The Spirit Airlines Drama is Crazy

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Have you seen the attempt to nationalize Spirit Airlines? I could talk about Spirit Airlines, but Spirit Airlines discussion pisses me off cuz they're trying to Here Here's what I'll say about Spirit Airlines, okay? Hey, Spirit Airlines, low-cost airline provider here in the United States, just went out of business. Part of that is due to the rapid increase in price of jet fuel coming out of Straight Outta War Moves.

[00:00:18]A while back, let's say a year and a half, Spirit Airlines was in talks to be purchased by JetBlue, and Lina Khan blocked it on anti-monopoly grounds to prevent increased consolidation in the airline space. And so, now that Spirit has failed, a bunch of people are coming out of the woodwork to say, "Oh my god, Lina Khan killed Spirit Airlines. She ruined Spirit Airlines." But here's the deal, okay? The reason it is bad that Spirit Airlines is going out of business is because as a low-cost airline user, you want to have the ability to say, "Fuck you, I'm going to go with a different airline." If someone like JetBlue is treating you bad, you can go, "Fuck you, I'm going somewhere else." If Delta's treating you bad, you, I'm going somewhere else. Letting someone else buy it wholesale is the same problem. Right now, when Spirit Airlines fails, all of its airlines and staff and flights are going to get bought up by other airlines. The same thing is going to happen. It's no different. The only difference is that if there wasn't a massive spike in jet fuel prices, and if Spirit actually had a god's chance in hell of getting its together, then you would have had another a competition.

[00:01:26]And in a healthier airline economic situation, another provider could buy the discount airline the airplanes that are now up for sale from Spirit and open up a new competitor. The problem is there's just so much red tape to get in the business. So, I I just I'm frustrated with the idea that antitrust caused this and not Spirit's piss-poor management and the unexpected shock of Straight Outta War Moves. That's That's why I wanted to give a bit of context on this. And again, I want you to understand the counterfactual here is that all of Spirit is owned by a different one of the big four airlines, and they raise prices anyway. There was no good outcome. Are the margins that thin? At Spirit level, they are. So, Spirit is a pretty low-cost airline by American standards. It's not Ryanair cheap. By the way, we should have a Ryanair in America. Spirit isn't even close. The fact that we don't have a super actual true budget airline in America sucks. Anyway, the the second part of the story is that the government attempted to bail out Spirit and take a national stake in it, which again, I'm against, but that was actually blocked by, I believe, the debt holders of Spirit cuz the way it works is, let's say a company has a pile of money this tall. This is how much money they have, and this is how much money they owe.

[00:02:39]It's GG, end of the line. They can't borrow anymore, end of the line. It's time to declare bankruptcy. How do you split up this amount of money into all the money that's owed? How do you do that? It's a big question. Like this has to be distributed, but who gets it? So, there's different tranches of debt holder. You know, I don't know the names of all of them, but the more senior ones get paid first, okay? These people who own the most senior level of debt, they get paid first. So, all of this stuff makes them whole, and they pay these guys, and they pay these guys, and they pay and then it runs out, and then people at the end, usually like shareholders, honestly, common shareholders, they get nothing.

[00:03:15]There's nothing left. Workers, probably pension plans.

[00:03:17]>> [laughter] >> That's what I'm talking about getting paid out. So, the reason the bailout was not accepted by Spirit Airlines vote is that the senior debt holders, some part of the bailout was that they would not necessarily get all their money back.

[00:03:32]But under this current bankruptcy, they will. I I don't think there should be a bailout, but it's actually a reason to stop it.

[00:03:38]>> [laughter] >> But But also, it's worth saying that like they paid extra to have this level of debt protection, and now they're not going to get full You know what I'm saying? It's a little complicated, but at the end of the day, that's that is what it is, and I want you to understand it because [music] I think there's a lot of slander going out on Lina Khan's name over what was an attempt to prevent increased consolidation and monopoly in the airline industry. Which, uh, you know, people say it's low margin, and it is low margin, but airlines are notoriously poorly [music] run here in America. They just do quite a poor job, to be quite honest. And I really do think, you know, other airlines have found ways to, uh, have increased service, better quality, make profits, and not have to overcharge. So, I think we got problems in ours. I would love to see a Ryan If you guys know what Ryanair is, Ryanair is a European low-cost airline.

[00:04:28]It's like a bus with wings. I mean, they're super duper cheap. It kinda looks like this. It's like a Greyhound bus with wings. It's like it has these plastic seats, but you can get like anywhere in Europe for like 15 bucks. I mean, like it's cheap, bro. When Ari and I were first started dating, my family lived in Germany, we flew all over on this for no money. It was awesome. And so, it'd be really cool to have something more like this in America to get around. Or trains, but Is Ryanair like a super cruise thing? Yeah, it's it's like the Northern Lights super cruise, but it's going to be a flight.

[00:04:58]So, short Spirit. It is a bankrupt company.

[00:05:01]>> [laughter] >> It's too late, my friend. Hey Big A, question for your business-sided mind.

[00:05:06]With how many jobs now require [music] internet, do you think the government should be improving rural areas? And if so, a general idea of how much the existence might help our economy? Yeah, bro. I mean, uh, so, we have This is a perfect timing cuz I just got fiber internet for the first time after being under the Spectrum monopoly for years and years and years and hating it. Most of America's internet providers have stopped competing with each other.

[00:05:27]They've sectioned off the country into blocks where they don't [music] compete, and it's one provider, and they can charge whatever the they want and give you shitty service. Most people only have one choice, and that choice can them over. So, you want multiple choices. In areas where there's multiple choices, people get [music] faster internet, lower prices. It's incredible. In the absence of that, because internet has become like infrastructure. It's become like, you know, water or sewage or, you know, it it's just it's a basic good for people's lives. Places like Chattanooga did a city-wide fiber internet for the city.

[00:05:58]They used tax dollars to build fiber internet for the city. Everyone gets it low cost. That worked out super well. Gig City. Yeah, everyone has gig internet in Chattanooga. When they did that, not only did Chattanooga see an increase [music] in like business startups, tech startups, people satisfaction, moving to that city from outside, like it literally worked incredibly well economically, had had knock-on benefits, but people really enjoyed it. And so, the provider companies like Spectrum and, uh, Cox Cable Cox Spectrum What are the other ones? Who are the Who are the Who are the ones you hate that you all have?

[00:06:30]Spectrum's the one on my mind and I'm I'm blanking. Comcast, Verizon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Xfinity. Xfinity. Xfinity.

[00:06:34][music] So, they, when they saw that happen in Chattanooga, freaked out and went around lobbying like city by city, county by county, state by state across the country and banning cities from doing that. Like getting politicians to write laws that prevent them from ever doing that, which is crazy. Which is crazy because they are so afraid of of what happened in Chattanooga spreading.

[00:06:58]So, to answer your long-term question, I think with the internet, uh, being as important as I mean, there will be some negative effects, don't get me wrong. I do think everyone in the country having access to gig speed internet is only going to accelerate us holding up in our homes and watching nine screens until we bleed out of our ears, but whatever, it's a resource. I do think it would be a smart idea to have, you know, I think we had a nationwide Which president was it? I guess it was FDR?

[00:07:27]Yeah, wow. Good FDR. I thought That was I I thought, but I was like, "That didn't sound right to me then."

[00:07:32]So, in 1935, nine out of 10 rural homes didn't have electricity, and FDR did a nationwide campaign to electrify the country. He's like, "It doesn't matter the cost, it'll be worth it to have everybody on the same grid." And so, they built out an electrical grid across the country that went all rural areas.

[00:07:48]And so, you know, it was more expen- Like not every route or branch was profitable, but it made a nationwide [music] standard of electrification that allowed a lot of prosperity. And I think a similar thing would be good. It would be a good project to have that you have You have You feel the immediate impact.

[00:08:02]I think it'd be a good political win, to be honest. I think if a president came in and said, "We're going to do a We are going to do a national fiberfication.

[00:08:11]We're going to make everyone in America have access to gig speed internet at a low cost. That's our program. That's the plan." And it's not it's not a major thing. I don't even know if it'd be like an incredibly good outcome. I just think it'd be like it's something that Americans could easily see as an instant win. And you just roll it out, you build it out. Uh, I think it'd be really good.

[00:08:29]I think it'd be awesome. There'd be some jobs involved in setting it up, and I think it's a good like baseline level of infrastructure that allows private businesses to thrive on top of it, you know? There's a lot of internet-based businesses that would benefit from this.

[00:08:43]Yeah, it would just be good. I think it'd be good. People would have more money in their pocket at the end of the month to spend on other things. Didn't they try this on already and companies stole the money? They tried not exactly what I'm talking about, but yes, certain plans like this have been [music] diluted, but it's the same problem. It's where It's It's really a effectiveness crisis, bro. It's an effectiveness crisis. It's It's the leaky pipe syndrome. It's It's The problem is like we spend the money, and then the middlemen You know, no one follows through, no one checks. No one No one is on task. The incentives are not there. You get You get the credit for announcing it, and then someone gets rich not doing it.

[00:09:20]>> [laughter] >> But the problem is not only did the the politician not follow up, but the public doesn't follow up. It's like we're so used to being grifted, we don't go like, "Hey, where's that thing you promised?

[00:09:29]I'm mad at you." So, you really want like You got to build the culture from the ground up of like transparent check-ins that the public grows to ex- like expect and watch for. But, you know, everyone's everyone's brain's pulled in nine different directions, so it's tough. What's your opinion on Starlink giving rural people options?

[00:09:45]Yeah, it's great.

[00:09:46]Listen, uh, I am I am I don't know how many times I'm going to say it, but I want to say it over and over again cuz I want you to repeat it to other people.

[00:09:53]The only economic freedom comes from options. Nothing else. You must have options. That's the only economic freedom. Not one person doing it, not even just the government doing it. You need to have options. Options. The ability to say you, I'll go elsewhere. If you don't have that, that is a problem. You eventually will get abused or get worse service or be degraded. Not zero DT options.

[00:10:17]>> [laughter] >> You need to be able to say you, I'm going somewhere else. And when you have that, if you could think about in your life areas where you have that, it's rare now in this economy. But if you have it, you notice that's where people are most happy. That's where they like the the quality of what they're getting.

[00:10:32]Where everyone has to compete for their dollar. This basically what I'm saying is zero DTE options on Spirit Airlines.

[00:10:38]Yeah, you you got the you got the crux of it.

[00:10:40]>> [laughter] >> You got the crux of it.

[00:10:43]>> [music] [music] [music]