After Spirit Airlines announced it was shutting down the company over the weekend, over 4,000 employees in Florida were laid off, records showed.
According to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act records posted on Monday, 4,853 employees across three South Florida airports and two support centers were laid off.
The layoffs started on Saturday when Spirit announced the shutdown, and will continue until May 13.
Kudos to the Biden administration.
Saturday’s Spirit Airlines shutdown is entirely on the Biden administration — and more specifically, on the faux populism of its Federal Trade Commission chief, Lina Khan.
On top of all the travelers left scrambling, 17,000 Americans just lost their jobs, while future travelers will have one less choice and the rest of the industry faces reduced competition.
No, Spirit’s bare-bones approach wasn’t for everybody (paying for every checked bag rubs many the wrong way), and perhaps the business was always doomed — but there was no need for its end to be this cruel.
Khan and then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg cheered as the Biden Justice Department blocked JetBlue’s bid to buy Spirit in 2024, arguing that the “industry consolidation” would be bad for consumers.
Democrats eager to shift the blame point to how the Iran war sent fuel prices surging, but that at most explains the timing of Spirit’s death: It had been struggling for years, including two bankruptcies.
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