massachusetts

Story by Ken Kula, photos by William Ellison and Ken Kula

Spirit Airlines can trace its roots back to Charter One Airlines, which began operations in 1983. Well before that, the mid-1960s’ Clippert Trucking Company was the initial backbone of what became the seventh largest airline in U. S. history, operating a fleet of more than 170 aircraft.

Charter One Airlines was founded as a Detroit, Michigan-based charter company operating flights between Atlantic City, Las Vegas and several more destinations. Initial airframes were McDonnell Douglas DC-9s.

Spirit’s second major color scheme worn on an Airbus A-320-232

By 1992, the newly rebranded Spirit Airlines had grown from a charter carrier to a full-service airline connecting several northeastern U. S. cities such as Boston, Providence, and Philadelphia to Florida destinations including Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers. DC-9 and larger MD-80 equipment was operated between these cities.

By 2006, the company was led by Ben Baldanza, who revised the airline’s marketing strategy into an ultra-low-cost format. With a cheap initial fare, fees for each additional service were added. Later in the same decade, more domestic destinations were added, plus Caribbean and other international service from the U. S. was introduced. Initially, the ultra-low-cost concept was well received.

Soon, other ultra-low-cost carriers sprung up, creating competition for Spirit, and several mainline carriers reduced fares to comparative levels too. Then, a pilot strike shut down the airline’s flight operations for a week in 2010.

A Spirit Airlines Airbus A-319-132 retracts its landing gear during a sunset departure. 

Several MD-80 and A-321 jets swapped the black and silver pattern colors with a series of shades of blue. 

Mainline U.S. air carriers continued to put pressure on Spirit during the next decade, and in 2016 CEO Baldanza was succeeded by Robert Fornaro, who had experience as the former CEO of AirTran Airways. At the time of the CEO change, Spirit was losing money, but the new CEO Fornaro instituted changes that brought an era of stability to the airline. By 2017, improvements with the airline’s operations were noticeable. In 2019, Ted Christie became the newest CEO and soon an order for 100 new Airbus A320neo jets was announced, breaking away from U. S.-produced airliners.  

Then, as Spirit’s future looked brighter, the COVID-19 pandemic struck an unexpected economic blow to the airline industry. Passenger loads plummeted and profits evaporated. During the pandemic recovery of the airline industry, Spirit continued to lose money, and the airline announced a plan that would include the furlough of a large group of employees, effective in October 2020. This furlough plan downsized the airline considerably, and the remaining operation had fewer employees and less aircraft. Retention of those remaining with the company, especially pilots and flight attendants, became an issue because of higher salaries that were needed to keep them within the company. 

Spirit Airlines A-321-231 departing

Spirit Airlines remained in business after the pandemic, but increased costs of running the airline with a lack of a profit since 2019 inevitably caught up with it. On November 18, 2024 Spirit Airlines Filed for Chapter 11. The filing reported it intended to continue operations while restructuring its debt and planned to exit the process in early 2025. True to the plan, Spirit did exit their Chapter 11 status on February 20, 2025.

However, half a year later the airline again filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection on August 29, 2025. The airline’s new plan reportedly stated it planned to become profitable by 2027, after additional employees and aircraft ownership/leases would be cut.

While in their second bankruptcy, the airline reached a critical cash flow problem in April, 2026 which it blamed upon rising fuel costs associated with the conflict with Iran. With no “lifelines” and no cash left, sadly Spirit Airlines, once an innovative player, ceased operations at 3 AM on May 2nd, 2026. 

Mothballed Spirit Airlines jets parked at Goodyear, Arizona after the airline ceased operations