May 8, 2026 • 15 mins
Would a crowdfunded airline be possible - and would you want a piece of it?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Murphy Samonchoti. After the show podcast, be sure
to catch us on YouTube. Also, if you haven't done
soe yet.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
One of the biggest stories in business, maybe for the
whole year of twenty twenty six we'll see, is that
Spirit Airlines just abruptly shut down. Was it Saturday morning?
We all woke up and it's like, sorry, folks, this
is it.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Now We're not only canceling today's flights.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
What's funny is they did it at three am Saturday morning. Yeah,
it's like, let's sneak this one in.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
So. One of the stories we touched on in three
Things to Note Today There's so much to know here
was that there is a TikToker who has who created
quickly the website let's buyspiritair dot com as a joke.
The word is. His name is Hunter Peterson. He did
it as a joke as like a crowdsourcing thing to
get to the one point seventy five billion would that
(00:51):
would be needed to purchase it? Like so and it was.
It was the green Bay model. You guys know what
the green Bay model is. No green Bay Packers being
the only in community owned franchise in the NFL, like
three hundred and sixty thousand ordinary people own shares of it,
and that's how it's run and operated. And so it
(01:11):
would be like that where we could all own Spirit Airlines.
And he set the website up and he started asking
for pledges. I think he asked like forty five dollars,
which was apparently the cost of a typical Spirit ticket.
That's lower than I thought. I thought they were ninety
nine dollars.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Dollars? Is that using real jet fuel?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
But he wasn't asking for actual donations. He was asking
for pledges. Let's see how far we can get. So
nobody sent any money yet. But when he did this
early this week, the website crashed like people were logging
on and apparently the average pledge was like eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
People, You know a lot of people were like, yeah,
I want to own an airline. I want to have
a community owned airline. There is no such thing, saying, right, Murphy,
I asked Murphy, because he's the business.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I mean, I mean not to my knowledge, I don't
think so. But you know, the while the crowdfunding thing
is a great idea, putting that money up doesn't guarantee
you that it's not like buying shares in a business.
Because it's crowdfunding, it's going to somebody who's collecting that money.
There's no guarantee that money is going to where it's
supposed to, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
But he's being praised on social media like doing something
quickly striking while the topic is hot. You know, it's
like a leadership move. It doesn't mean it's going to
ever happen.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I think, if anything, what it shows is there's a passion.
It's a small percentage. It's a very small percentage. But
you know, like anything, if you're passionate it's a brand
you love, you're going to stand up for it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
But true.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
But you know, as I was learning more about this,
and I was just curious too, because off the top
of my head, I would assume, you know, the majority
of people fly Delta, Southwest, United or America, And sure enough,
I'm correct on that each of those has almost twenty
percent of the market. So you know, the thing about
(03:03):
Spirit is it had about four percent. And this is
not sudden, by the way, too. Everybody thinks it's sudden.
It appeared to be sudden, but no, it's not sudden.
It's actually happened over a seven year process. It was
COVID that really was the first time that they incurred
a ton of debt because people weren't traveling. Remember that, Well,
(03:25):
the other airlines were covered because they were selling premium
tickets and upgrades and other things. Spirit is a budget airline.
They can't do that, even Southwest, right, I mean had
to raise their ticket, right, you know. To me, Southwest
is like the Southwest is probably the king of the
economy style. Even though they've now adjusted and they have
(03:45):
upgrades also there, everybody's had to kind of modify. But
they've had that down to a science. They fly one
kind of plane. They've had a smart business model for
fifty years, you know, and it works and they were
able to get through. But all the airlines, i mean
airlines themselves, if they don't have help from bailouts and
other things like that. It's an expensive business. And when
you get billions in debt, which is why the crowdfunding
(04:07):
is going to be difficult. It's not like you got
to keep that up, you know. But you know, so
that was you know, blow number one was during COVID.
Blow number two was, I would have to read up.
I remember there being some sort of an engine issue
that grounded a lot of planes from a number of
different airlines, and it grounded twenty percent of Spirits fleet,
(04:28):
so they had to cut back on the number of flights.
If you don't fly, you don't make money, you know.
And then they also wanted to merge with Jet Blue
a year ago, and there were anti trust rules that
prevented that from happening. So they've been looking for an
escape hatch for a while because they've been operating in
the red. So while yes, it was a surprise to
(04:49):
people who were booked on the airline, which is not
it's really unfortunate that happened to a lot of people
who had to rebook, you know, but it was there
was nothing that was sudden about it, you know, all
that everything failed, and the death knell really was the
increase in jet fueled expenses. You know that's occurring because
of oil prices around the world. Right, So those are
(05:10):
the things that you know that made it happen. But
I think that you know, one person, well, it takes
is one person if they can lead a cause, whether
it's through crowdfunding or whatever, to create enough momentum that
maybe it's you know, a true investor will want to
try to come back and bring it back. Yeah, while
it's hot.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Some people are saying, you know that his idea was
for it to be the Green Bay model, the green
green Bay Packers model, where you know, no billionaire can
move that team, no hedge fund can you know, sell
it and gut it for parts. So that's what he
called it online. The Spirit two point zero model, a
really cool ida and for the first time in American history,
was his hope and goal. And it doesn't mean he's
(05:48):
going to shut it down, but he's no, they're nowhere near.
And it's just pledges.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Like you said, it's it's nobody's given any money.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
The thing is, if if they do reach a two
billion dollars, then he goes, hey, guess what, we we
got enough pledges, so let's make this real.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Then that's wants to who wants to run it, who
wants to be.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
You know, I pledged eight hundred bucks. I was just
a joke. I just wanted to get in on.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That's why I'm saying crowdfunding is not the way they're
going to be able to put it back together. It
could start the momentum, you know, Lily.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
On a crowdfunded airline. Okay, look, we have an email
that came in. I'm sorry, it's a comment from our
YouTube page from Logan about Spirit Gattie. Spirit Airlines wasn't
the most comfortable, oftentimes had delays, and you paid just
as much as the other airlines if you got add
ons right. The big thing here, though, is if if
(06:38):
you're just flying somewhere for a few days to see family,
you could theoretically fit all your clothes in a backpack,
no problem. I flew several times to see family for
a sixty dollars round trip. It wasn't always the most comfortable,
but Spirit always got you there safely and thirty four
years no fatalities. Bruiser Faith, look that up. It's true
(06:59):
that no fatal I think I like to think of
this is from Logan. I like to think of them
as public transportation, but with wings. But they are no
more now xty dollar round trip.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Lord, Well, I remember there were friends that told me
that exact same thing that he's saying though, Because you, yeah,
I mean, because you literally did pay for everything that
wasn't a seat. And so if you could travel with
that booking luggage, you were i mean, you were golden.
You'd get the cheapest ticket. But think about that. If
the tickets sixty bucks and it cost you fifty dollars
to pack up, you know, to book a bag, well
you've already doubled, almost doubled your airfare, right.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Therefore, Yeah, but that's how they can offer them, that's
how they can offer the low price thing. Yeah, yeah,
that makes sense to me. It makes sense to me
that it's all very expensive. It's a really expensive business
to run. And they also had this thing that came
out this week about which airlines are you know, top
and customer satisfaction, and Delta did come in very high
(07:53):
on every in every part of the surveys. You know,
just they've got that down, but they're the bigger one.
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
You remember Value Jet. Yeah, Value Jet in the nineties
was run and unforn well, and unfortunately they did have
a fatality in the situation. Yeah yeah, but that's I mean, look,
that's a whole that could it could have happened to
any and it has almost every major airline has had
had that over you know, one hundred years worth of
flight and and I think that was the first one.
(08:25):
There are always new FAA rules that come out of
these things, and I think that one had to do
with either like oxygen tanks or something like that. And
as we know, there's been there have been other issues.
The whole reason for the lithium batteries thing now is
because there was a jet that had an issue with that.
You know, I don't remember if it was being shipped
or whether it was I don't think there was in
somebody's bag. But you know, all these new safety rules
(08:46):
they come out of those, you know things, And so
that's one reason that air travel is truly safer now
than it's ever been. But you know, smaller airlines like
that have always either been gobbled up by the others
or gone out of business. I mean United Airline Lines, remember,
is a combination of United in the old continental airlines.
I would not know that, you do, remember that, yeah,
(09:06):
And you know, after the Value Jet name kind of
got tarnished, they rebranded as air Tran and then Southwest
basically bought air Tran And when you buy that, you
rebranded as your jets and now you've got more routes.
You're buying routes when you do that.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I started reading an article this week about it. I
know we touched on it in the show a couple
of times, but I got confused. It was a confusing,
you know, article explaining all the planes that they own,
like other airlines will also be looking to grab those,
but a lot of them were leased.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Also well, most most airlines lease their jets. Most most
airlines don't own their jets.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And it's just it's just an interesting there's so much
to consider and to know about it.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
They lease them from from there. They're largely they're they're
large holding companies. I guess the best way to I
mean this is, you know, I've not done a ton
of researcher on this, but it's they're basically like venture
capital groups and investors. It's it's you know, it's big
money crowdfunding if you want to call it. But they're
they're investors that you know, groups that own the planes,
(10:07):
the jets, the whatever, or they fund them and the
airlines typically lease them. It doesn't do it any big business, yes,
and a big business will tell you that something like that,
because you're talking about multimillion dollar jets and because everything
the values over time. It's not a smart business model
for an airline to own a jet.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Then more are you going to do when it's time
to upgrade or.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
The same thing like when you know, you know, when
you have a car, you know, I mean it's a yes,
eventually you own the car, but think about what happens
to a car that's ten or fifteen years old, and
then translate that to air travel. You want to be
able to upgrade, modify, You want somebody else to bear,
you know, the responsibility for you know, whatever it is
they need to do to you know, keep keep everything
(10:46):
flight worthy. So that's why the I mean my understanding
is that's why they do this.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Murphy loves is talking about aviation. Look, every time we
get on a flight together, he's always telling me about
the jet we're on. And you know how, my most
unfavorite thing is when you do tell me how old
it is this jet is blah blah blah. I'm like,
I don't I don't want to hear that. I'd like
to hear that it's new.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Well, you know all those things that it's That's what's
crazy about these apps. Now you can you'll immediately know
what the tail number is everything you want to know
about the history of that jet, who actually owns it?
And look, I do think the airlines do. There is
some ownership of some jets, but most of these fleets
are actually leased and that's how they refresh their fleets
when it's time to you know, swap out or whatever
it is that they want to do. But you can
(11:25):
find out all of those, you know, things just on
the apps like flight radar and I'm trying to think
of what the other one is that a flight aware.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Flight aware that's the one I'll see you using all
the time.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yeah, and on the flight yeah, and as well. That's
really I think that's how the news media is able
to track everything. That when you see information immediately on
flights and tail info and all that kind of stuff,
there's the same kind of tracking for trains and ships.
That's the reason you're seeing all this. You know, when
you see this these whatever it is that's moving in
the strait of her moves, you know, it's the same
(11:56):
kind of an app you know that tracks that tracks
all those things. But yeah, that just fascinates me.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
On a jet, you know, there's people online that track
like Taylor Swift, you know wherever she flies person and
then she flew back from here to that. It's like, wow,
I know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
I mean, I'm a I think I'm just kind of
a goober when it comes to the air travel. I
was my dad is interest though. My dad was so
into aviation. That's why that was, you know, interesting to me.
And I don't think you were on this flight with me, Jody,
I don't remember. Excuse me. I was on a Southwest
flight where they announced that the plane was literally being
(12:33):
retired right after I landed.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, you told me. I'm so glad I wasn't on
that plane. But it was a fun thing, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
It was great. It was Southwest, and I mean, you know,
good airlines. I really the major oh I love the
major airlines are all good. Southwest though, has that personality thing,
and they were just kind of celebrating that. So this
jet that I was flying on, this has been about
five years ago. Was uh was put into service in
nineteen eighty three, so it had been in the air
(13:01):
for forty years.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That baby needed it.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Had been you know, I mean it didn't have Wi Fi.
You know, it did have props, you know, I'm.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Kidding, probably had the little ashtrays on the handle.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Still would you put them there?
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah? No, So those interiors get upgraded and changed. The
only thing that I could tell is that there was
you know, older engines, so when when it took off,
you could smell the you know, the exhausted do you.
I mean I remember that as a kid. I remember,
you know, like at the airport, when you'd watch your
plane take off, you would see the plume of smoke
from the engines emissions controlled or it's much better now.
(13:36):
You don't see that coming off the back of a plane,
you know, or a jet now, but you know you could,
you could, so I would smell that, and the engines
were a little noisy, and it didn't have the wing
tips on it, so it made the flight a little
more bumpy. I mean, there are a lot of modern,
you know, enhancements to jets, but it was kind of
cool to me. It's like, oh, wow, this is great.
Well for a moment, I was thinking, oh is this
(13:56):
a good thing? Last flight? I'm on the last flight.
It's about to mothball.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
And actually they don't wind up always being mothball. They
want it being rehab and sold to you know, other countries,
and that's.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Sort of that's my next question, my obvious question. What
happens to an airlines plane when it's retired. Are they
sold for parts? Do they?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I mean, yeah, I think it's all of those. It's
it can be that, but there is some of these
large wide wide body jets get retrofitted. I've heard about
like seven forty seven's that get retrofitted for I'm not
going to use the correct terms for royalty of you know,
like I don't know the term. It's like air Force one,
(14:36):
no country, but like for Saudi Arabia, I mean they're
you're talking about multi billionaires and you know in in
the Middle EASTI grad, yeah, well, I mean yeah, they'll
just modify them and customize them, you know, for them
or you know, or some of them go into service,
you know, for other airlines in other countries, and so,
you know, look, as long as they're maintained, you know,
I guess they get to an age where you don't
(14:58):
fly them anymore if technology gets better, but you know,
at some point, yes, they become multi Those are kind
of like if you've ever seen a website that has
pictures of planes that have been mothballed. It's kind of
seene they are. It's sad to look like to look
at you if.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
They don't have an airplane thing like they do for
cars where you can go pull your own parts off.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I don't know the answer to that either.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You mean like you work for Delta and you need.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
A I need a front wheel assembly.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Let me go to a you're listening to this or
watching it on YouTube and you know any of these answers.
Let us know. We love hearing about it. And thank
you again Logan for that comment about Spirit missed any
part of the show. Get it All on the Murphy
Salmon Jody Podcast.
Welcome to Murphy Samonchoti. After the show podcast, be sure
to catch us on YouTube. Also, if you haven't done
soe yet.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
One of the biggest stories in business, maybe for the
whole year of twenty twenty six we'll see, is that
Spirit Airlines just abruptly shut down. Was it Saturday morning?
We all woke up and it's like, sorry, folks, this
is it.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Now We're not only canceling today's flights.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
What's funny is they did it at three am Saturday morning. Yeah,
it's like, let's sneak this one in.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
So. One of the stories we touched on in three
Things to Note Today There's so much to know here
was that there is a TikToker who has who created
quickly the website let's buyspiritair dot com as a joke.
The word is. His name is Hunter Peterson. He did
it as a joke as like a crowdsourcing thing to
get to the one point seventy five billion would that
(00:51):
would be needed to purchase it? Like so and it was.
It was the green Bay model. You guys know what
the green Bay model is. No green Bay Packers being
the only in community owned franchise in the NFL, like
three hundred and sixty thousand ordinary people own shares of it,
and that's how it's run and operated. And so it
(01:11):
would be like that where we could all own Spirit Airlines.
And he set the website up and he started asking
for pledges. I think he asked like forty five dollars,
which was apparently the cost of a typical Spirit ticket.
That's lower than I thought. I thought they were ninety
nine dollars.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Dollars? Is that using real jet fuel?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
But he wasn't asking for actual donations. He was asking
for pledges. Let's see how far we can get. So
nobody sent any money yet. But when he did this
early this week, the website crashed like people were logging
on and apparently the average pledge was like eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
People, You know a lot of people were like, yeah,
I want to own an airline. I want to have
a community owned airline. There is no such thing, saying, right, Murphy,
I asked Murphy, because he's the business.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I mean, I mean not to my knowledge, I don't
think so. But you know, the while the crowdfunding thing
is a great idea, putting that money up doesn't guarantee
you that it's not like buying shares in a business.
Because it's crowdfunding, it's going to somebody who's collecting that money.
There's no guarantee that money is going to where it's
supposed to, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
But he's being praised on social media like doing something
quickly striking while the topic is hot. You know, it's
like a leadership move. It doesn't mean it's going to
ever happen.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I think, if anything, what it shows is there's a passion.
It's a small percentage. It's a very small percentage. But
you know, like anything, if you're passionate it's a brand
you love, you're going to stand up for it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
But true.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
But you know, as I was learning more about this,
and I was just curious too, because off the top
of my head, I would assume, you know, the majority
of people fly Delta, Southwest, United or America, And sure enough,
I'm correct on that each of those has almost twenty
percent of the market. So you know, the thing about
(03:03):
Spirit is it had about four percent. And this is
not sudden, by the way, too. Everybody thinks it's sudden.
It appeared to be sudden, but no, it's not sudden.
It's actually happened over a seven year process. It was
COVID that really was the first time that they incurred
a ton of debt because people weren't traveling. Remember that, Well,
(03:25):
the other airlines were covered because they were selling premium
tickets and upgrades and other things. Spirit is a budget airline.
They can't do that, even Southwest, right, I mean had
to raise their ticket, right, you know. To me, Southwest
is like the Southwest is probably the king of the
economy style. Even though they've now adjusted and they have
(03:45):
upgrades also there, everybody's had to kind of modify. But
they've had that down to a science. They fly one
kind of plane. They've had a smart business model for
fifty years, you know, and it works and they were
able to get through. But all the airlines, i mean
airlines themselves, if they don't have help from bailouts and
other things like that. It's an expensive business. And when
you get billions in debt, which is why the crowdfunding
(04:07):
is going to be difficult. It's not like you got
to keep that up, you know. But you know, so
that was you know, blow number one was during COVID.
Blow number two was, I would have to read up.
I remember there being some sort of an engine issue
that grounded a lot of planes from a number of
different airlines, and it grounded twenty percent of Spirits fleet,
(04:28):
so they had to cut back on the number of flights.
If you don't fly, you don't make money, you know.
And then they also wanted to merge with Jet Blue
a year ago, and there were anti trust rules that
prevented that from happening. So they've been looking for an
escape hatch for a while because they've been operating in
the red. So while yes, it was a surprise to
(04:49):
people who were booked on the airline, which is not
it's really unfortunate that happened to a lot of people
who had to rebook, you know, but it was there
was nothing that was sudden about it, you know, all
that everything failed, and the death knell really was the
increase in jet fueled expenses. You know that's occurring because
of oil prices around the world. Right, So those are
(05:10):
the things that you know that made it happen. But
I think that you know, one person, well, it takes
is one person if they can lead a cause, whether
it's through crowdfunding or whatever, to create enough momentum that
maybe it's you know, a true investor will want to
try to come back and bring it back. Yeah, while
it's hot.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Some people are saying, you know that his idea was
for it to be the Green Bay model, the green
green Bay Packers model, where you know, no billionaire can
move that team, no hedge fund can you know, sell
it and gut it for parts. So that's what he
called it online. The Spirit two point zero model, a
really cool ida and for the first time in American history,
was his hope and goal. And it doesn't mean he's
(05:48):
going to shut it down, but he's no, they're nowhere near.
And it's just pledges.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Like you said, it's it's nobody's given any money.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
The thing is, if if they do reach a two
billion dollars, then he goes, hey, guess what, we we
got enough pledges, so let's make this real.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Then that's wants to who wants to run it, who
wants to be.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
You know, I pledged eight hundred bucks. I was just
a joke. I just wanted to get in on.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That's why I'm saying crowdfunding is not the way they're
going to be able to put it back together. It
could start the momentum, you know, Lily.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
On a crowdfunded airline. Okay, look, we have an email
that came in. I'm sorry, it's a comment from our
YouTube page from Logan about Spirit Gattie. Spirit Airlines wasn't
the most comfortable, oftentimes had delays, and you paid just
as much as the other airlines if you got add
ons right. The big thing here, though, is if if
(06:38):
you're just flying somewhere for a few days to see family,
you could theoretically fit all your clothes in a backpack,
no problem. I flew several times to see family for
a sixty dollars round trip. It wasn't always the most comfortable,
but Spirit always got you there safely and thirty four
years no fatalities. Bruiser Faith, look that up. It's true
(06:59):
that no fatal I think I like to think of
this is from Logan. I like to think of them
as public transportation, but with wings. But they are no
more now xty dollar round trip.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Lord, Well, I remember there were friends that told me
that exact same thing that he's saying though, Because you, yeah,
I mean, because you literally did pay for everything that
wasn't a seat. And so if you could travel with
that booking luggage, you were i mean, you were golden.
You'd get the cheapest ticket. But think about that. If
the tickets sixty bucks and it cost you fifty dollars
to pack up, you know, to book a bag, well
you've already doubled, almost doubled your airfare, right.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Therefore, Yeah, but that's how they can offer them, that's
how they can offer the low price thing. Yeah, yeah,
that makes sense to me. It makes sense to me
that it's all very expensive. It's a really expensive business
to run. And they also had this thing that came
out this week about which airlines are you know, top
and customer satisfaction, and Delta did come in very high
(07:53):
on every in every part of the surveys. You know,
just they've got that down, but they're the bigger one.
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
You remember Value Jet. Yeah, Value Jet in the nineties
was run and unforn well, and unfortunately they did have
a fatality in the situation. Yeah yeah, but that's I mean, look,
that's a whole that could it could have happened to
any and it has almost every major airline has had
had that over you know, one hundred years worth of
flight and and I think that was the first one.
(08:25):
There are always new FAA rules that come out of
these things, and I think that one had to do
with either like oxygen tanks or something like that. And
as we know, there's been there have been other issues.
The whole reason for the lithium batteries thing now is
because there was a jet that had an issue with that.
You know, I don't remember if it was being shipped
or whether it was I don't think there was in
somebody's bag. But you know, all these new safety rules
(08:46):
they come out of those, you know things, And so
that's one reason that air travel is truly safer now
than it's ever been. But you know, smaller airlines like
that have always either been gobbled up by the others
or gone out of business. I mean United Airline Lines, remember,
is a combination of United in the old continental airlines.
I would not know that, you do, remember that, yeah,
(09:06):
And you know, after the Value Jet name kind of
got tarnished, they rebranded as air Tran and then Southwest
basically bought air Tran And when you buy that, you
rebranded as your jets and now you've got more routes.
You're buying routes when you do that.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I started reading an article this week about it. I
know we touched on it in the show a couple
of times, but I got confused. It was a confusing,
you know, article explaining all the planes that they own,
like other airlines will also be looking to grab those,
but a lot of them were leased.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Also well, most most airlines lease their jets. Most most
airlines don't own their jets.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And it's just it's just an interesting there's so much
to consider and to know about it.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
They lease them from from there. They're largely they're they're
large holding companies. I guess the best way to I
mean this is, you know, I've not done a ton
of researcher on this, but it's they're basically like venture
capital groups and investors. It's it's you know, it's big
money crowdfunding if you want to call it. But they're
they're investors that you know, groups that own the planes,
(10:07):
the jets, the whatever, or they fund them and the
airlines typically lease them. It doesn't do it any big business, yes,
and a big business will tell you that something like that,
because you're talking about multimillion dollar jets and because everything
the values over time. It's not a smart business model
for an airline to own a jet.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Then more are you going to do when it's time
to upgrade or.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
The same thing like when you know, you know, when
you have a car, you know, I mean it's a yes,
eventually you own the car, but think about what happens
to a car that's ten or fifteen years old, and
then translate that to air travel. You want to be
able to upgrade, modify, You want somebody else to bear,
you know, the responsibility for you know, whatever it is
they need to do to you know, keep keep everything
(10:46):
flight worthy. So that's why the I mean my understanding
is that's why they do this.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Murphy loves is talking about aviation. Look, every time we
get on a flight together, he's always telling me about
the jet we're on. And you know how, my most
unfavorite thing is when you do tell me how old
it is this jet is blah blah blah. I'm like,
I don't I don't want to hear that. I'd like
to hear that it's new.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Well, you know all those things that it's That's what's
crazy about these apps. Now you can you'll immediately know
what the tail number is everything you want to know
about the history of that jet, who actually owns it?
And look, I do think the airlines do. There is
some ownership of some jets, but most of these fleets
are actually leased and that's how they refresh their fleets
when it's time to you know, swap out or whatever
it is that they want to do. But you can
(11:25):
find out all of those, you know, things just on
the apps like flight radar and I'm trying to think
of what the other one is that a flight aware.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Flight aware that's the one I'll see you using all
the time.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yeah, and on the flight yeah, and as well. That's
really I think that's how the news media is able
to track everything. That when you see information immediately on
flights and tail info and all that kind of stuff,
there's the same kind of tracking for trains and ships.
That's the reason you're seeing all this. You know, when
you see this these whatever it is that's moving in
the strait of her moves, you know, it's the same
(11:56):
kind of an app you know that tracks that tracks
all those things. But yeah, that just fascinates me.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
On a jet, you know, there's people online that track
like Taylor Swift, you know wherever she flies person and
then she flew back from here to that. It's like, wow,
I know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
I mean, I'm a I think I'm just kind of
a goober when it comes to the air travel. I
was my dad is interest though. My dad was so
into aviation. That's why that was, you know, interesting to me.
And I don't think you were on this flight with me, Jody,
I don't remember. Excuse me. I was on a Southwest
flight where they announced that the plane was literally being
(12:33):
retired right after I landed.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, you told me. I'm so glad I wasn't on
that plane. But it was a fun thing, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
It was great. It was Southwest, and I mean, you know,
good airlines. I really the major oh I love the
major airlines are all good. Southwest though, has that personality thing,
and they were just kind of celebrating that. So this
jet that I was flying on, this has been about
five years ago. Was uh was put into service in
nineteen eighty three, so it had been in the air
(13:01):
for forty years.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That baby needed it.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Had been you know, I mean it didn't have Wi Fi.
You know, it did have props, you know, I'm.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Kidding, probably had the little ashtrays on the handle.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Still would you put them there?
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah? No, So those interiors get upgraded and changed. The
only thing that I could tell is that there was
you know, older engines, so when when it took off,
you could smell the you know, the exhausted do you.
I mean I remember that as a kid. I remember,
you know, like at the airport, when you'd watch your
plane take off, you would see the plume of smoke
from the engines emissions controlled or it's much better now.
(13:36):
You don't see that coming off the back of a plane,
you know, or a jet now, but you know you could,
you could, so I would smell that, and the engines
were a little noisy, and it didn't have the wing
tips on it, so it made the flight a little
more bumpy. I mean, there are a lot of modern,
you know, enhancements to jets, but it was kind of
cool to me. It's like, oh, wow, this is great.
Well for a moment, I was thinking, oh is this
(13:56):
a good thing? Last flight? I'm on the last flight.
It's about to mothball.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
And actually they don't wind up always being mothball. They
want it being rehab and sold to you know, other countries,
and that's.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Sort of that's my next question, my obvious question. What
happens to an airlines plane when it's retired. Are they
sold for parts? Do they?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I mean, yeah, I think it's all of those. It's
it can be that, but there is some of these
large wide wide body jets get retrofitted. I've heard about
like seven forty seven's that get retrofitted for I'm not
going to use the correct terms for royalty of you know,
like I don't know the term. It's like air Force one,
(14:36):
no country, but like for Saudi Arabia, I mean they're
you're talking about multi billionaires and you know in in
the Middle EASTI grad, yeah, well, I mean yeah, they'll
just modify them and customize them, you know, for them
or you know, or some of them go into service,
you know, for other airlines in other countries, and so,
you know, look, as long as they're maintained, you know,
I guess they get to an age where you don't
(14:58):
fly them anymore if technology gets better, but you know,
at some point, yes, they become multi Those are kind
of like if you've ever seen a website that has
pictures of planes that have been mothballed. It's kind of
seene they are. It's sad to look like to look
at you if.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
They don't have an airplane thing like they do for
cars where you can go pull your own parts off.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I don't know the answer to that either.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You mean like you work for Delta and you need.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
A I need a front wheel assembly.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Let me go to a you're listening to this or
watching it on YouTube and you know any of these answers.
Let us know. We love hearing about it. And thank
you again Logan for that comment about Spirit missed any
part of the show. Get it All on the Murphy
Salmon Jody Podcast.
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