Forwarded this email? Click here to get your weekly slice.

 

🪩 Volume 135 | May 6, 2026

 

I've always been a “I'll figure out the logistics later” kind of traveler. In my early 20s, this meant I was Spirit Airlines' DREAM customer. I wanted to go places, I had approximately no money, and there was this airline with a bright yellow website screaming you can do this for only $49 one-way.

 

I had the credit card, I booked the middle seats, I paid the $40 bag fee that technically made it the same price as a normal airline—and I did it WILLINGLY, because the base fare said $49 and my brain was hooked. I played myself beautifully!!!

 

And yet—I kinda loved it? 

 

Spirit was the butt of every airline joke in existence (famously the most complained-about airline in the US for years running), but they also had one of the cleanest safety records in the industry. Nobody talks about THAT. We were too busy watching the mid-air brawl videos on TikTok. (RIP, true cinema.)

 

Spirit filed for bankruptcy in November 2024, then again in August 2025, and then four whole days ago (May 2, 2026 at 3 AM EST) they permanently ceased operations. And while I'm not here to eulogize them (okay, maybe a little), I AM here to argue that Spirit's marketing—at its peak—was some of the most effective, self-aware, and strategically RUTHLESS positioning in modern aviation history. The brand didn't die because the marketing failed, no no. It died for a very different set of reasons. There's a lot to learn from both sides.

 

 

Setting the stage: Scrappy Florida ultra-low-cost carrier → raunchy provocateur ads (2010-2013) → massive 2014 yellow rebrand + "Bare Fare" repositioning → profitability peak (consistently among the most profitable US airlines per available seat mile) → post-pandemic operational chaos → JetBlue acquisition blocked by DOJ, January 2024 → Chapter 11 filed November 2024 → brief restructuring attempt → Chapter 11 again August 2025 → ceased operations May 2, 2026.

 

Before we talk about the fall, let's be very clear: Spirit's marketing is a CLASSIC example of staying in your own lane.

 

In the early 2010s, Spirit ran some of the most deliberately provocative ads in the airline industry—copy that leaned into double entendres, shock headlines, and the kind of shameless humor that guaranteed press coverage whether you wanted to book a flight or not.  Like their "MILF promo"—”Many Islands, Low Fares.” The complaints came in… the bookings ALSO came in. It was a deliberate trade-off, and Spirit made it knowingly.

 

Then in 2014, they leveled the heck up. The Bare Fare rebrand dropped the raunchy-for-raunchy's-sake approach and replaced it with something sharper: a brand identity built entirely around radical pricing transparency. Yellow everything, bold sans-serif and a tagline essentially translating to: you know what you're paying for, and you're choosing it anyway. It was almost confrontational. “We are cheap. We are proud of being cheap. The seat doesn't recline, it’s thin as cardboard, there's no free water and you KNEW THAT when you clicked confirm.”

 

And yeah, it worked—spectacularly…for a while at least. At their peak, Spirit consistently posted some of the highest operating margins in U.S. aviation, beating out legacy carriers on profitability per available seat mile. They weren't accidentally profitable.They had engineered an entire business model around the customer segment that everyone else was dismissing: the price-above-all traveler. College students, budget-obsessed families, young professionals who'd rather spend the money they saved on the destination (me lolol).

 

The positioning was air-tight because it was HONEST. Spirit never pretended to be something it wasn't. Delta was aspirational. Southwest was friendly. Spirit was a budget option—and it said so, out loud, in giant yellow letters.

 

Here's what made it so strategically sound: they built their brand around a truth their competitors were embarrassed to say. Every other airline was charging for bags and basic seat selection too—they were just doing it a bit quieter, buried in the fine print. Spirit put it on the homepage and called it a feature.

They were like yeah, let’s make the thing everyone's trying to hide our biggest selling point.

 

 

Here's where I'll resist the urge to write the whole obituary… because that's a MUCH longer newsletter. But the short version: Spirit's decline was structural and deeply unlucky—not a marketing problem.

 

It started with the post-pandemic operational shitstorm (the 2022 summer meltdown, thousands of cancellations, national headlines). Then came a $3.8 billion JetBlue acquisition offer that felt like a lifeline—blocked by the Biden DOJ in January 2024, which left Spirit without a partner and without runway (pun intended).

 

First bankruptcy: November 2024. Brief restructuring. Second bankruptcy: August 2025.

 

 

And then—the final gut punch—the 2026 Iran war sent jet fuel prices surging, which is an existential event for any airline, but ESPECIALLY for an ultra-low-cost carrier whose entire margin model depends on keeping operating costs minimal. A $500 million government bailout negotiation with the Trump administration collapsed when creditors balked at the terms. At 3:00 AM on May 2, 2026, it was over.

 

When your entire brand promise is at least it's cheap—and then external forces blow up the cost structure that makes cheap even possible—the whole model collapses.

 

The reaaaallllyy hard truth: amazing marketing can only carry a business as far as the business can actually deliver. Spirit's brand made the promise. A combination of operational stumbles, regulatory bad luck, and global events the company couldn't control meant it couldn't keep it.

 

 

 

Spirit's peak era is a case study in a specific kind of positioning power: leading with your limitation as your strength. Not every brand can do it—it requires genuine confidence that your customer will choose you anyway because of something specific you deliver better than anyone else.

Ask yourself: what's the thing about your business that you've been soft-pedaling? The thing that feels like a liability but could actually be the whole sell if ya just said it out loud? Sometimes the most powerful move is the one your competitors are too polished to make.

 

Spirit built enormous recognition and a genuinely loyal customer segment. But brand equity can't paper over operational failure indefinitely. Your marketing is only as strong as what's waiting on the other side of the checkout button.

 

 

I've been in a bit of a product-obsession spiral recently, and I want to talk about it because I think there's an actual marketing signal in where my money has been trying to go.

 

Dagne Dover dropped a hot pink colorway called Dolly and I am not okay about it. For context: I am a recovering beige-black-white-only consumer. Years of playing it safe with neutrals, only to have Nuuly slowly reintroduce me to the concept of color. Dolly is exactly the kind of thing I would have dismissed three years ago and am now mentally calculating how to justify clicking the checkout button. What Dagne Dover is doing RIGHT here: they know their customer intimately. This isn't a random color drop—it's a calculated “we see you, you're in your colorful-life-meets-actually-functional era, and here's a bag that proves it.” Dagne Dover's whole brand is premium-functional, and Dolly is a loyalty play disguised as a product launch. I LOVE IT.

 

In shoe news, I have apparently been teleported back to 7th grade. Birkenstocks, Melissa jellies, and now Rothy's clogs I’m craving with a fervor that concerns me slightly. What's interesting here from a marketing angle: all three of these brands are winning on identity, not just product. Birkenstocks is one of the greatest brand rehabilitations of the last decade—from “crunchy Vermonter” to “Italian quiet luxury vacation” without ever changing the silhouette. Rothy's has made sustainability feel fashionable rather than preachy.

 

And then there's Petit Plume, which my podcast co-host Aurrie introduced me to via the most spoiling gift I've ever received: a pair of their pajamas. I am now completely incapable of thinking about sleepwear any other way. The quality is ABSURD. The price reflects that, and somehow I find myself not minding, which means I've officially entered the “I'll pay more for quality” era of my 30s. The product does ALL the talking—and then word-of-mouth does the rest. Aurrie converted me into a customer without Petit Plume spending a single dollar on me directly HA.

 

The through-line in all of this: the brands catching MY attention right now are making product decisions so specific, so attuned to exactly who they're for, that the target customer feels personally seen. Something to watch as you're thinking about your own product line or service offerings—what's the “Dolly” version of what you make?

 

Til the next cake drop,

 

🍰 Lauren