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‘Let’s Buy Spirit’: Why Thousands Have Pledged $88M for Airline Campaign
What began as a TikTok joke has turned into one of the internet’s most emotionally charged grassroots campaigns of the year.In the days after Spirit Airlines abruptly shut down overnight, a viral online movement called “Let’s Buy Spirit” has drawn tens of thousands of supporters pledging millions of dollars in a bid to resurrect the budget airline under a community‑owned model. The campaign, launched by YouTuber and voice actor Hunter Peterson, has garnered roughly $88 million in nonbinding pledges as of Monday, despite overwhelming consensus among experts that the effort is unlikely to succeed.Newsweek reached out to Peterson for comment. While Spirit Airlines declined to comment, the company clarified that the campaign is not affiliated with or endorsed by Spirit Airlines in any way.Why It MattersWhile Spirit Airlines was often mocked for its fees and cramped seats, the larger reaction to its shutdown suggests that Spirit also played a major role in keeping air travel affordable for millions of people.Ultra‑low‑cost carriers like Spirit often place a powerful downward pressure on ticket prices across markets, even for passengers who never fly them directly. With Spirit gone, many travelers fear fewer cheap options and less competition....When Did Spirit Airlines Shut Down?Spirit Airlines
We’ll take it: a TikToker rallies pledges to buy Spirit Airlines after its abrupt weekend collapse
In Brief Posted: 7:02 PM PDT · May 3, 2026 Image Credits:Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg / Getty Images When Spirit Airlines shut down overnight Saturday — canceling all flights, letting go of 17,000 employees, and telling ticketholders to just not come to the airport — people were flabbergasted but also bereft. For all its indignities, Spirit was cheap. Then one of them had an idea. Hunter Peterson, a voice actor with frequent flyer grievances, posted a TikTok asking: what if 20% of American adults chipped in the price of a Spirit fare and just . . . bought it? He called it “Spirit 2.0: Owned by the People.” Within hours he’d thrown up a website — a janky, one-hour job, by his own admission — and by Sunday, 36,000 “founding patrons” had pledged nearly $23 million, crashing his servers in the process. None of it is real money. These are non-binding pledges. Also worth noting: the actual cost of acquiring and relaunching an airline runs into the billions. Peterson knows this. In a video posted earlier today, he winkingly tried recruiting aviation lawyers, PR people, and lawyers with a one-word ask: “Help?” “I know what I don’t know,” he told his followers,
TikToker proposes 'let’s buy Spirit Airlines.' Thousands want in
Updated May 4, 2026, 12:17 p.m. ETA TikTok campaign to buy and revive Spirit Airlines, hours after the company suspended operations, has raised more than $88 million.Over the weekend, Hunter Peterson, a content creator and voice actor, posted a TikTok video that now boasts more than 4.6 million views, proposing a plan to purchase Spirit Airlines through crowdfunding."This is a genius idea: We nationalize Spirit Airlines," Peterson said in the video. "Owned by the people. Airlines gone. We make a new airline."Spirit Airlines announced on May 2 it was ceasing operations, citing years of financial hardships made difficult by rising fuel prices. All Spirit flights are canceled and the airline's customer service is no longer available."Sustaining the business required hundreds of millions of additional dollars of liquidity that Spirit simply does not have and could not procure. This is tremendously disappointing and not the outcome any of us wanted," Spirit President and CEO Dave Davis said in a statement.Thousands support crowdfunding plan to revive SpiritNot three hours after posting his first video, Peterson launched what is now letsbuyspiritair.com, which allows interested patrons to pledge a share into the proposed ownership of Spirit Airlines. A non-binding pledge does not entail a
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