Spirit Aviation Holdings Inc. has started an orderly wind-down of operations, the troubled discount carrier said in a statementBloomberg Terminal Saturday.
All Spirit flights have been canceled, and passengers have been advised not to go to the airport, after the airline failed to secure a deal with the Trump administration for funding.
The US government had been considering providing Spirit with $500 million in exchange for warrants to purchase up to 90% of the airline once it emerged from bankruptcy. But key creditors wouldn't agree to the deal, which would have given the government's claims priority if the carrier were to fail in the future.
The airline has been struggling for years but its problems were compounded by rising jet fuel prices prompted by the US and Israeli war on Iran. The conflict has largely shuttered the Strait of Hormuz, a key passageway for energy flows, leading oil and gas prices to spike.
A bailout for Spirit would have been the latest attempt by President Donald Trump to intervene in a beleaguered US company.
The US Air Force agreed to buy an undisclosed number of interceptor drones from a company backed by President Donald Trump's sons, according to the firm, deepening the military's ties to defense contractors linked to the first family as the US war with Iran enters its third month.
The West Palm Beach-based company, Powerus, will sell the drones to the Pentagon following a demonstration at a facility in Arizona, according to Brett Velicovich, the company's co-founder and president.
The deal represents the first sale of this kind of weapon -- which can zip into the sky and blow up enemy drones -- by Powerus to the US military. The company declined to detail the terms of the deal or the size of the contract, but the military frequently enters into such deals as it weighs whether to adopt a new weapons system.
The arrangement fits with a broader US push to counter cheap Iranian attack drones with similarly inexpensive interceptors instead of far pricier missiles. The US Army has already sent 10,000 AI-enabled Merops interceptor drones developed in Ukraine to the Middle East.
At a contentious congressional hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers grilled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the costs of the conflict, which the Pentagon estimates has reached $25 billion so far.
Velicovich said that the US has lagged its adversaries in development of low-cost drones. He said that interceptor drones of the kind Powerus sold to the Air Force can save taxpayer funds and adapt more quickly to threats.
"As a country, we're behind," Velicovich said in an interview. "We're finally taking the steps to fix that."
But the company's ties to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump could invite scrutiny of the deal.
Rather than pursuing an initial public offering, Powerus is planning to merge with Aureus Greenway Holdings Inc., a golf-course operator backed by the Trumps that already has a Nasdaq listing, according to an announcement earlier this year.
Democrats in Congress have asked the Pentagon for more information about other defense contractors and technology firms with ties to the president's family. In addition to Powerus, Eric Trump backed a reverse-merger deal between Israeli drone maker Xtend and JFB Construction Holdings, a publicly listed construction company.
In response to criticism of their business partnerships in their father's second term, his sons have repeatedly said they are private businessmen.
Velicovich pushed back against the criticism, saying that Powerus impressed the Air Force on the merits of its technology.
"They're not going to pick a system because of who's on an investor list," he said. "They're picking because they need it now."
The Pentagon's focus on drone warfare thrust companies like Powerus and Xtend -- and other companies in the industry, including Neros Inc. and Halo Aeronautics -- into a greater national spotlight.
Even before the Iran war broke out in late February, the Pentagon was working on a "Drone Dominance" program to equip US forces with hundreds of thousands of the weapons, arguing that procurement processes had been too bureaucratic and slow-moving.