'Let's Buy Spirit' Campaign Raises $23M In Pledges After Viral TikTok Joke — Why It Won't Work

More than 36,000 people have registered non-binding pledges totalling $22.8 million (£18 million) on a website promising to buy Spirit Airlines on their behalf. Not a single dollar has actually been collected.

The campaign is the work of Hunter Peterson, a voice actor, who launched LetsBuySpirit.com on Saturday, hours after Spirit ceased operations on 2 May following a failed $500 million (£395 million) government bailout. His original TikTok video, in which he pitched the idea of 50 million Americans each paying the cost of a Spirit fare to collectively purchase the carrier, had drawn 2.8 million views by Sunday afternoon, Yahoo News reported.

'This is a genius idea,' Peterson said in the clip, set to Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky. 'We nationalise Spirit Airlines. Owned by the people.'

By Sunday the website was completely offline. Peterson, who said he built it in about an hour using an AI tool called Manus, posted a follow-up video appealing for developers, lawyers with aviation experience and PR help.

'The website is very broken,' he said.

He confirmed no funds had changed hands. 'These are non-binding pledges,' he wrote on Instagram after users questioned where the money was going.

The pledges, even if honoured in full, would amount to roughly 1.3% of the campaign's own $1.75 billion (£1.38 billion) target. That figure itself may understate what a credible acquisition would cost.

In 2022, JetBlue's blocked bid for Spirit was valued at approximately $3.8 billion (£3 billion). A separate $1 billion (£790 million) recapitalisation proposal from Louisiana investor group NewP3 collapsed before Saturday's shutdown.

Analyst Calls Spirit Airlines Crowdfund 'A Viral Organising Stunt'

Gary Leff, the aviation analyst behind the widely read blog View from the Wing, dismissed the effort outright.

'Where does this airline fly? With which aircraft? Will they lean into premium or return to their low-cost routes?' he wrote. 'At a billion-dollar annual run rate for losses, they'd need a plan quickly.'

Raising money is the least of the campaign's problems. Anyone attempting to operate an airline in the United States needs an Air Operator's Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration. Aviation analysts have said the certification process alone can take years and cost tens of millions of dollars.

Spirit's own certificate is tied up with its creditors - bondholders Citadel, Cyrus Capital and Ares Management - and cannot be handed to a new owner without both regulatory sign-off and creditor agreement.

Peterson has pitched the venture as modelled on the Green Bay Packers, the NFL franchise owned by its fans. Leff pointed out the comparison falls apart on inspection. The Packers operate as a nonprofit whose shareholders receive no dividends. Peterson's proposal, by contrast, promises profit-sharing tied to pledge amounts.

'That's almost the opposite,' Leff wrote.

Every Community-Owned Airline Has Ended in Failure

No community or employee-owned airline in the United States has survived long term. Kiwi International Air Lines launched in 1992 after furloughed Eastern Airlines pilots pooled personal savings for roughly half of its $17 million (£13.4 million) startup costs. It lasted four years before declaring bankruptcy and was fully wound down by 1999.

United Airlines adopted an employee stock ownership plan in 1995, and that structure had collapsed by 2003. Two other carriers that experimented with worker-ownership models, People Express and Lake Central Airlines, were eventually swallowed by larger rivals, Yahoo News reported.

Spirit itself had been struggling well before this weekend. The airline accumulated losses exceeding $2.5 billion (£1.98 billion) from 2020 onwards, filed for bankruptcy twice, and saw its financial position worsen sharply as the Iran war drove up jet fuel costs. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said bluntly that Spirit's low-cost model 'wasn't working.' The shutdown put an estimated 17,000 direct and indirect workers out of a job.

By Sunday evening, the campaign's self-reported tally had climbed to nearly 40,000 pledges worth roughly $26 million (£20.5 million), Moneywise reported. The figures have not been independently verified. Peterson said on Instagram he would not speak to any media outlet until he had consulted a lawyer.

His Instagram bio now reads: 'Get in losers, we're buying Spirit. Voice Actor, Future Airline CEO.'