More than 36,000 people have registered non-binding pledges totalling $22.8 million (£18 million) on a website promising to buy Spirit Airlines on their behalf. Not a single dollar has actually been collected.
The campaign is the work of Hunter Peterson, a voice actor, who launched LetsBuySpirit.com on Saturday, hours afterSpirit ceased operations on 2 Mayfollowing a failed $500 million (£395 million) government bailout. His original TikTok video, in which he pitched the idea of 50 million Americans each paying the cost of a Spirit fare to collectively purchase the carrier, had drawn 2.8 million views by Sunday afternoon,Yahoo Newsreported.
'This is a genius idea,' Peterson said in the clip, set to Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky. 'We nationalise Spirit Airlines. Owned by the people.'
By Sunday the website was completely offline. Peterson, who said he built it in about an hour using an AI tool called Manus, posted a follow-up video appealing for developers, lawyers with aviation experience and PR help.
'The website is very broken,' he said.
He confirmed no funds had changed hands. 'These are non-binding pledges,' he wrote on Instagram after users questioned where the money was going.
The pledges, even if honoured in full, would amount to roughly 1.3% of the campaign's own $1.75 billion (£1.38 billion) target. That figure itself may understate what a credible acquisition would cost.
In 2022, JetBlue's blocked bid for Spirit was valued at approximately $3.8 billion (£3 billion). A separate $1 billion (£790 million) recapitalisation proposal from Louisiana investor group NewP3 collapsed before Saturday's shutdown.
let’s buy an airline /s www.letsbuyspirit.com
Gary Leff, the aviation analyst behind the widely read blogView from the Wing, dismissed the effort outright.
Source: International Business Times UK
