Alison Sider

And, you know, the president's view was like, oil prices will go down and then Spirit will be successful again and we'll be able to sell it at a big profit.

A lot of people in the industry were pretty skeptical of that idea, you know, for all the reasons that we've talked about that, like, well, what really is the plan for Spirit after this?

Like, you know, it hasn't been able to make money over the last six years.

So, like, OK, it gets another $500 million.

What's going to be different this time?

Like, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had spent the last couple weeks, like, feeling out the rest of the industry, trying to see if any other airlines would buy Spirit.

And, like, even going back to JetBlue again, multiple times.

And, like, nobody wanted to.

So...

You know, I think there was a view, especially in the industry, that like, why?

And for the bondholders, they hated this idea.

By all accounts, they sort of really feel like they're going to be left a lot worse off, like that they might be better off just letting Spirit liquidate and they'll be able to recover some of their money by selling Spirit's assets.

So the jet fuel costs, that was the final straw.

Yes, that was the final straw.

But Spirit, when I've talked to Spirit's CEO, Dave Davis, he said he was really confident in the airline's plan.

He really believed that they had done real significant restructuring work.

They'd gotten concessions from their labor unions.

They'd cut a lot of costs out of the business, gotten rid of a lot of debt, that they were going to be able to come out and survive.

And maybe then they would be in a good position to be acquired, maybe next year.

And, you know, his view is that ultimately at the end of the day, it was the jet fuel cost that did them in.