If you’ve shopped for airline tickets recently, you’ve likely experienced sticker shock. Airfares have been rising consistently over the past year, averaging 24 percent more in August than a year earlier, according to the Consumer Price Index.
Holiday fares are reaching new highs. The booking app Hopper said domestic fares were up 31 percent for Thanksgiving compared with last year’s.
“It’s the most expensive holiday travel season in a decade, and I can only say a decade because my data goes back a decade,” said Hayley Berg, an economist with Hopper, citing the high cost of jet fuel, which has spiked since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran in February.
Before May, budget seekers could resort to a consistent source of low-cost fares: Spirit Airlines. But since the ultra-low-cost carrier shut down this spring, after declaring bankruptcy, airlines that once competed with Spirit have been released from the carrier’s downward pressure on prices.
Cirium, an aviation analytics company, found that fares on former Spirit routes had increased roughly 5 to 6 percent in June since the year before. Though the company cautioned that Spirit’s exit alone couldn’t be credited for the rise, it noted that on one route between Cleveland and Las Vegas, the average fare among eight competing carriers in that period rose to $272 from about $192, or more than 40 percent.
Here’s what to know about the impact of Spirit’s closure on fares and where to look for airline bargains.
The Spirit Fallout
Airfares are complex, influenced by demand as well as costs, such as fuel, and factors in the broader economy, including inflation, making it hard to quantify the loss of Spirit.
Cirium looked at 1,126 city pairs where Spirit flew in June 2025. More than 90 percent of fares on those routes climbed over the next year after the airline shut down; the median fare rose 25.3 percent.
The hardest-hit destinations, according to the online travel agency FlightHub, are Spirit’s former focus cities, including Detroit, Houston, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas and New York, as well as leisure destinations such as Cancún.
In Detroit, for example, FlightHub looked at 42 routes that Spirit formerly flew and found that the median fares rose to $227 in summer 2026, after the airline’s closure, from $125 the summer before.
But price rises go beyond Spirit’s network. Cirium analyzed roughly 37,000 city pairs without a Spirit route and found that the median increase from June 2025 to this year was 18.3 percent.
“Several pressures landed at the same time,” David Krauter, the chief executive of Going.com, a service that finds cheap airfares, wrote in an email, noting the rise in costs for fuel and labor.
“Summer demand stayed strong, but airlines didn’t add many seats to keep up,” he added. “Then one of the country’s biggest low-cost carriers disappeared completely. Any one of those would push fares up. All of them together is what travelers are paying for now.”
Search Other Low-Cost Carriers
In the absence of Spirit, a handful of ultra-low-cost carriers remain, including the Denver-based Frontier Airlines, which offers a mix of city and leisure destinations, including in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
Another, Allegiant Air, based in Las Vegas, focuses on domestic nonstop flights.
Both carriers charge for things like carry-on and checked bags, seat assignments and in-flight refreshments. Fees range from $2.99 to board first on a Frontier flight to $80 for a seat selection on Allegiant.
A hybrid between low-cost and full-service carriers, Jet Blue Airways is strongest in the Eastern United States, especially in New York, Boston and Fort Lauderdale, with service to many other destinations in Florida and the Caribbean. It recently promoted flights from $200 round trip between New York and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Smaller airlines, such as Breeze Airways, tend to fly point-to-point from secondary airports. Breeze flies to more than 90 cities, including some in the Caribbean and Latin America. Another small carrier, Avelo Airlines, concentrates its service on the East Coast between Connecticut and Florida.
Sun Country Airlines operates from its hub in Minneapolis and St. Paul largely to coastal destinations, including in Mexico and the Caribbean. It recently advertised one-way flights between Minneapolis and Orlando for $49.
If you are considering a low-cost carrier, check its route frequency. Often, budget carriers don’t fly to a destination daily, which could make it harder to rebook in case of bad weather or a mechanical delay.
Consider Cheap Fares on Bigger Airlines
Among the legacy carriers, American, Delta and United offer some form of basic economy tickets. Originally designed to compete with the likes of Spirit, these are nonrefundable, no-frills tickets.
They are also inflexible. While most standard economy tickets allow passengers to retain a credit for the airfare should fliers cancel before departure, basic economy fares restrict any changes. They also prohibit seat reservations and limit carry-ons.
Southwest Airlines grew on the promise of cheap flying, including no bag fees and open seating. But its policies now push it closer to the legacy carriers, including fees for checked bags and seats reserved in advance.
Southwest’s basic airfares have one perk that many lack: They are eligible for a flight credit if a flier cancels the reservation, though it is only good for six months from the initial date the reservation was booked.
Alaska Airlines has been making many upscale moves, including recently announcing lie-flat suites coming in 2028. But for frequent fliers in the West, it offers the subscription service Flight Pass. For $69 a month, members can fly round trip once every other month on Alaska flights in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah (taxes and fees are extra). For $129, they can fly once a month.
Ticket Search Hacks
Finding cheaper airfares draws on tried-and-true strategies, including being flexible on when and, if possible, where to go.
“If you can shift your dates or keep an open mind about where you go, you’ll find far more options than someone who’s locked into one specific route and one set weekend,” said Mr. Krauter of Going.com. “We recommend letting the deal decide. Instead of picking a destination and then checking prices, look at where fares are cheap from your airport first, then decide where to go.”
Going.com also recommends booking in what it calls the “Goldilocks window”: one to three months in advance for domestic flights, and two to eight months out for international. Peak travel periods, such as the holidays, expand those windows.
Airfares rise and fall with demand. The best fares are usually for flights on less busy days, such as Tuesdays and Saturdays.
“The days that you fly have a huge impact on how expensive your flight is,” said Ms. Berg of Hopper.
She added that returning home on the Sunday after Thanksgiving this year will cost on average $250 more than returning on Monday or Tuesday or even the Friday post-holiday.
Finally, consider alternative forms of payment. Now may be the time to break into your points bank or apply any credits from previous flights.
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