2023 Video: Buttigieg Brags About Helping Kill Spirit Airlines, JetBlue Merger

In a 2023 video, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was seen bragging about how the Department of Transportation (DOT) was getting involved in opposing a merger between Spirit Airlines and JetBlue Airlines.

In a video from an interview in 2023 with CNN, posted to X, Buttigieg expressed that it was “important to make sure that passengers have choices” and that they “have access to low fares.”

“Our department, the Department of Transportation has generally not gotten involved in these merger cases, but that’s changing today,” Buttigieg said at the time. “It is so important to make sure that passengers have choices, that they have access to low fares, that they have access to competition. And, yet we’ve seen less and less and less of that competition over the years. We are taking a step, that again, is unusual in terms of recent years, but we think is the right thing to do — supporting the DOJ’s lawsuit, and independently using our own authorities, which are a little bit different from the DOJ — starting our own investigation and taking other actions.”

Politico reported in March 2023, that the DOT and Department of Justice (DOJ) had “launched a two-pronged attack on JetBlue’s $3.8 billion purchase” of the low-budget airline, Spirit Airlines:

The departments of Justice and Transportation on Tuesday launched a two-pronged attack on JetBlue’s $3.8 billion purchase of ultra-low-cost Spirit Airlines — an aggressive effort intended to counter decades of airline industry consolidation and ensure Americans maintain access to cheaper fares.

That includes a DOJ lawsuit filed in federal court against the proposed merger, which would create the fifth-largest airline. Its suit alleges that the deal would raise prices and reduce consumer choice in travel options. JetBlue and Spirit have argued that though the merger will mean fewer seats available to passengers, fares would remain low. Attorneys general in Massachusetts, New York and the District of Columbia joined the suit.

Breitbart News’s Lowell Cauffiel reported that “17,000 people found themselves out of work” on Saturday after Spirit Airlines “abruptly announced it was finished” and all operations ceased.

In an announcement on Spirit Airlines’ website, the airline expressed that on Saturday “an orderly wind-down” of operations had begun “effective immediately.”

“It is with great disappointment that on May 2, 2026, Spirit Airlines started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately,” the airline said. “To our Guests: all flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available. We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry over the last 33 years and had hoped to serve our Guests for many years to come.”