The Trump administration on Wednesday neared a rescue deal for struggling Spirit Airlines, in a rare move to support a single air carrier.
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The deal, which has not yet been finalized, would offer $500 million to the discount airline, according to a person familiar with the matter. It would give the airline additional liquidity as it works toward emerging from bankruptcy and grapples with elevated fuel costs due to the war with Iran.
The deal would also aim to create a durable well-funded airline. After Spirit emerges from bankruptcy, the U.S. government could potentially own up to 90% of the airline, the source also said.
The U.S. government previously came to the aid of the airline industry overall during the 2020 pandemic and after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
But Spirit, which filed for bankruptcy in 2024 and 2025, specifically drew the attention of President Donald Trump in recent days. Spirit’s most recent bankruptcy filing occurred in August. The company said in March that it expected to emerge from bankruptcy this summer.
“I’d love somebody to buy Spirit,” Trump said on CNBC Tuesday. “It’s 14,000 jobs, and maybe the federal government should help that one out.”
After Trump spoke on the cable channel, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned that a bailout would possibly be using “good money after bad.”
“There’s been a lot of money thrown at Spirit, and they haven’t found their way into profitability,” Duffy said in an interview with Reuters. “And so would we just forestall the inevitable and then own that?”
Duffy added in the Reuters interview that it appeared no other firm wanted to buy Spirit. “If no one else wants to buy them, why would we buy them?”
Analysts at JPMorgan Chase recently noted that if jet fuel remains around $4.60 for the remainder of the year, the airline would face an additional $360 million in expenses, more than the $337 million in cash it had on its balance sheet at the end of 2025.
But they also warned that a bailout would be a precedent that could “prove difficult to contain.” They said that Spirit’s recent bankruptcies “were not driven by higher oil, nor has the company claimed as much,” but “should the administration afford any sort of cash infusion, we believe JetBlue and Frontier would be inclined to quickly follow Spirit’s lead.”