An online crowdfunding campaign to raise money to purchase Spirit Airlines and restart the airline gathered funding pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars within days of launching.
The idea to relaunch Spirit Airlines was floated by voice actor and TikTok influencer Hunter Peterson shortly after the demise of the ultra-low-cost airline on May 2, 2026.
Spirit Airlines was already the object of one of Peterson’s previous online stunts. In 2025, the social media influencer published a video about him flying the ultra-low-cost carrier for 24 hours straight.
The campaign has since gone viral and a dedicated website has been set up to collect monetary contribution pledges under the slogan “Let’s buy Spirit Airlines”.
As of May 10, 2026, the campaign had obtained at least $377 million in monetary pledges from more than 371,000 individuals. The platform has the stated goal of raising $1.75 billion.
It is important to remark that these monetary pledges do not entail, for the time being, any real financial commitment. Anyone can participate in the initiative by pledging to contribute a minimum of $45. This quantity has been chosen because it is the average one-way Spirit Airlines fare.
The “Let’s buy Spirit Airlines” is based on the premise that the demise of Spirit Airlines was not due to lack of demand or operational issues, but to debt overload engineered by private equity investors that owned much of the airline’s stock.
Under this proposed governance scheme, each of the contributors will get one vote in the future decisions concerning the airline, regardless of the amount pledged, while any potential profits would be distributed pro-rata according to the financial contribution of each participant.
The proponents of this initiative have also brought forward the Green Bay Packers football team as an example of a high-profile entity that uses a similar ownership model. This sports franchise is the only one in the United States National Football League (NFL) to be owned by some 360,000 individuals instead of by a large financial investor.
Peterson, the influencer that started this movement, has since stated his surprise about the way this idea has picked up momentum on the internet, while emphasizing that its purpose is, at least for now, to prove the feasibility of the idea, rather than collecting financial donations. He also asked people to be cautious to avoid potential scams aiming to profit from the sudden popularity of this initiative.
