Spirit exit likely to lead to higher US airfares, experts say

Launched in 1992, the company is responsible for the "Spirit Effect" in which bare-bones service opens up travel to a broader slate of customers otherwise priced out of the market. Spirit's business model of stripped-down travel that includes no free meal service, baggage transport or other extras played a "unique and disruptive role in the industry," the US Department of Justice argued in 2023, as it sought to block a merger with JetBlue. "When Spirit enters a new route, prices for consumers across...