A budget airline's sudden disappearance has spawned a very 2026 response: a TikTok-fueled effort to buy it back. After Spirit Airlines abruptly halted operations early Saturday—stranding travelers and putting thousands of employees out of work—content creator Hunter Peterson went online the same day with a pitch: crowdsource $1.75 billion to purchase the failed carrier and relaunch it as a "people-owned" airline, dubbed Spirit 2.0, Rolling Stone reports. The response was so enthusiastic that it crashed the website Peterson set up. "This started as a joke and this is rapidly going out of control in the best possible way," Peterson, 32, said in a TikTok video, per USA Today.
On his site, letsbuyspiritair.com, supporters can pledge as little as $45, roughly the cost of a typical Spirit ticket. No money is actually being collected yet; the pledges act as markers while Peterson scrambles to see if the idea is legally and financially feasible ahead of an expected auction of Spirit's operating certificate within days, Upworthy reports. As of Thursday morning, the total was $437 million from more than 500,000 pledgers, with an average pledge of around $850.
- In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Peterson said he had spoken to "one of the largest law firms in the world that specializes in mergers and acquisitions, aviation distress assets, and debt, and they basically said, this is doable." He said he'd also had a call with someone who "represents high-net-worth individuals who may be interested in basically giving us some money to just burn to figure out the legalities of this."
Peterson, an aviation buff who used to work for MrBeast, has also spoken to Spirit's flight attendants' union. His pitch: a carrier with no traditional corporate owner, no highly paid CEO, and no single large shareholder calling the shots.
- "Spirit didn't fail because people stopped flying," Peterson's website says. "It failed because Wall Street loaded it with debt and extracted every dollar it could. The routes are real. The demand is real. The only thing missing is ownership that answers to the people—not to shareholders."
- The website cites the "Green Bay model." "The Green Bay Packers are the only community-owned franchise in the NFL. 360,000 ordinary people own shares," it says. "No billionaire can move the team. No hedge fund can gut it for parts. Spirit 2.0 is that model—applied to aviation, for the first time in American history."
- Analysts say Peterson's plan probably has little chance of success, USA Today reports. Inc.com columnist Minda Zetlin, however, says his TikTok campaign is a "brilliant move" that others can learn from. "The real power of what Peterson did is that he struck fast, followed up well, and tapped into some very strong and very widespread feelings," she writes. "It's something any leader can learn from, and almost anyone can do."
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