I pledged $1,000. I have been daydreaming about a customer-owned airline for years now, just about every time I walk through an airport. This might not have much chance of succeeding in its purchase of Spirit’s assets, but I’d love to watch things unfold if it did.

> These sorts of initiatives forget the toil of actually operating a business.

For most businesses the size of Spirit Airlines, the owners typically do not operate the business. They pay people to do that. I don’t operate REI, even though I’m one of its many owners.

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rkagerer 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Thank you. There's a lot of criticism and skepticism here, and it's nice to see an optimistic comment.

I've no idea if the proponents of this plan are reputable, but the concept reminds me of the early years of WestJet, when they made a big fuss about being employee owned and had (back then) a markedly better customer experience. For US residents reading this, I'm told they were a bit like Southwest Airlines.

Even if the naysayers are correct and the probability of this panning out is low, you'll never hit the pitches you don't swing at, right?

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iknowstuff 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

aren't there plenty of state owned airlines?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government-owned_airli...

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nerdsniper 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Not in the USA. Also, the state’s interests often aren’t super well-aligned with the customers’ interests. Too many conflicts of interest for my taste.

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mylifeandtimes 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Evidence? Isn't the state the expression of the people's will? That's the theory of democracy, isn't it?

Also, any evidence or reason to believe that an extraction-based capitalist model is more aligned with customer interests (where the customer is the thing value is extracted from, and where corporate leadership salaries are directly tied to how much they can grift from the customers) than a government where the incentive is to get the maximum number of happy fliers to vote for you?

	▲	nerdsniper 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		“citizens”, “customers” and “politicians” are three different groups. The government might want to use the airline as tax revenue, artificially increasing prices on customers to support non-customers. Or the government may want to give their airline unfair advantages, which would decrease real competition and create a brittle industry. Or the government might want to strangle their own company, in order to declare that it is “bad and dumb” in order to manufacture popular support to privatize the public company.
	▲	MrBuddyCasino 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Isn't the state the expression of the people's will? Just recently HN discussed the „ban anonymity on the internet“ initiatives of various governments and who was behind it because nobody wants that. Certainly not the citizens.

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neonstatic an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

wow, it's almost like you will become... a shareholder?