Trump is killing the economy. Spirit Airlines is gone. After 34 years, the airline shut down before dawn this morning every flight canceled, every employee out of a job, millions of passengers left scrambling. And the story of how it happened is a direct line back to Trump’s war with Iran.
Spirit had actually worked out a deal to survive. They’d filed for bankruptcy, restructured, and had a creditor agreement in place. Their plan assumed jet fuel would cost around $2.24 a gallon this year. Three days after that deal was signed, the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran and fuel prices exploded to over $4.50 a gallon. That single shock added an estimated $360 million in costs Spirit had no way to absorb. The airline was dead from that moment forward.
The reason fuel prices spiked that hard is the Strait of Hormuz. Before Trump’s war, that waterway carried about 25% of the world’s seaborne oil. Iran responded to the attacks by effectively shutting it down mines, armed boardings, warnings to tankers. Traffic dropped to nearly zero. The ripple hit every gas station and every airline in America.
Spirit tried a last-ditch bailout with the Trump administration a $500 million government loan. Creditors rejected the terms. Trump shrugged and said “if we can’t make a good deal, no institution’s been able to do it.” And that was it.
17,000 workers lost their jobs today. 1.8 million booked seats vanished. Frontier and other budget carriers are already asking the federal government for $2.5 billion in relief from fuel costs because they’re feeling the same pressure.
Spirit is being called the Iran war’s first American corporate casualty. The war is nine weeks old.
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