Earlier this month, Spirit Airlines CEO, Ted Christie resigned, after managing the airline since 2019. This came after the company crossed a rapid bankruptcy process in Chapter 11, from which it emerged in March 2025.
The company has now announced the replacement of Christie. It seems to be a good choice, but I am perplexed as for the reason why he would like this work.
Dave Davis to become CEO of Spirit Airlines
As of April 21, 2025, Dave Davis will become CEO and president of Spirit Airlines. For the context, Davis has so far served as president and financial director of Sun Country, where many thought that he would eventually become CEO and replace Jude Bricker.
Here’s how the president of Spirit Airlines, Robert Milton, described this appointment:
“We are delighted to welcome Dave as a new president and chief executive officer of Spirit. He brings with him a richness of experience and a solid history of achievements of his many years in the air transport industry. The history of Dave to the two airlines of Northwest and, more recently, at Sun Country Airlines, position it well to direct the continuous transformation of Spirit. ”
Here is what Davis had to say about his new role:
“I am delighted to join Spirit at the moment critical of the history of the company. I can’t wait to work with more than 11,000 members of the Spirit team to offer value to our guests, shareholders and communities that we serve. ”
In addition to this, Trey Urbuhn will serve as the company’s main commercial advisor, guiding all aspects of Spirit’s commercial efforts, in particular the network, prices and performance management, as well as on -board configurations and offerings of the carrier.
He is an experienced veteran of the industry, who worked with carriers like Azul, Breeze, Etihad, Jetblue and Tap Air Portugal (interesting fact, all except Etihad are airlines in which David Neeleman has been involved, and a large part of the current Etihad management team is also ex-tour).
It’s a great team, but can they save a flowing ship?
At Spirit’s credit, the airline appoints a fairly intelligent team of experienced industry leaders. I don’t think you could have chosen a better person for this role than Davis. However, I can’t help but ask myself how generous his remuneration structure should leave Sun Country, an airline that has really proven itself.
While Spirit recently emerging from bankruptcy sounds well, there is simply no way I can imagine that Spirit has an independent future. The airline lights money on fire faster than ever, and it is not even taking into account the current situation we see.
In 2024, Spirit’s financial performance was downright horrible. The airline had a negative operating room of 22.5% and suffered an operating loss of $ 1.1 billion. With the emerging spirit of bankruptcy, the airline obtained aid with its debt emission and the bonds injected $ 350 million into the airline.
However, nothing on Spirit’s real business model is improving, and with the rhythm to which the airline burns money, it does not seem long for this world. It will be interesting to see if the management team can do anything to keep this independent carrier, or if the objective at this stage is simply to sell the carrier’s assets to the most offering …
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Spirit Airlines appointed Dave Davis as CEO. He is an experienced framework for the industry that has previously been president of Sun Country. Spirit has a large team in charge now, but I would say that they have an almost impossible task (assuming that the objective is that the airline has an independent future).
What do you take from the new CEO of Spirit?
