It’s long been my humble opinion that whoever first said “Life is about the journey, not the destination” never flew Spirit. The budget airline, which is reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy after its merger talks with Frontier collapsed, is known for being…well, not necessarily the gold standard of air travel. But if you’re traveling light (a checked bag will cost you) and willing to contort your body into a vanishingly small amount of cabin space, Spirit can actually be…kind of magical?
Maybe it’s bizarre to get sentimental about the potential closure of what has been called “the worst airline in America,” but after more than a year of dating my partner long-distance at the start of our relationship (he was in Los Angeles, I was in Austin, could I make it any more obvious?), I hold a special place in my heart for Spirit. Our earliest days were a glorious wash of long weekends, elaborate floral bouquets, dirty martinis at dimly lit Hollywood steakhouses, and borderline-ridiculous spending as we blithely racked up credit card debt, drunk on each other and the possibility of living out an ephemeral, Before Sunset-style fantasy. Eventually and inevitably, though, the sun did set on our ability to spend $100 a head on a fancy dinner out just because, and when we got serious about each other and our future together, it became important that we determine how to make our visits cost as little as possible.
That was where Spirit Airlines came in. I spent most of 2023 either flying to LA to visit my partner or to a mutually agreed-upon second meetup location, like New York or Phoenix; and while the shockingly expensive hellscape that is modern air travel does not feel designed to encourage romantic whims (really, JFK? $25 for a sandwich and a bottle of water?), Spirit made it possible for me to travel near-constantly. As long as I was willing to pack basically nothing and painfully cram my fat body into airline seats apparently built for lithe toddlers, the world was my oyster.
When the reign of Spirit finally ends (as seems increasingly imminent), what will my ultimate Spirit memory be? Writing and rewriting drafts of articles and chapters of my book on jam-packed flights? Trying as hard as I could to make friendly eye contact with the parents of screaming children so they’d know I was with them, not against them? Demurely puking in the cabin bathroom on a 6 a.m. flight back to Austin after staying out too late celebrating a friend’s completion of the New York Marathon? Being dropped off at LAX by my partner after one of our early weekends together and sobbing to the plaintive strains of Phoebe Bridgers in my AirPods, even before a surly Spirit employee tried to charge me $60 for my carry-on? (It was, as I recall, all of half a pound overweight.) Or was it the interaction that truly exemplified the milk of human kindness: when I mistakenly brought a second carry-on with me in my fog of new-love delusion, and a spectacularly generous fellow passenger instructed me to pretend that it actually belonged to her small son?
I’m pleased to report that three years into the relationship that once had me criss-crossing the country on the regular, both my credit card balance and my tolerance for traveling horse-trailer-style have gone down. Indeed, I’m bordering on becoming a Delta girlie, now that my partner and I are the proud owners of a small puppy who needs to be transported across state lines with minimal in-flight drama, but I’ll always remember the airline that picked me up and got me where I needed to be at a crucial, vulnerable, and somewhat cash-poor time in my life. Spirit Airlines, you were cheap, sweaty, insufficiently staffed, and often appalling—but you were, in your own way, reliable. While it may not be fashionable to admit, I’ll miss you if we ever lose you.
