2026年5月3日 美国东部时间12:43 / CNN
作者：贝琪·克莱因
关停一家美国大型航空公司是一项复杂的事务。而当美国总统暗示该航司有可能获得救助时，事情又平添了一层复杂性。
深陷财务困境的精神航空于2025年8月第二次申请破产保护。数月后，与伊朗的冲突推高了燃油价格，使其财务状况愈发岌岌可危，濒临倒闭。
数周以来，特朗普政府官员一直在与这家廉价航空公司谈判，探讨一项5亿美元救助计划的可能性。该提案实际上将让政府掌控精神航空绝大多数股份。
唐纳德·特朗普总统曾公开表示，如果“价格合适”，他会支持这项救助。
“他们有一些不错的飞机，一些优质资产，等到油价下跌时，我们可以出售获利，”他上月在椭圆形办公室对记者说道。
据两位知情人士透露，美国运输部长肖恩·达菲和商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克曾与特朗普会面，阐述相关方案，这在总统团队内部引发了分歧。
一位知情人士告诉CNN，卢特尼克“一直在推动”这项交易，另一位消息人士则表示，他认为这将是本届政府的一项政治胜利。但第三位知情人士透露，包括达菲、特朗普副幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒、全国经济委员会主任凯文·哈塞特以及白宫法律顾问办公室成员在内的官员都对救助计划持保留意见。两位消息人士称，这些顾虑包括担忧向一家财务记录糟糕的公司注入资金。
向单一航空公司提供救助的想法也引发了航空业和国会共和党议员的反对。此前的救助计划都是为了支持所有美国航空公司，而非单一航司或某几家航司。而且以往的救援方案都是针对瘫痪的行业，比如恐怖袭击或疫情后乘客不敢乘机的情况，而非因成本上升和亏损导致的危机。
乔·雷德莱/盖蒂图片社
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达菲周六对记者表示，特朗普当时“就像咬住骨头不放的狗，想方设法让精神航空维持运营”，并补充说，在该航司关停前的几天里，他“多次与总统在椭圆形办公室会面”。
在与达菲和卢特尼克的首次会面后，人们清楚地意识到，此次救助比特朗普试图让政府掌控美国钢铁公司或英特尔等公司的行动更为复杂。两位知情人士透露，有人提出援引《国防生产法案》——一项在紧急情况下赋予政府更多权力指导工业生产的法律，但遭到了国防部的否决。最终，官员们也未能为这5亿美元找到资金来源。
与此同时，消息人士称，达菲主动提出了由另一家航空公司收购精神航空的想法，并试探了各方兴趣，但这一提议未能获得支持，第二位和第三位消息人士透露。
第三位消息人士称，周四，白宫指示卢特尼克告知精神航空首席执行官戴夫·戴维斯，政府不会提供救助。
第一位消息人士称，当晚卢特尼克与戴维斯通了电话，双方“留下了孤注一掷的可能性”，但“我们必须着手推进关停事宜——即便我们打算在周五寻找另一条出路”。
包括达菲在内的特朗普政府官员开始与精神航空的竞争对手合作，制定计划，以应对受困乘客和该公司1.4万名员工的安置问题。
随后，周五午后，总统似乎对让该航司维持运营的计划表示出了乐观态度。
“我们正在研究，”他在白宫对记者说道，“但如果我们不能达成一笔好交易，没有哪家机构能做到。我希望保住这些工作岗位，但我们今天晚些时候会宣布……我们已经向他们提交了最终方案。”
第一位熟悉谈判内情的消息人士称，特朗普的这番言论为救助计划带来了“新的生机”。他补充道，相关利益方“仍抱有希望”。
但该消息人士称，特朗普并未就这番媒体表态采取后续行动。尽管卢特尼克继续推动达成交易，但特朗普周五晚间在佛罗里达州参加了多场公开活动，并未直接与戴维斯或其他利益相关方接触，包括本应为该提案提供支持的主要债权人团体。
“这对我来说就是典型的特朗普风格——总能找到交易的办法，我们继续谈，”第二位消息人士说道。
周五晚些时候，精神航空开始取消部分夜间和清晨航班。一位消息人士称，当晚6点，公司董事会原定召开投票会议，但由于继续努力拼凑方案，会议并未举行。但到晚上11点，该航空公司开始告诉其工会领导人，不会达成任何协议。
凌晨2点左右，在最后一架精神航空航班降落之后，该公司在一份声明中宣布“已立即启动有序关停运营程序”。
达菲周六表示，债权人未能与美国政府达成协议。
“归根结底，这是债权人的问题。再说一遍，他们最终有权决定是否与政府达成交易，”他在纽瓦克自由国际机场的新闻发布会上说道。
达菲继续说道：“但从政府的角度来看，我们通常不会有5亿美元闲置在备用账户里，用于救助一家航空公司。所以我们曾有过如何实现这一目标的创造性构想。但这两件事都未能成真。”
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在当晚宣布关停前数小时，特朗普的盟友已开始将责任归咎于其前任政府。
特朗普的外部顾问亚历克斯·布鲁泽维茨指出，民主党参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦2024年的一条社交媒体帖子，她当时赞扬了联邦法官因反垄断顾虑阻止捷蓝航空收购精神航空的裁决。
“如果精神航空倒闭，责任将完全落在疯狂的伊丽莎白·沃伦和拜登政府身上。他们的反资本主义政策毁掉了本可以拯救该航司、保护员工工作岗位的精神航空-捷蓝航空合并案，”他写道。
沃伦驳斥了这一说法，周六在社交媒体上写道：“特朗普挑起的战争推高了燃油价格，成为了已经两次破产的精神航空的致命一击”，并称合并案失败是因为一位里根任命的法官认为其违法。
周六上午在纽瓦克机场，达菲也将责任归咎于其前任政府。
“历史会评判拜登政府否决捷蓝航空与精神航空合并案的决定，我认为，人们会认为这是一个重大错误，”达菲说道。
美国司法部2023年起诉阻止捷蓝航空收购精神航空，这是拜登政府主张加强企业间竞争的一部分，尤其是在航空业。2024年1月，一名联邦法官否决了该合并案，指出其会推高乘客票价并加重捷蓝航空的巨额债务。
与此同时，精神航空的倒闭导致数千名乘客被迫调整行程，数百万持有未来机票的乘客也受到影响。
达菲周六宣布，联合航空、达美航空、捷蓝航空和西南航空“将为精神航空的客户设置机票价格上限”。他表示，美国航空和达美航空将“在精神航空的热门航线提供降价机票”。他补充道，阿拉斯加航空“已承诺在与精神航空共享的航线冻结票价”。而边疆航空则表示，将在5月10日前提供基础票价五折优惠。
但该航司倒闭的影响才刚刚显现——此次关停可能会对机票价格产生更广泛的影响，并让航空旅行变得更难负担。
“这对工薪阶层又是一记重击。乘坐精神航空的乘客大多追求最低服务成本，现在他们没有了另一种选择，”第一位消息人士说道。
Inside Spirit Airlines’ failed ‘Hail Mary’ to the Trump administration
May 3, 2026 12:43 PM ET / CNN
By Betsy Klein
Winding down a major US airline is a complicated business. Doing so when the president of the United States hints it could be saved adds another layer of complexity.
Wracked with financial trouble, Spirit Airlines had filed for bankruptcy for the second time in August 2025. Months later, the conflict with Iran had driven up fuel prices and made its financial position even more untenable, putting it on the brink of closure.
For weeks, Trump administration officials were in talks with the bargain airline on the possibility of a $500 million bailout package. The proposal would effectively give the government control of the overwhelming majority of Spirit’s shares.
President Donald Trump publicly suggested that he would be on board “if we can get it at the right price.”
“They have some good aircrafts, some good assets, and when the price of oil goes down, we’d sell it for a profit,” he told reporters in the Oval Office last month.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Trump to lay out the options, according to two sources familiar with the meeting, which prompted some internal division among the president’s team.
Lutnick, one source familiar with the deliberations told CNN, “was pushing” for a deal, with a second source familiar suggesting that he argued it would be a political win for the administration. But there were reservations about the possibility of a bailout from officials including Duffy, Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and members of the White House counsel’s office, a third source familiar with deliberations told CNN. Those included concerns about pumping money into a company with a bad financial record, two of the sources said.
The idea of a bailout for a single airline also sparked backlash from both the airline industry and among Republicans in Congress. Previous bailouts have been in support of all US airlines, not a single carrier or group of airlines. And those rescue packages were in response to a paralyzed industry, like when passengers were afraid to fly in the wake of terrorist attacks or a pandemic, not because of increased costs and losses.
Spirit Airlines planes are parked on the tarmac at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on May 2, 2026, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Related article A Spirit Airlines airplane at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) in Baltimore, Maryland, US, on Saturday, May 2, 2026. Spirit Aviation Holdings Inc. has started an orderly wind-down of operations after failing to secure a deal with the Trump administration for funding, with the airline canceling flights and passengers have been advised not to go to the airport. Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg/Getty Images Travel plans upended as Spirit Airlines shuts down, leaving passengers scrambling for other options 7 min read
Trump, meanwhile, “was like a dog on a bone trying to figure out a way to keep Spirit afloat,” Duffy told reporters Saturday, adding that he was “in the Oval many times” with the president in the days before the airline shuttered.
After that initial meeting with Duffy and Lutnick, it became clear that a bailout would be more complex than Trump’s efforts to gain government control over companies like US Steel or Intel. The possibility of invoking the Defense Production Act — a law that gives the government more control to direct industrial production during emergencies — was raised, but rejected by the Department of Defense, two of the sources familiar with deliberations said. And ultimately, officials were never able to identify a funding source for the $500 million.
Meanwhile, Duffy actively floated the idea of a Spirit acquisition by another airline, sources said, gauging interest for a proposition that failed to gain traction, the second and third source said.
On Thursday, the White House gave Lutnick the word to tell Spirit CEO Dave Davis that there would be no government bailout, the third source said.
That evening, Lutnick spoke by phone with Davis, and while they “left open the possibility of a Hail Mary,” the first source said, “there was the determination that we have to start putting things in motion to wind this down – even if we are going to try to find an off-ramp on Friday.”
Trump administration officials, including Duffy, began working with Spirit’s competitors to create a plan for customers left stranded and for the company’s 14,000 employees.
Then, early Friday afternoon, the president appeared to express some optimism that a plan to keep the airline afloat could materialize.
“We’re looking at it,” he told reporters at the White House. “But if we can’t make a good deal, no institution’s been able to do it. I’d like to save the jobs, but we’ll have an announcement sometime today. … We gave them a final proposal.”
Trump’s comments, the first source familiar with deliberations said, brought “new life” to the possibility of a bailout. Stakeholders, they added, “were holding out hope.”
But Trump did not follow up on those comments to the media, that source said. And while Lutnick continued to push toward a deal, Trump, who went on to make multiple public appearances Friday evening in Florida, did not directly engage with Davis or other stakeholders, including the key group of creditors that would have been responsible for backing the proposal.
“It felt like classic Trump to me — there’s always a deal to be had, let’s keep talking,” the second source said.
Later Friday, Spirit began canceling some overnight and early morning flights. At 6 p.m., the company’s board was expected to meet to take a vote, but the meeting never happened as efforts continued to try to cobble together a plan, according to a source. But by 11 p.m., the airline began to tell its union leaders there would be no deal.
Around 2 a.m., after the final Spirit plane had landed, the company announced in a statement that it had “started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately.”
Duffy said Saturday that the creditors failed to agree to a deal with the US government.
“In the end, this was a creditor issue. Again, they have the final say of whether they want to do a deal with the government,” he said at a press conference at Newark Liberty International Airport.
Duffy continued: “But also from the government’s perspective, we oftentimes don’t have a half a billion dollars laying around in a spare account that we can put into a bailout of an airline. So there was creative thinking on how it could happen. Those two things never materialized.”
Related article CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – MARCH 10: Passengers check in for their Spirit Airlines flights at O’Hare Airport on March 10, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. The budget airline plans to cut flights, downsize its fleet and recall furloughed pilots in a bid to emerge from bankruptcy as early as the spring. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Scott Olson/Getty Images/File What Spirit Airlines ticket holders need to know 4 min read
Hours before the overnight announcement, Trump allies were already shifting blame to their predecessors.
Alex Bruesewitz, an outside Trump adviser, pointed to a 2024 social media post by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren praising a federal judge’s ruling that blocked JetBlue’s proposed purchase of Spirit due to antitrust concerns.
“If Spirit Airlines fails, the blame will fall squarely on crazy Elizabeth Warren and the Biden Administration. Their anti-capitalist policies killed the Spirit–JetBlue merger that would have saved the airline and protected its workers’ jobs,” he wrote.
Warren rebuked that claim, writing on social media Saturday that, “Spiking fuel prices from Trump’s war was the nail in the coffin for twice-bankrupted Spirit airline” and that the merger failed because a Reagan-appointed judge said it was illegal.
At Newark airport Saturday morning, Duffy also shifted the blame to his predecessors.
“History has judged the denial of the merger between JetBlue and Spirit through the Biden administration, with, I think, a view that it was a massive mistake,” Duffy said.
The Justice Department sued in 2023 to halt JetBlue’s proposed acquisition of Spirit, as part of the Biden administration’s argument for greater competition between businesses, especially in the industry. A federal judge in January 2024 ruled against the merger, outlining concerns over increased fares for flyers and significant debt for JetBlue.
Meanwhile, Spirit’s demise has stranded thousands of passengers who have to adjust plans and millions who have tickets for future dates.
United, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest, Duffy announced Saturday, “are capping their ticket prices for Spirit customers.” American Airlines and Delta, he said, are offering “reduced fares on high-volume Spirit routes.” Allegiant, he added, has “committed to freezing fare prices on routes that they have shared with Spirit.” And Frontier Airlines, he said, is offering 50% off base fares until May 10.
But the impacts of the airline’s demise are just beginning – and the closure could have broader effects on prices and make air travel less accessible.
“It’s another blow to the working class. People who fly Spirit fly at a bare minimum (of services) and now they don’t have another option,” the first source said.