Spirit Airlines’ Rivals Are Circling Like Sharks

Spirit Airlines’ prospects are so dire that a rival carrier explicitly talked about its potential demise when announcing targeted new routes.

United Airlines (UAL) on Thursday put out a press release touting its expanded winter schedule, including new routes between its hub in Newark, N.J., and Columbia, S.C., and Chattanooga, Tenn., beginning in early January.

What’s noteworthy isn’t just that Columbia and Chattanooga are cities Spirit flies to, but that United explicitly addressed the elephant in the room: Spirit might not be operating much longer. Last Friday, just a couple weeks after Spirit warned that it could run out of money within the next 12 months, the carrier filed for bankruptcy for the second time in less than a year.

“If Spirit suddenly goes out of business it will be incredibly disruptive, so we’re adding these flights to give their customers other options if they want or need them,” said Patrick Quayle, United senior vice president of global network planning and alliances.

Frontier Airlines Also Is Going After Spirit’s Customers

United wasn’t the first rival to go after Spirit’s customers in recent weeks. Frontier Airlines, a unit of Frontier Group Holdings (ULCC), last week called itself “America’s Low Fare Airline” and announced 20 new routes, including 16 serving Spirit focus cities Baltimore, Detroit, and Houston.

Frontier has been needling rival airlines for some time now. Back in March, it issued a press release headlined “Frontier Airlines Is Ready to Be Your New Love”—nodding at the ticker symbol of Southwest Airlines (LUV), which was getting rid of its decades-long “bags fly free” policy, and offering a free checked bag with a promo code.

On Wednesday, Spirit’s parent, Spirit Aviation Holdings, said it had received bankruptcy court approval to enable it “to continue operating as usual, including honoring tickets, reservations, credits and loyalty points; paying wages and honoring benefits; and paying certain critical vendors and partners for goods and services delivered prior to the filing date.”