Beleaguered budget carrier Spirit Airlines is recalling nearly a third of involuntarily furloughed flight attendants because the airline has faced months of operational woes, including mass cancellations and delays, caused by staffing shortages.
On Wednesday, the Florida-based low-cost carrier, headquartered in the Miami Metropolitan area, said it would be sending recall notices to 500 of around 1,800 furloughed flight attendants, inviting them back to work.
The flight attendants were sent home without pay on December 1, 2025, in an attempt by the airline to slash costs as it battles for survival amidst an ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy process.
Within weeks, however, Spirit’s senior executives had been forced to activate emergency contingency plans because so many flight attendants were calling out sick that they had no other option but to cancel flights.
Sources say that the airline went from being in a position of being massively overstaffed to unsustainably understaffed.
Despite sickness levels dropping after the worst of the flu season passed, Spirit is still unable to deactivate its Level 3 staffing contingency plans.
At the height of its staffing woes, Spirit’s chief operating officer, John Bendoraitis, said the airline had been forced to cancel up to 60 flights a day just because it couldn’t find enough flight attendants to work these services.
In an internal memo sent to active flight attendants on Wednesday and reviewed by PYOK, the airline explained: “Tomorrow we will be sending recall notices to 500 Flight Attendants on involuntary furlough as our first step in initiating an immediate recall.”
“The challenges over the past few months have demonstrated the need to assess our operational requirements, avoid cancellations, and ease the strain many of you are feeling on the line.”
Flight attendants were involuntarily furloughed in reverse seniority order. In other words, flight attendants who were last in were first to be furloughed. Recalls will be processed in seniority order.
The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) said it hoped the recalls would “help rapidly restore the reliable operations you and our Guests deserve.” Flight attendants will have 15 days to return to work once they receive their recall notice, but can choose to return sooner.
“We know this has been an exhausting period on the line,” the union added. “The reality is our ability to operate safely and reliably is essential to our airline’s future.”
“We, Spirit Flight Attendants, have carried so much on our backs and continue to show up. But we won’t stop holding management accountable as we do.”
Spirit had also planned to involuntarily furlough some pilots, but those plans were axed after it emerged that so many flight crew had voluntarily fled the carrier to rival airlines that furloughs were no longer necessary.
Last August, Spirit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York after ballooning costs and weak revenues put the carrier’s future in real jeopardy.
Spirit’s Chapter 11 plan is to slash costs and secure additional funding from investors while it attempts to shrink the airline back to profitability.
Late last year, Spirit reached a make-or-break deal with lenders to unlock a financial lifeline in the form of additional funding, although the deal was contingent on Spirit exploring opportunities for a ‘strategic transaction.’
Last month, it emerged that Spirit could be in talks with Minneapolis-based Castlelake, an alternative investment firm that specialises in asset-based financing.
In a desperate plea to investors, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) said last month that withholding additional funding would result in “thousands of employees will lose their livelihoods.”
“South Florida will lose one of its most important homegrown aviation employers. Families will be displaced. Small businesses connected to travel and aviation will suffer immediate harm,” the letter continued. “The regional and national ripple effects will be real and long-lasting.”
