There are a lot of ways to kill a business. You can mismanage it. You can drown it in debt. Or, in a more modern Washington twist, you can force it to compete on the government’s terms and leave it without a chance of survival.
That last option was favored by President Joe Biden and his antitrust brain trust, and it just led to the demise of Spirit Airlines. The ultra–low-cost carrier had carried on for 34 years before it finally folded on Saturday, stranding passengers and putting roughly 17,000 employees out of work. The Trump administration had floated a $500 million bailout in return for a 90 percent government stake in the company, but most bondholders preferred to liquidate instead of dragging out the pain.
Policy wasn’t the only factor behind Spirit’s collapse. The cost of fuel has spiked several times since 2022, including during the ongoing Iran war, and inflation has squeezed the budgets of its price-sensitive customers. But Spirit was blocked from its final chance to turn around in 2024, when the Biden Justice Department blocked its proposed merger with JetBlue on antitrust grounds.
At the time, progressives cheered. Senator Elizabeth Warren declared, “This is a Biden win for flyers!” while warning the merger would mean “fewer flights and higher fares.”
