A TikToker’s crowdfunding campaign to revive Spirit Airlines, which shut down earlier this month, has raised over $335 million in pledges. Hunter Peterson, a voice actor and social media influencer, first posted a video floating the idea on TikTok shortly after the airline’s closing. The video has now garnered over 7 million views and led to the launch of a dedicated website for the campaign, letsbuyspiritair.com.
Why did Spirit Airlines shut down?
Founded in 1983 in Detroit, Spirit Airlines was once a leading U.S. ultra-low-cost carrier. However, rising costs and increasing competition across the sector in the last decade ultimately plunged the airline into financial insecurity.
In August 2025, the airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid rising debts, citing “substantial doubt” about its viability to continue as a business. The Trump administration offered Spirit some hope of continuing its operations by initiating talks of a potential $500 million loan from the federal government. However, rescue talks later collapsed.
On May 2, 2026, the airline completely shut down its operations and all remaining flights were cancelled. Travellers have now been refunded the cost of their cancelled flights, and The International Business Times estimates that between 14,000 and 20,000 jobs were affected by Spirit’s closure.
A bid to save the airline
Hunter Peterson, 32, who is commonly known by his TikTok username of Hi There Hunter, is a Los Angeles-based voice actor, YouTuber and social media influencer. On May 2, 2026, he posted a video to his 265,000 TikTok followers proposing a plan to purchase Spirit Airlines through crowdfunding.
In the video, which has now been viewed over 7 million times, Peterson suggests that if enough people contributed the price of an average Spirit flight, the airline could be revived, saying:
“This is a genius idea: We nationalise Spirit Airlines, owned by the people. Airline’s gone- we make a new airline.”
Shortly after the video began to gain traction, the influencer launched a website dedicated to the campaign, letsbuyspiritair.com. The site allows users to pledge toward a proposed ownership stake in Spirit Airlines, although these pledges are non-binding and act primarily as an expression of interest.
As of May 11, 2026, the campaign has raised just over $337 million in pledges. Since the campaign began, Peterson has spoken out in a follow-up video to express his gratitude and surprise at the overwhelming support for his proposal, stating that:
“This started as a joke and this is rapidly going out of control in the best possible way.”
According to the campaign’s website, the publicly-owned iteration of Spirit Airlines would be modelled on the ownership structure of the NFL’s Green Pay Packers. The Green Bay Packers are the only publicly-owned franchise in the NFL, with 360,000 shareholders.
Have you ever flown with Spirit Airlines before? What do you think about this campaign? Let us know in the comments below!
