OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
12:23 PM – Saturday, May 2, 2026
United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the Trump administration’s relief plans for Spirit Airlines customers and employees after it ceased operations overnight.
Duffy reported at a Saturday morning press conference that Spirit did not have planes in the air, and warned customers against coming to the airport. Over the next several days, the company will “go through an orderly liquidation process.”
In an X post on Saturday, Duffy said that four major U.S. airlines, “United, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest, are all capping ticket prices specifically for Spirit customers who now need to rebook cancelled flights.” Consumers will need to provide a Spirit flight confirmation number and proof of payment to access these lowered prices.
Other airlines are also stepping up. Frontier is offering up to 50% off fares until May 10th. American Airlines is also “freezing fare prices across routes that overlap with Spirit.”
Spirit pilots, flight attendants and other employees who need to return home are offered travel pass benefits and spare jump seats from most major U.S. carriers, as well as preferential employment opportunities from Spirit’s competitors. American and United Airlines have both created “microsites” for Spirit employees to more easily find career opportunities in aviation, according to the secretary, who noted that “there’s a demand for aviation workers.”
Spirit ticket holders will be granted refunds for any canceled flights purchased through credit or debit cards.
“Yet another mess the traveling public has to inherit thanks to the radical policies of [former President] Joe Biden and [former Transportation Secretary] Pete Buttigieg. In blocking the Jetblue/Spirit merger in 2024, they turned their backs on the American consumer and our great aviation workforce,” Duffy stated in a Department of Transportation (DOT) news release.
“Regardless of how we got here, the Trump Administration is committed to taking care of you and your family when you fly. In a matter of hours, we’ve activated our airline partners to ensure passengers are not stranded, communities maintain route access, fares do not skyrocket, and Spirit’s workforce is connected to new job opportunities,” he added.
“And at the time, the Biden and Buttigieg DOJ bragged and said, as they canceled the option for this merger, that this was a victory for U.S. travelers who deserve lower prices and better choices,” Duffy remarked during his press conference. “This merger should have been allowed. And this, today would indicate this is not better for travelers. This is not better for pricing. This is not better for competition. Actually, it’s worse.”
The transportation secretary also mentioned Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) hand in the company’s liquidation after she championed the merger’s prevention alongside other Democrats in Congress.
“Elizabeth Warren at the time chaired the blocking of the merger, saying… this was a Biden win for flyers,” he said. “So again, I think it’s important that we always look with a keen eye when airlines want to merge. We care about pricing for consumers.”
Duffy’s comment most likely referenced a 2024 X post from Warren.
“I’ve warned for months that a @JetBlue-@SpiritAirlines merger would have led to fewer flights and higher fares,” Warren wrote at the time. She added that the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division and the DOT at the time “were right to stand up for consumers and fight against runaway airline consolidation. This is a Biden win for flyers!
The congresswoman changed her tune two years later, however. Instead of celebrating the developments of the “Biden win,” she blamed Republican Presidents Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan and pointed to the United States’ conflict with Iran.
“Spiking fuel prices from Trump’s war was the nail in the coffin for twice-bankrupted Spirit airline, “FWIW [for what it’s worth], JetBlue merger failed because a judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan, said the deal was illegal. Republicans are desperate to shift blame from higher costs hitting families.”
While it’s true that U.S. District Judge William G. Young, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, blocked the $3.8 billion JetBlue-Spirit merger in January 2024, Buttigieg could have granted an exemption for the deal, but chose not to.
Nearly a year before the judge’s decision in March 2023, the former transportation secretary wrote on X, “USDOT supports DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit, & we plan to deny the JetBlue-Spirit request for an exemption on their merger deal.”
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