Emma Peasley

Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

This is NPR.

Thanks for listening.

About a month ago, Aron Darling booked a ticket with Spirit Airlines for a work event in New York City.

And if you've been following the news about Spirit, you know that Aron was not feeling great about that decision.

Because after filing for bankruptcy for a second time, Spirit is having even more financial issues.

Now it looked like it was about to go into liquidation and could maybe disappear forever.

When the day of his flight finally came, his departure was sort of a running joke with the staff at the airport.

Oren did make it to his destination, but Spirit's fate is a little more up in the air.

Hello and welcome to Planet Money.

I'm Emma Peasley.

Spirit used to be the king of ultra low cost carriers.

They're notorious for low fares and charging for basically everything else.

And while maybe they weren't the most beloved airline, for a time they were the fastest growing.

Now the question is, can Spirit make it through a week?

Today on the show, what happened to Spirit?

First, the rise.

We'll go back to 2014 when the budget airline was flying high.

We'll talk with then-CEO Ben Baldanza about his radical vision for cheap air travel.

And we'll take an uncomfortable trip of our own.