Spirit Airlines, America’s low-cost airline, shut down last week (May 2nd) after failing to secure last-minute funding. It even cancelled flights and told the ticket holders not to come to the airport. The company laid off its 17,000 employees. The official website says that the company has started an orderly wind-down of its operations. Amidst the chaos caused by the shutdown, a TikToker had a crazy idea for Spirit Airlines, one that would potentially make the people of America the investors.
TikToker mobilizes online pledges after Spirit Airlines shutdown
Going into details, Hunter Peterson, a voice actor known for his frequent flyer frustrations, took to TikTok with a provocative idea. He says that there are around 250 million individuals over the age of 18 in the United States, and if 20% of them chipped in the cost of a Spirit Airlines ticket, they could simply buy the airline. He is calling it “Spirit 2.0: Owned by the People.”
Not stopping there, within hours, Peterson launched a website, which he admitted took just an hour to build. Currently, 124,755 “founding patrons” have pledged nearly $88 million, crashing the site and the servers in the process. “The movement grew so fast it overwhelmed our servers,” says the site.
It’s not real money, though
That said, none of it is real money. These are non-bidding pledges just to show “everyone else that we are serious.” For what it’s worth, acquiring an airline and relaunching it would cost billions. In fact, Peterson knows that, too. The reason he’s doing this is that he’s apparently passionate about airlines and the idea of connecting people.
In another video, he even jokingly tried to hire aviation lawyers and PR people with a one-word ask: “Help?” He’s also open to hearing from those who have run at airlines or been executives about the things he doesn’t know. “I don’t know what I don’t know,” he told his followers, but “you’re committing to this bit, so I’m committing to this bit.”
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