How Spirit Airlines’ Low-Cost Branding Contributed to Its Crash

In 2011, visitors to Las Vegas were treated to a colorful bit of marketing: a panel truck converted into a plexiglass fishbowl with female pole dancers gyrating inside. Lettered across the flank appeared the promise: “For $9, I’ll let you see my Vegas.” This roving cab of concupiscence wasn’t an ad for a strip club or an escort service. It was a promotion for Spirit Airlines, which was charging just $9 for the hop from Los Angeles. That same airline shut the jetways for good on May 2, ending 34 years of service. It takes more than one force to permanently ground a carrier that operated over 5,000 flights to 88 destinations in 2025, and Spirit had its share. Budget carriers have been slower to recover from the pandemic because consumer spending has come disproportionately from wealthy households that don’t need discount fares. Spirit had also struggled with increased maintenance costs for its A320-neo fleet. Then came the war with Iran and the resulting spike in fuel prices. But Spirit’s marketing strategy can also be added to the pile of reasons for its demise. Simply put, the airline’s sole point of differentiation was rock-bottom fares that were all too easy to imitate. Once other carriers did the same, Spirit had little left to distinguish itself other than its canary-yellow planes. Home of the Bare Fare Spirit’s selling point was its “Bare Fare.” On some aircrafts, “Home of the Bare Fare” appeared right on the engine nacelle. The ticket got you a small seat and a carry-on (provided it wasn’t bigger than 16 inches). For Americans on a budget who just needed to get from point A to B, it was a good deal—if sometimes déclassé, given the Vegas stripper van thing. Trouble was, mainline carriers could offer good deals, too. A decade ago, a study on the travel site Hopper found that when low-cost carriers enter a market, the legacy airlines in that same market will drop their own fares to compete. The name for this phenomenon? The Spirit Effect. If two brands offer the same price on a product, the business will usually go to the one that can offer other enticements. But as a shoestring operation, Spirit couldn’t match major airlines. To make its margins, Spirit didn't just not offer basic perks that flyers now expect; it charged passengers for them—$10 to print a boarding pass, as much as $26 to choose a seat, and close to $5 for a bottle of water, to cite a few examples. Bad hospitality Nickel and diming like that tends not to endear customers to a brand. In the flying public’s mind, the experience also equated to lousy customer service. In 2014, Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza went on the defensive in USA Today: “Offering our low fares requires doing some things that some people complain about—more seats on our planes with a little less legroom, no Wi-Fi or video screens, and no refunds without insurance; however, these reduce costs which gives our customers the lowest fares in the industry,” he wrote. Cogent an argument as that may have been, it didn’t help. In 2020, Airline Quality Rating ranked Spirit 10th for customer satisfaction. In J.D. Power’s North America Airline Satisfaction Study in 2024, Spirit came in 10th place again. Along the way, Spirit acquired the toxic sobriquet of America’s most hated airline. Toward the end, Spirit awakened to the consequences of selling itself exclusively as a budget carrier and did something of a marketing 180. Last year, its “More Fly” campaign began touting new premium offerings like free snacks and wider seats. “We listened to our guests and are excited to deliver what they want,” CEO Ted Christie said in a statement at the time, “choices for an elevated experience that are affordable.” Unfortunately, it seems that too many flyers had already made the choice not to book with Spirit.

Brands

How Spirit Airlines’ Low-Cost Branding Contributed to Its Crash

The budget airline's brazen embrace of base-fare pricing turned consumers off and made way for competitors to ride its tailwinds

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Robert Klara

Brand Marketing

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