There’s a guy out there right now trying to do something that sounds like it came straight out of a late-night “what if” conversation… and somehow it is raising interest and money..
The idea is to buy what’s left of Spirit Airlines.. with regular people.
Imagine the guy who flew Spirit for 24 straight hours somehow ending up as CEO because he “understands the product.” What happens next? Do ticket prices drop because the owners are also the passengers? Do people start voting on snack options mid-flight? It sounds ridiculous… until suddenly it’s not.
A crowd-powered airline. A “we all own this thing” approach. Think less Wall Street, more backyard barbecue investors pooling together to bring back a budget airline that, depending on your experience, either got you to Florida for $39 or made you question every life decision you’ve ever made mid-flight.
There’s a very real chance this never gets off the ground. Running an airline is about as simple as launching a rocket while filing paperwork with seventeen federal agencies at the same time. It takes insane amounts of money, coordination, and logistics that go way beyond a pledge page and a good idea. But at the same time, you kind of have to respect it. In a world where everything feels locked up by corporations and private equity, there’s something weirdly refreshing about someone saying, “What if we just… bought it ourselves?”
The website taking pledges has topped $22 mil and has also crashed..
What if it works? What if Spirit Airlines doesn’t just become another failed brand, but actually makes history by coming back as the first truly crowd-owned airline? Imagine the future ..
