Transportation

Buttigieg, Duffy spar over who’s to blame for Spirit Airlines collapse

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by Max Rego - 05/04/26 5:24 PM ET

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by Max Rego - 05/04/26 5:24 PM ET

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Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Monday pushed back on his successor, Sean Duffy, for blaming the Biden administration for Spirit Airlines shutting down all operations.

Duffy said Monday on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” that Buttigieg “made the wrong call” in supporting the former administration’s push to block the acquisition of Spirit by JetBlue Airways.

JetBlue abandoned that deal in 2024 after a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked it, citing violations of antitrust law. The Justice Department and various state attorneys general in 2023 sued to block the $3.8 billion deal under Section 7 of the Clayton Act.

When JetBlue dropped its bid to acquire Spirit, former Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the merger “would have caused tens of millions of travelers to face higher fares and fewer choices.”

Duffy said Monday that if Buttigieg “had taken a deep dive into Spirit and to JetBlue, he would have seen that that merger would have been better for customers, and he still said no to it.”

In response to a video of Duffy’s remarks, Buttigieg wrote Monday on the social platform X, “You can’t lower gas prices by blurting out the names of a few Democrats.”

“The administration needs to stop its crazed policies that cause so much economic pain,” Buttigieg added. “This is happening on [President] Trump’s watch because he doubled jet fuel prices by taking our country to war, which drove Spirit out of business. Obviously.”

Spirit, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2024 and 2025, in a court filing cited rising fuel prices for why it is ceasing operations, according to Reuters.

The cost of jet fuel has spiked amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, as the Iranian military’s restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have rocked the energy sector.

But Neera Tanden, who worked as a senior adviser to former President Biden, questioned whether the blocked acquisition of Spirit was the “right call” given its eventual collapse.

“Given the news today that Spirit Airlines is shuttering and thousands of people are losing their jobs, I think we should honestly assess whether the Garland DoJ stopping the JetBlue merger with Spirit Airlines was the right call,” she wrote Saturday on X. “Perhaps it was but any analysis must consider as part of the equation the loss to so many families ro [to] decide.”

Later in the day, Tanden wrote on X, “Lord, of course Trump’s war was the Spirit Airlines killer here. I am simply asking if we should assess all evidence.”

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