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One man wants Spirit Airlines to be owned by the people.
Over the weekend, Spirit Airlines abruptly closed operations after failing to secure government funding.
“It is with great disappointment that Spirit Airlines has started winding down its global operations, effective immediately. All flights have been canceled, and customer service is no longer available. While we are not able to help rebook your flight on another airline, we will automatically process refunds for any flights purchased through Spirit with a credit or debit card to the original form of payment. We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry for the last 33 years and had hoped to serve our Guests for many years to come.”
With Spirit Airlines going under, one man is trying to start a crowdfunding campaign to buy the airline.
“Ok I had a genius idea, Spirit Airlines just went bankrupt…there;s over 250 million individuals over the age of 18 in the United States, and if we took the average fare of a Spirit Airlines flight, which is somewhere around $30-$40, we could buy Spirit Airlines.”
The man ended up raising almost $23 million in a day and had to stop accepting pledges because the website was overloaded with traffic.
“Okay, websites, very broken. built that in like an hour and like, it’s terrible It’s like, not good. So if you’re a developer, please reach out. Oh my God, I don’t have any money right now. Again, trying to figure this out. Two, as soon as that’s fixed, we’re gonna turn on the pledges again.”
The man is going to need to raise a lot more than $23 million onsidering Spirit Airlines was trying to get a $500 million bailout from the government just to remain operational and pay their employees.