Spirit was born in Detroit, nevertheless it earned its extremely low-cost provider wings in Florida. The West wasn’t part of the Spirit story in a significant means till pretty lately, and as I discussed yesterday, it’s rapidly fading away from Spirit’s community. In Spirit’s first sweeping community change because it filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety final month (once more), it has introduced it can abandon all however six airports west of the Rockies. And solely two of these — LAX and Las Vegas — will proceed to be served in a significant means.
That is the story of how Spirit tried to win the West earlier than lastly conceding that it had been misplaced.
In the event you have a look at the Rockies and to the west, Spirit traditionally was barely available in the market. It took a quick and small shot at San Francisco (SFO) in 2006/2007, however as lately as 2010, the one airports Spirit served in that a part of the nation have been Las Vegas and Los Angeles (LAX).
Spirit Departures From Airports within the Rockies and West
Knowledge by way of Cirium
It was 2011 when the airline made an actual transfer. Oakland, Portland (OR), and San Diego all got here on-line that yr. In 2012, it was Denver and Phoenix/Mesa, the latter which solely lasted into 2013. Phoenix/Sky Harbor adopted into 2013, Seattle in 2016, after which Burbank and Sacramento in 2019.
Then the pandemic hit, and Spirit went trying to find extra alternative. Orange County entered the chat in 2021 when slots got here out there as site visitors sagged, however in 2022 the airline turned on the gasoline with Albuquerque, Boise, Reno, and Salt Lake Metropolis. In 2023, San Jose grew to become the final airport within the West that Spirit would add earlier than it began to dismantle that community.
Issues began to disintegrate rapidly for Spirit as different airways recovered post-pandemic. The West was a simple place to attempt to repair, since its flying was largely self-contained exterior of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Denver was the primary airport to vanish in 2024, nevertheless it took two bankruptcies earlier than Spirit determined to get severe about shifting on. It would now finish service to Albuquerque, Boise, Oakland, Portland (OR), Sacramento, Salt Lake Metropolis, San Diego, and San Jose in October. Seattle was lower this summer season already.
As soon as that’s cleaned up, the West might be a fairly spartan trying place. And as is the case with JetBlue, Spirit will deal with it as a vacation spot for these in the remainder of the community.
Spirit December 2025 Departures From the Rockies and West
Map by way of Cirium
What’s left? There are solely 4 routes that stay that fly wholly throughout the area: service from Las Vegas to Burbank, LAX, Orange County, and Reno. For Burbank and Reno, Las Vegas is the one route that is still. Orange County additionally clings to a Detroit route. Phoenix doesn’t serve Las Vegas in any respect, however it’s nonetheless deliberate to be served from Detroit. We’ll see how lengthy these final. Presumably they did effectively sufficient and match into the airline’s new operational plan.
If we ignore these small blips, it’s actually simply LAX and Las Vegas which have any form of substantial operation, and people at the moment are largely east-west targeted.
Right here’s a have a look at Spirit’s general community for December 2025. This reveals some fairly distinct regional developments.
Spirit Community December 2025
Map by way of Cirium
It’s like taking a look at two airways. There’s the north-south community that largely hinges round Florida (and a few Caribbean). Flights from the Northeast, Detroit, Chicago, and Texas all head to the solar, although there’s some non-sun flying sprinkled in there as effectively. Then there’s the east-west community which is what I talked about earlier than. Draw a line from Dallas to Chicago and there’s an opportunity that any metropolis east of these could have a flight to Las Vegas or LAX.
The place’s the third community? It’s gone. That was the intrawest community, what’s now 4 awful routes from Las Vegas.
Spirit had tried many alternative ways within the West over time, they usually clearly didn’t work out. So now, the airline is strolling away and focusing elsewhere. Presumably it will likely be completely satisfied to reject plane leases because it completely has extra airplanes than it wants. That’s the straightforward factor to do.
The arduous half is discovering locations within the different two networks to put airplanes the place it may truly become profitable.
