> Winding Down

> To our Guests: all flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available

That seems quite a bit stronger than “winding down”!

mondocat 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Winding down is an industry term that means not only stopping operations, but liquidating assets, resolving contracts, dealing with employees, etc. So that notice is a step in the winding down process, and it would seem like one of the easier, and earlier ones.

	▲	stogot 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Winding down would be a ramp down of some cancelled flights slowly but this is all flights cancelled immediately This is a shut down

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Animats 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Just a few hours ago, Spirit execs were saying everything is just fine. At noon yesterday, Trump was saying that a bailout was still likely. (The first time I read about Trump saying that "we" were going to buy Spirit, I thought he meant him personally, or The Trump Organization. Spirit only needed about $500 million, and Trump could afford that.) That nobody wanted to buy a major airline for $500M means it was a really bad deal and not worth saving. They were already in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the "debtor in possession" reorganization mode. Not yet clear if they just went to Chapter 7, liquidation, but that's probably happening within days.

Still, a zero-notice shutdown is a bit much. Some people who have tickets for tomorrow probably went to bed already.

There's still the mechanics of winding down. All the planes have to be flown to suitable storage locations. With such an abrupt shutdown, they'll have mis-positioned aircraft all over their route system. Many planes are probably leased, so the lessor may have to arrange to take custody of the aircraft. It's probably better if the aircraft are leased - there's some lessor with funds to take care of the job and the knowledge of how to arrange it, since a handover and move happens at the end of each aircraft lease. Aircraft Spirit actually owns will have to be moved by a bankruptcy receiver, which is a lawyer trying to run what's left of an airline. Most major airports charge very high parking fees. LAX charges $1000 for the first day, and that goes up to $5000 a day on day four. They're not in the storage business.

There are probably a lot of middle of the night phone calls and meetings going on right now.

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gucci-on-fleek 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Most major airports charge very high parking fees. LAX charges $1000 for the first day, and that goes up to $5000 a day on day four.

That seems pretty cheap to me actually. A random Google search suggests that an airplane costs at least $100MM, so $5k per day is 0.005% of the airplane's value.

Scaled down proportionally to a $100k car, that's only $5 per day, and considering that many parking lots charge $5 per hour, that seems like a pretty good deal.

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orsorna 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>The first time I read about Trump saying that "we" were going to buy Spirit, I thought he meant him personally

He views the federal government as his assets to use and not the people's, I don't blame your confusion. This philosophy at the highest seat of office is unprecedented in America.

	▲	CamperBob2 a minute ago \| parent [-]
		He also has prior experience with running^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbankrupting an airline, so I'm surprised he didn't jump on this particular opportunity.

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barneybooroo 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's "orderly", don't you know!

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shawn_w 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It was a very quick wind down.

	▲	testfrequency 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		More like a free fall ffs

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sudo_cowsay 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a fall down. Just like their stock prices.