By Robin Rossenfeld

At a time when Colorado families are already struggling with rising transportation costs, the collapse of Spirit Airlines could not come at a worse moment.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood area rose 4.2% over the past year, with public transportation specifically identified as a major contributor to the increase. Energy prices rose 13.2% year-over-year, while gasoline prices surged nearly 20%. National airfare prices have also continued climbing in recent months, with one recent analysis finding ticket prices in some markets rising between 15% and 124%. 

One Colorado travel agent recently told CBS news that, due to the ongoing war in Iran, airfare prices are taking off because of rising jet fuel costs, and that prices are only poised to get higher. AAA Colorado provided similar warnings about expected climbs in airfares.

And those warnings were made before May 2, 2026, when Spirit — long one of America’s most aggressive low-cost carriers — cancelled all its flights and permanently ceased its operations with less than 24-hour notice. 

One recent analysis found airfare rose an average of 14% in markets where Spirit exited service, so for millions of travelers, especially budget-conscious families, Spirit’s shutdown marks the loss of one of the few airlines willing to consistently compete on price.

These events should prompt a serious reassessment of the modern antitrust philosophy championed by many regulators, including Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, and the resultant unintended consequences based on faulty assumptions about the effects of those actions on the market at large, not just on the targeted corporation.

During the past several years, antitrust enforcement has increasingly shifted away from a consumer-focused standard centered on prices, output and market realities, and toward a broader skepticism of corporate consolidation itself. The battle over Spirit Airlines became one of the clearest examples of that approach in action.

To save itself, Spirit planned to merge with fellow low-cost airline JetBlue in 2022. But a challenge from the federal government and a handful of states prohibited the merger from moving forward, which ultimately pushed the company into bankruptcy and led to the company closing its doors.

Though Attorney General Weiser didn’t co-sign the federal lawsuit to block the merger, he positioned himself as a vocal advocate for aggressive scrutiny of mergers in the airline industry. During the earlier proposed merger between Frontier and Spirit, he urged federal regulators to closely examine the deal, warning it could reduce competition and harm low-budget travelers who rely on affordable airfare options. More recently, Weiser endorsed the challenge to Spirit-JetBue, calling it a “guidepost” for future actions involving consolidation across major industries. Weiser proved to be a very poor prognosticator of the actual effects of the refusal to permit the merger. The irony is the citizens of Colorado are the worse off for it.

The legal rationale behind blocking JetBlue’s acquisition of Spirit was straightforward. Regulators argued Spirit, as a stand-alone ultra-low-cost airline, exerted downward pressure on fares throughout the market. Eliminating Spirit through acquisition, they argued, would reduce competition and ultimately increase prices.

Yet that theory depended entirely on Spirit remaining viable as an independent business.

It did not.

Spirit had already been under severe financial pressure from inflation, rising fuel costs and operational challenges. Its business model operated on notoriously thin margins. Spirit shut down its Colorado routes shortly before the merger was formally blocked, an early warning sign the airline’s financial condition was deteriorating faster than many regulators appeared willing to acknowledge.

The proposed JetBlue acquisition may not have solved every challenge facing the airline industry. But it would have provided Spirit with capital, scale and a potential path forward in an increasingly difficult marketplace.

Instead, regulators blocked the merger in the name of protecting competition. Today, consumers have fewer choices than they did before the government intervened.

That outcome deserves reflection.

Antitrust law exists to protect consumers, not to preserve abstract market structures disconnected from economic realities. A competitor that cannot survive is not meaningful competition. And consumers do not benefit from maintaining a company on paper if the company itself disappears shortly thereafter.

None of this means every merger should automatically receive government approval. Some consolidations genuinely do threaten competition and harm consumers. Regulators play an important role in ensuring markets remain competitive.

But the collapse of Spirit Airlines illustrates the risks of an antitrust philosophy that treats consolidation as inherently suspect without adequately considering whether the companies involved can realistically survive on their own. Reflective responses are good. Reflexive responses are not.

When the merger was blocked, supporters celebrated it as a victory for consumers. With Spirit now gone entirely, regulators should ask whether preserving a legal theory came at the expense of the very competition they claimed to protect.

Robin Rossenfeld is an attorney, a former Deputy Attorney General and served on the State Bar Board of Governors.