Ultra low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines has ceased operations citing rising jet fuel prices and the failure of a merger with JetBlue, which the Trump administration blames on Biden-era antitrust opposition.
A JetBlue Airways Airbus A320, left, passes a Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 as it taxis on the runway, July 7, 2022, at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Ultra low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines shut down May 2, citing rising jet fuel prices. The Trump administration, which had floated bailing out the airline, blamed the previous administration, saying Democrats blocked a deal that could have saved the company.
"This is just more of the mess we inherited from the Biden administration," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in athe following day. He pointed to a letter Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. , sent to the Transportation Department in 2022, calling on the agency to oppose a proposed merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines.
"If JetBlue had merged with Spirit, we would have all these jobs that were lost yesterday," Bessent said. "The reason we were here was because … the Biden administration opposed the merger. We shouldn’t have been here in the first place.
" "This story was not written because of the Iran war," he said. "This story was written years ago because of what Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and the DOJ under Biden—what they did to prevent the merger from happening. ". A JetBlue executive cited a judge’s decision to block the merger in the Biden administration’s antitrust lawsuit against the deal as a reason for the termination, reports showed.
"With the ruling from the federal court and the Department of Justice’s continued opposition, the probability of getting the green light to move forward with the merger anytime soon is extremely low," JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty then said in an internal memo Here’s what we know about what transpired when Spirit recently ended operations and when the merger was called off in 2022. "With no additional funding available to the Company, Spirit had no choice but to begin this wind-down," the statement said.
In March, bondholders agreed to restructure the company, but the"sudden and sustained rise in fuel prices in recent weeks" led them to end operations instead.
"recent geopolitical events resulted in a massive and sustained increase in fuel prices. " Fuel prices began to spike after the U.S. and Israel started the war against Iran in late February. An electronic check-in kiosk announces Spirit Airlines’ shutdown on May 2, 2026 at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. We asked Warren's office about the Trump administration's comments about her role in Spirit’s shuttering.
As evidence that the failed merger did not cause the shutdown, a Warren spokesperson pointed PolitiFact to court documents and news articles showing that Spirit cited fuel costs for its shutdown and that Spirit did not show it needed the merger to remain operational. Spirit’s shutdown was the culmination of years of financial struggle that included other companies’ failed attempts to acquire the carrier.detailing how the combination of two companies would be carried out.
In April 2022, JetBlue made an unsolicited $3.6 billion bid. Spirit rejected that offer in May and maintained its merger agreement with Frontier. Spirit toldthat a merger likely wouldn’t clear antitrust hurdles because of JetBlue’s involvement in another antitrust lawsuit.
JetBlue updated its bid in June 2022, and the following month, SpiritThe proposed Spirit-JetBlue merger would have created the country’s fifth-largest airline, in an industry where the top four airlines — American, Delta, United and Southwest — already accounted for, Biden’s Justice Department and other parties filed a civil antitrust lawsuit seeking to block JetBlue from acquiring Spirit, arguing the move would lead to"higher fares and fewer options.
"What role did Warren and Buttigieg play in blocking the merger?the Transportation Department to assess whether the proposed JetBlue and Spirit merger would be inconsistent with public interest, and to block it if so. "We plan to deny the JetBlue-Spirit request for an exemption on their merger deal," Buttigieg wrote on X.that the Justice Antitrust Division and the Transportation Department"were right to stand up for consumers and fight against runaway airline consolidation.
""JetBlue merger failed because a judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan, said the deal was illegal," Warren said in an X post. "Republicans are desperate to shift blame from higher costs hitting families. "Image shows President Donald Trump asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Truth Social to pardon Tiger Woods following a DUI charge.
President Donald Trump’s tariff policies “have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs” since last year. Imagen muestra que “950 inmigrantes derrumbaron el muro fronterizo entre México y Estados Unidos intentando ingresar a Estados Unidos” en abril 2026.
“As a result of the 'Big Beautiful Bill' 15 million Americans have been thrown off the healthcare that they need. "“Tras el atentado a Trump”, en la cena de corresponsales de la Casa Blanca el 25 de abril, “Irán lanza un mensaje fuerte: ‘no le crean nada, miente’”.
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