NEW YORK – Spirit Airlines announced on Saturday (May 2nd) that it was suspending operations after years of financial hardships, compounded by a recent spike in fuel prices.

The historic Marine Air Terminal, where Spirit’s operation is housed at LaGuardia International Airport in New York, was largely deserted on Saturday morning. There were few passengers, but a plethora of signs explaining that the airline had shuttered its operations. Airport employees directed the one or two passengers who did still show up to head to other terminals where they could rebook themselves on other airlines, USA Today reported.

The line's customer service is no longer available.

“For more than 30 years, Spirit Airlines has played a pioneering role in making travel more accessible and bringing people together while driving affordability across the industry,” Dave Davis, Spirit’s president and CEO said in a statement. “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. Sustaining the business required hundreds of millions of additional dollars of liquidity that Spirit simply does not have and could not procure. This is tremendously disappointing and not the outcome any of us wanted,” according to a statement.

The airline had gone through multiple bankruptcies but had been unable to balance its books.

Story Date: May 4, 2026