Kristi Noem reportedly authorized the purchase of 10 airplanes once used by Spirit Airlines before realizing that not only did the beleaguered low-cost carrier not actually own the jets, but that they were all missing engines.
The premise behind the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trying to get hold of the airplanes was to bolster capacity for deportation flights, although the plan eventually had to be abandoned.
Spirit Airlines is in the midst of a painful Chapter 11 bankruptcy process and is slashing its route network as it tries to shrink back to profitability. Given the fact that Spirit intends to be a much smaller airline going forward, the carrier is offloading jets that it no longer needs.
The problem, though, is that most of these planes aren’t actually owned by the Florida-based carrier but are, instead, leased from specialist firms.
Last month, Spirit reached a deal with aircraft leasing firm AerCap to return 27 unwanted planes, so while the airline is getting rid of airplanes, it’s not in a position to sell them.
To make matters worse, ongoing issues with the Pratt & Whitney engines that power newer generation Airbus A320neo planes mean that some carriers have resorted to ‘cannibalizing’ some of their aircraft for spare engines, while others are grounded… without any engines.
The revelation about Noem’s attempt to buy the planes was recounted by Corey Lewandowski, who ran President Trump’s first election campaign, in a report in the Wall Street Journal.
While buying the airplanes might seem like a good idea to boost deportation capacity, officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reportedly warned Noem that using charter services from the likes of GlobalX and Avelo would work out cheaper.
Some aspects of the WSJ’s reporting have been called out by a DHS spokesperson who said that it wasn’t entirely accurate, although the department failed to clarify exactly what in the report was inaccurate.
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I don’t see why this is a big deal. They started to buy them and realized it wasn’t a good deal so they didn’t. The government owns over 14,000 aircraft.