He tried to buy Spirit Airlines with a website — strangers pledged $22.8M in hours
Peterson built a website to buy Spirit Airlines in just one hour and it crashed
Spirit Airlines ceased operations on May 2, and just a day later, Hunter Peterson (@hitherehunter), a voice actor and aviation fan, suggested a crazy idea on the internet. He proposed they buy the bankrupt airline and have it belong to "the people." He took an hour to build a website so people can send their pledges. Prior to their bankruptcy, Peterson shared a video on YouTube where he flew Spirit Airlines for 24 hours. The first video that he shared on May 3 about buying the airline on Instagram received 5.8 million views, 330,000 likes, and 8,876 comments.
It started as a joke
As airline prices rise, Peterson wondered if it might be beneficial for "the people" to collectively own a fleet of planes. According to Peterson's calculations, there were 250 million people in the U.S. over the age of 18. If he took 20% of that population and charged them the average fare ($30 to $40), together, they could buy Spirit Airlines. Two hours after he shared the video, he updated his followers, saying he created a website where they could start registering. He started it as a joke, but when people actually showed interest, he began taking it seriously as well. He checked the website a few hours later and was shocked when he saw the pledge had gone up to $100,000. He invited more people to join the cause and expressed his interest in potentially becoming the CEO of Spirit Airlines.
Escalated quickly
Peterson's videos went viral, and he said that the situation was getting out of control in the best way possible. The pledges went from $100,000 to $2,315,752 by the time he uploaded his next video, which was a few hours. He understood that he needed to lock in and focus on actually making it work for the sake of the people. A couple of hours after he made the website, it crashed because too many people tried to register. At this point, Peterson was asking for help from developers, people in public relations, lawyers with aviation expertise, and more. After the website was fixed, the pledges went up to $132,000,000 (at the time of writing).
The people's airline
The website features the example of 'The Green Bay Packers,' a professional American football team owned by 360,000 ordinary people. "No billionaire can move the team. No hedge fund can gut it for parts," the website says. Spirit 2.0 is replicating that structure in aviation. When truly owned by the people, this airline can subsidize ticket costs, decide on their own policies, and make it a true humanitarian dream.
Why Spirit Airlines went bankrupt
Spirit Airlines announced its bankruptcy after operating for more than three decades (34 years). However, this was not the first time the airline went bankrupt. In fact, this is its third time. The reason why it had to close its operations this time was due to the high oil prices. Overnight, almost 17,000 people were out of jobs. AirAdvisor analyzed 10 different airlines in the U.S. to determine the average passenger revenue per seat mile between 2023 and 2024. AirAdvisor listed Spirit Airlines as the second-cheapest airline in the U.S. after Frontier Airlines. The average revenue per seat mile is $0.11, which is more than one cent compared to Frontier Airlines.
People were extremely supportive of Peterson's idea to buy Spirit Airlines. Some were even volunteering for future roles. @scout.is.tired wrote, "Wait for me chat, I’m working on my pilot's license right now." @kaelynallen98 wrote, "I was so confused and just scrolled. The very next reel? Telling me that Spirit Airlines shut down overnight. All right, we're buying it?"
You can follow Hunter Peterson (@hitherehunter) on Instagram for more updates.
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