Saturday, Spirit Airlines told 17,000 employees their jobs were gone. An email. Between 6 and 7 p.m. on a Friday night. One hour before the public found out.
No town hall. No transition plan. No dignity.
And this morning, thousands of travelers are waking up in airport terminals, rental car lines, and hotel lobbies they did not plan to be in, trying to piece together trips that were promised to them by a company that knew, for months, that it might not survive the week.
Let me be clear about something: Spirit Airlines did not fail overnight. This company has been unprofitable since the pandemic. It filed for bankruptcy twice. It warned its own investors repeatedly that there was “substantial doubt” about its ability to keep flying. The signs were everywhere. The communication to customers and employees was nowhere.
That gap between what leadership knows and what leadership says is what I call the Courage Gap. And Spirit just gave us a master class in how wide it can get.
What This Is Really About
This is not just an aviation story. This is a trust story. And if you lead anything, whether it is a company, a team, or a household, you need to pay attention.
Here is what Spirit Airlines did that every organization should study as a cautionary tale:
They let people keep buying tickets they knew might never be honored. Customers booked flights using vouchers, credits, and loyalty points right up until the moment the airline shut down. Those customers may never see that money again. The company told them to wait for the bankruptcy court to sort it out. Translation: you are on your own.
They told employees last. The flight attendants’ union said it best: “We are delivering the hardest news of our lives.” But that news should not have come from a union. It should have come from leadership, with time, with a plan, and with the respect that 34 years of service earns.
They performed hope while planning for collapse. Just last week, an attorney for Spirit told a bankruptcy court the company was in “very advanced discussions” with the government on a rescue package. Meanwhile, the company was already preparing for wind-down. When you perform optimism while preparing for the worst and never close the gap between those two realities for the people who depend on you, you are not leading. You are managing optics.
I spent over 20 years in federal emergency management. I have coordinated crisis response for more than 50 million people across hurricanes, wildfires, civil unrest, and public health emergencies. And one thing I can tell you from every disaster I have ever worked: the organizations that survive crisis with their reputation intact are the ones that told the truth early, even when it was hard.
Spirit did the opposite. And now the trust is gone.
What Corporations Need to Do Right Now
If you are a CEO reading this newsletter, here is what Spirit Airlines should teach you:
Stop treating bad news as a communications problem. It is a leadership problem. The instinct to suppress, delay, or soften bad news until you have a “better story” to tell is the instinct that destroys trust. Your employees and your customers are not audience members. They are stakeholders. They deserve information while it can still help them make decisions, not after it is too late.
Build an internal communication protocol that does not rely on hope. Spirit was banking on a government bailout. When it fell through, there was no Plan B communication strategy. If the best case is the only case you plan messaging around, you have already failed.
Honor the people who built your company before you honor the creditors who are dismantling it. The fact that 17,000 workers got an email while bankruptcy attorneys were in court negotiating asset sales tells you everything you need to know about whose interests were centered in this wind-down.
If your loyalty program cannot survive your company, say so. Customers who paid with vouchers and Free Spirit points are now being told their refunds will be “determined at a later date through the bankruptcy process.” This is the corporate equivalent of “we will get back to you.” Those customers earned those points. They trusted the system. And the system evaporated without warning.
What Consumers Should Know
This is the harder conversation, but it matters.
Corporate loyalty is a one-way street. Your loyalty points, your vouchers, your credits are not currency. They are promises. And promises from a company in financial distress are worth exactly what Spirit’s are worth today: nothing, until a bankruptcy court says otherwise.
Always book travel on a credit card. Not a debit card. Not a voucher. A credit card gives you chargeback rights that no other payment method provides. The Department of Transportation itself told Spirit customers to consider credit card chargebacks as a refund pathway. That is not a bonus feature. It is your safety net.
Read the financial disclosures. I know that sounds tedious. But Spirit literally told the public, in SEC filings, that it might not survive. That language, “substantial doubt about the entity’s ability to continue as a going concern,” is not boilerplate. It is a warning. If you see it, do not pre-pay for services months in advance.
Buy travel insurance for anything non-refundable. Spirit said it would not reimburse customers for incidental travel costs from canceled trips, but insurers might. That $30 insurance premium that felt unnecessary when you booked is the only thing standing between some families and thousands of dollars in unexpected expenses this weekend.
The Bigger Picture
Spirit Airlines was not just a budget carrier. For millions of families, particularly Black and brown families, working-class families, first-generation travelers, Spirit was the airline that made flying possible. It was the carrier that got the college student home for Thanksgiving. The one that let the single mom take her kids to see their grandparents. The one that said: flying is not just for people who can afford first class.
The loss of Spirit is not just a market correction. It is a reduction in access. And the people who will feel it most are the people who always feel it most.
Georgetown professor Shye Gilad said it plainly: in the markets where Spirit competed fiercely, fares will rise because that competition is gone. Less competition means higher prices. Higher prices mean fewer choices. And fewer choices always fall heaviest on the people with the least margin for error.
That is the trust crisis underneath the trust crisis. It is not just that Spirit broke its promises. It is that the system allows companies to collect billions in consumer revenue, deplete loyalty accounts, defer transparency, and then walk away, leaving the most vulnerable customers holding the bag while bankruptcy attorneys sort out who gets what.
What Real Leadership Looks Like
The other airlines stepped in. Southwest flew more than 20,000 stranded Spirit passengers in a single day. American, United, JetBlue, and Frontier offered capped rescue fares. Multiple carriers extended travel privileges and job portals to Spirit’s suddenly unemployed workforce.
That is what real leadership looks like: not waiting to be asked, not calculating the brand upside, but seeing people in need and moving. The contrast between Spirit’s silent exit and the industry’s rapid response tells you everything about the difference between organizations that protect people and organizations that protect positions.
Leadership is not about what you do when things are going well. It is about what you do when the lights go out and 17,000 people are looking for an email that tells them what happens next.
Courage over comfort. Every time.
Brandi Richard Thompson is a crisis communications executive and leadership coach with 20+ years at FEMA and DHS. Founder of Operation Growth Institute. Author of Operation Growth. Teaching leaders what courage looks like when it costs something.
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