A once-bustling Terminal 4 is now a ghost town, with Spirit Airlines going out of business.
In today’s bankruptcy hearing, Spirit explained that it had received numerous inquiries to buy the airline, but none were viable. The airline said the final blow was high jet fuel prices.
Now, the race is on to fill the void left by Spirit.
“We have been contacted by JetBlue, Allegiant, Frontier, and Breeze—at a minimum, those airlines want to expand service at Fort Lauderdale Airport,” said Mark Bogen, Broward’s Mayor. He’s encouraged that airlines are lining up to take on new routes.
“It’s not like Spirit is gone and there’s nobody to fill that void. We have four carriers that will fill it,” he said.
So far, JetBlue is adding 11 new destinations from FLL, newcomer Breeze Airways is adding eight new routes, and Frontier is adding nine. With all the planned expansion, Mayor Bogen said that’s good news for the roughly 3,000 local employees who lost their jobs.
“While JetBlue is stepping up, and Allegiant, Frontier, and Breeze all want to add more flights, they’re going to need more employees. Hopefully, we’ll be able to place many employees from Spirit into those jobs at the other four airlines,” he said.
Some employees were concerned, wondering if they would receive a final paycheck. According to Spirit’s employee website, they will be paid through May 2—but their insurance is gone.
Now, the concern is that with Spirit gone, fares will go up. That’s happened in markets where Spirit has pulled out before.
“Hopefully that doesn’t happen, because prices are already pretty high,” said passenger Sue Zachary.
