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Programming note: I will be going live with JVL tomorrow for Receipts Live Friday. Look for us at 12:30 p.m. in the East on Substack and YouTube. See you then!
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest issue of Receipts. Donald Trump wants to use taxpayer money to buy Spirit Airlines, and honestly they deserve each other.
Spirit has been struggling for a while, but Trump finally did them in when he started bombing Iran and drove up jet-fuel prices. He is now weighing whether to fix the damage he created by dumping $500 million in taxpayer dollars into Spirit in exchange for the ability to take an enormous stake in the company. It’s hard to imagine any universe in which any of this is popular, let alone smart. But then look who we’re dealing with.
What’s your best Spirit Airlines story? And would your experience have been improved by gold-colored fixtures in the lavatories? Drop me a note in the comments.
And if you’re not already a member of Bulwark+, I hope you’ll consider joining. You can do that right here at a discounted price—20 percent off the normal annual cost:
–Catherine
A Flailing President Seeks a Hellhole Airline
Donald Trump wants to buy Spirit Airlines. Honestly, they deserve each other.
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IF DONALD TRUMP HAS HIS WAY, America’s Worst Airline™ might soon become our national flagship carrier.
Yes, I’m talking about Spirit Airlines.
The ultra-low-cost carrier is going bust. It’s been in trouble for a while: It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last summer, for the second time in less than a year, and is now facing the prospect of liquidation. That’s largely because it cannot survive the sky-high¹ jet-fuel prices caused by Trump’s Iran war, which is expected to raise Spirit’s costs by an estimated $360 million this year. You can’t sell enough $40 fares to fill that hole in the balance sheet.
One solution Trump is considering? A bailout, on the taxpayer’s dime.
The Trump administration is considering dumping $500 million in taxpayer money into the struggling airline. In exchange, the government would receive warrants allowing it to take up to a 90 percent stake in the company.
“We’re thinking about doing it. Helping them out, meaning bailing them out. Or buying it. I think we just buy it,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Thursday evening. “We’d be getting it virtually debt-free. They have some good aircraft, some good assets, and when the price of oil goes down, we’d sell it for a profit. I’d love to be able to save those jobs. I’d love to be able to save an airline. I like having a lot of airlines so it’s competitive. . . . If we could get it for the right price, I’d do it.”
It’s not clear what value the government would be purchasing; when JetBlue unsuccessfully² attempted to buy Spirit a few years ago, it said it wanted Spirit’s pilots and jets, not its business model.
Does Trump know he wouldn’t be able to keep the jets—with their non-reclinable seats with minimal legroom? Maybe?
His motivation, instead, appears ...
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