Check Your Travel Plans – Spirit Air Cuts 1 Million Seats in May

An article in Travel + Leisure is cautioning Spirit Air customers that the airline plans to cut its flight capacity significantly in May and June.

These changes are on top of flight cutbacks that Spirit made to multiple routes in January, including Atlanta, New York, and San Jose.

Here's the takeaway:

Spirit Airlines is planning on making more than a million fewer seats available in May and June 2025

Simply Flying says Spirit will operate 24% fewer flights in May and June 2025 than it did in the same period of 2024.

Spirit says the cuts are part of a business strategy. Economists point to expected higher operating costs and weak demand in the airline industry, affected by tariffs.

Spirit Airlines Cuts Routes Across Its Network

According to the article in Travel + Leisure, most of these cuts will happen at Spirit Air's biggest hubs in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.

The Simply Flying report says Boston will see a 44% drop in Spirit flights over the next two months.

Overall, Spirit will max out at 3.7 million passengers in May and June, versus the 4.9 million that it flew last year.

The difference of 1.17 million seats is a 23.8 percent drop due to various route cuts across its network, aviation analytics company Cirium told Travel + Leisure.

Spirit joins discount carrier Avelo Airlines in trimming its service just before the summer travel season.

Mixed News From Spirit Airlines

Only weeks after Spirit Airlines was recognized by WalletHub as the best airline in the U.S. when it comes to overall value, the budget carrier is trimming almost a quarter of its flights.

Though the cuts Spirit has announced don't seem to directly affect the average traveler from South Jersey, the trickle-down impact to anyone trying to get a connecting flight from any of those places is inescapable.

What we have to remember is that these cutbacks also coincide with Spirit recently emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, getting a new CEO --  Dave Davis -- about a month ago, and a very volatile business climate in America.