We’ll take it: a TikToker rallies pledges to buy Spirit Airlines after its abrupt weekend collapse

When Spirit Airlines shut down overnight Saturday — canceling all flights, letting go of 17,000 employees, and telling ticketholders to just not come to the airport — people were flabbergasted but also bereft. For all its indignities, Spirit was cheap. Then one of them had an idea.

Hunter Peterson, a voice actor with frequent flyer grievances, posted a TikTok asking: what if 20% of American adults chipped in the price of a Spirit fare and just . . . bought it? He called it “Spirit 2.0: Owned by the People.” Within hours he’d thrown up a website — a janky, one-hour job, by his own admission — and by Sunday, 36,000 “founding patrons” had pledged nearly $23 million, crashing his servers in the process.