How Spirit Airlines closure impacts RDU airport vacationers

Spirit Airlines called it quits early Saturday, abruptly cancelling all of its flights, including nonstops to five cities it served from Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

In a statement released just before 2:30 a.m., the 33-year-old low-cost carrier said it has started “an orderly winddown of operations, effective immediately,” and that customer service is no longer available. The notice and other information were posted on a special webpage, www.spiritrestructuring.com/.

Dave Davis, the company’s president and CEO, blamed “the sudden and sustained rise in fuel prices” since the start of the war with Iran in late February. The airline had been in talks with the Trump administration about receiving federal help, but a deal couldn’t be reached.

“Sustaining the business required hundreds of millions of additional dollars of liquidity that Spirit simply does not have and could not procure,” Davis wrote. “This is tremendously disappointing and not the outcome any of us wanted.”

What to do if your Spirit flight is canceled

Spirit says it will automatically process refunds for any flights bought through the airline with a credit or debit card. People who booked through a travel agent need to contact the agent to request a refund.

Other airlines, including American and Frontier, said they were trying to help Spirit customers with special “rescue fares” on routes where they overlap. American said it served 67 routes that Spirit was flying when it shut down.

“We are also reviewing opportunities to add additional capacity — including utilizing larger aircraft and adding flights on critical routes — to support as many affected passengers as possible,” the airline wrote.

Spirit had competition from other airlines on each of the five nonstop routes it served from RDU. They are Dallas-Fort Worth, Fort Lauderdale, Nashville, New Orleans and Newark.

Known for its bright yellow planes, Spirit debuted in the Triangle in 2019, with nonstop flights to seven cities. The airline served nearly 370,000 RDU passengers that year, despite missing the first four months.

But the carrier cut back drastically during the COVID-19 pandemic and by early 2025 was flying only between RDU and its hub in Fort Lauderdale.

But as it emerged from bankruptcy protection last year, Spirit announced flights to several new destinations from RDU. It made some changes, but continued to serve five cities nonstop after the airline declared bankruptcy a second time late last summer.

Through March of this year, Spirit had carried 37,558 people in and out of RDU, accounting for a little more than 1% of passengers served at the airport.

This story was initially revealed May 2, 2026 at 10:24 AM.