Spirit Airlines Could Liquidate by the End of the Week Due to Fuel Crisis

Spirit, the troubled and twice-bankrupt budget airline, could liquidate as early as this week, according to reports from Bloomberg and CNBC. The company has been struggling financially for some time now and filed for its second chapter 11 bankruptcy back in October. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Spirit had reached an agreement with creditors earlier this year that would help it reemerge from that second bankruptcy by this summer. But then, American and Israeli bombs began falling on Iran on February 28. In retaliation, Tehran promptly closed virtually all traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil chokepoint, resulting in the disruption of the global energy trade and creating a jet fuel shortage. It’s “the largest energy crisis we have ever faced,” according to International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol, who told the Associated Press that Europe could run out of jet fuel in six weeks. If the situation keeps continuing as is, Birol said flight cancellations could start mounting. “In the past, there was a group called ‘Dire Straits.’ It’s a dire strait now, and it is going to have major implications for the global economy,” Birol told the AP on