Sometimes a policy failure is so obvious that everyone can see who is responsible. But does that mean they’ll own the mess? Heck no. Instead, they double down, point fingers, and pat themselves on the back for a job well done. That is exactly what happened with Spirit Airlines.
On Saturday, Spirit Airlines announced it was ceasing operations, with all flights canceled and customer service shut down immediately. The airline said it was beginning an orderly wind-down after years of financial strain and failed rescue efforts. This meant that passengers got stranded, employees were let go en masse, and another low-cost option disappeared from the market overnight.
You might not have gotten stranded, but if you plan to travel in the future, this will affect you.
And it can be directly traced to the Biden era.
In 2022, JetBlue offered $3.8 billion in cash to buy Spirit, a deal Spirit and JetBlue said would create a stronger low-fare challenger with about 9% of the U.S. market against the Big Four airlines’ roughly 80% share. Spirit shareholders approved it, and even the flight attendants’ union backed it. It was a good deal for everyone, including consumers.
But Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led the charge against the merger, arguing it would hurt consumers and cost about $1 billion a year.
I've warned for months that a @JetBlue-@SpiritAirlines merger would have led to fewer flights and higher fares.@JusticeATR and @USDOT were right to stand up for consumers and fight against runaway airline consolidation.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 6, 2024
This is a Biden win for flyers! https://t.co/lJFGS3ucv3
Pete Buttigieg’s Transportation Department then lined up with the Justice Department, publicly supporting the lawsuit and promising to deny the exemptions needed to make the deal happen. Buttigieg even boasted that “Americans deserve robust competition & affordable airfares,” while his department backed the fight to kill the merger.
Americans deserve robust competition & affordable airfares. USDOT supports DOJ's antitrust lawsuit, & we plan to deny the JetBlue-Spirit request for an exemption on their merger deal. We will continue with our own investigation while supporting DOJ's work. https://t.co/vs4Aqgdiru
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) March 7, 2023
Other Democrats also boasted about the blocked merger. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) hailed the federal block of the merger as a consumer victory, arguing the Biden administration stepped in to stop consolidation and preserve competition. He warned that losing Spirit as a low-cost carrier would remove the “pressure for prices to stay low,” and backed regulators who insisted “this merger is bad for consumers, and it needs to be blocked.”
So a federal count just blocked a merger between JetBlue and Spirit Air, at the request of the Biden Administration.
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 17, 2024
Give me 3 minutes to explain why this is such a big deal, and why it's part of a bigger strategy to finally return power to regular people. pic.twitter.com/P6XQhOEQhg
Oops.
And now here we are. Spirit is gone. Thousands of jobs are gone with it, and the fallout likely reaches far beyond Spirit’s own payroll to suppliers, contractors, airport workers, and service businesses in dozens of cities.
Spirit was already under pressure, but blocking the merger pushed it from bankruptcy into a dead end, with equity largely wiped out and no real path to recovery.
Naturally, Warren is now blaming gasoline prices rather than her own party’s role. That’s the favorite move in modern Democratic politics: break something, declare victory, then act shocked when the parts hit the floor. The people who made this mess will face no consequences, and they know it. The workers, passengers, and smaller airports will live with the damage instead.
Democrats own this. The Biden administration owns this. And no amount of spin can change the basic fact that they spent years celebrating the killing blow, and are now pretending they had nothing to do with the corpse.
