Spirit Airlines Abruptly Halts All Flights, Raising Fears of Higher Airfares

Spirit Airlines abruptly halted all flights Saturday morning, canceling more than 4,000 domestic flights scheduled through May 15 and fueling concerns over higher fares ahead of the summer travel season.

"This is tremendously disappointing and not the outcome any of us wanted," CEO Dave Davis said in a company statement.

The airline is automatically refunding flights booked with credit and debit cards. "The majority of guests who booked travel on a credit or debit card were refunded as of Saturday evening, with a small percentage continuing to process. Refunds may take time to appear in a guest’s account," a spokesperson told FOX Business.

Travelers who bought tickets through third-party vendors must contact those providers for refunds. Passengers using vouchers, travel credits or loyalty points face uncertainty about their options.

New York travel expert Lee Abbamonte called the shutdown "a blow to air travelers across the United States." He told Fox News Digital that Spirit "almost singlehandedly kept pricing competitive in many markets in the country."

"With Spirit being no longer viable, there is no pressure on legacy carriers to keep prices lower, especially with skyrocketing fuel costs," Abbamonte said, linking higher fuel prices to the war with Iran. "This is going to have a ripple effect across airfare pricing all over the country. You may not like Spirit … but you cannot argue with their pricing model. Without Spirit, there's no reason for airfare to ever come down, especially with fuel costs skyrocketing."

New York attorney and aviation expert Hunter Shkolnik expects fares to rise "across the board." "Legacy airlines win here, budget travelers lose," he said. "Spirit kept prices honest, and without it, fewer choices and higher baseline fares are almost inevitable."

Colorado-based aviation consultant Michael Boyd, CEO of Boyd Group International, dismissed fare hike fears as "absolute nonsense." "By this point, Spirit is not really a factor," he told Fox News Digital. "They’re not in a lot of major markets and the ones they are in are mostly focused in Florida."

Major U.S. airlines including United, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest are capping rebooking fares. Affected Spirit customers may get one-way tickets for around $200 if they verify their original booking, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a Saturday morning press conference.

"I would recommend that if you have a ticket with Spirit that you actually try to book with these airlines as soon as possible," Duffy said.

American and Delta are offering reduced fares on key Spirit routes. Allegiant has frozen prices on overlapping routes, and Frontier is discounting base fares up to 50 percent through May 10.

Spirit passengers expressed mixed views. "My thing with Spirit was your ticket could be $75, but by the time you [added] your bag, seat and gas for the plane, you [were] paying $300 like any other airline," one said.

"The only thing Spirit was good for is if you were flying with the clothes on your back and nothing else," another added.

"The way airline prices have doubled overnight because of Spirit shutting down," a third person wrote on X. "Legit it's too expensive to literally exist nowadays."