By Alaa Elassar, Gloria Pazmino, CNN
(CNN) — Terminal A at LaGuardia Airport sat unusually quiet Saturday morning — no lines at the counters, no Spirit Airlines staff anywhere, just a sheet of paper taped over a cardboard sign.
“We regret to inform you that Spirit Airlines has ceased global operations,” read the sign in Terminal A, where Spirit operated in New York City for years. “All Spirit flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available.”
Above it, a departures board flickered with a string of red notices: nine Spirit flights bound for cities across Texas, Florida, Detroit, North Carolina and South Carolina — all marked simply, “cancelled.”
Saturday’s shutdown of Spirit — the pioneering budget airline that reshaped low-cost travel — has stranded thousands of passengers nationwide. The company canceled all flights, halted customer service and told travelers not to come to the airport. Customers are being issued refunds and instructed to rebook with other airlines.
Spirit’s collapse marks the first time in 25 years a major US airline has gone out of business due to financial trouble. The company, in its second bankruptcy, had been struggling for years and failed to secure a last-minute rescue deal, forcing it into an immediate wind-down after 34 years in operation.
As of 7 a.m. Saturday, a handful of passengers were still arriving at LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal A, where the confusion stretched from urgent family trips to long-planned getaways as more travelers arrived to find their plans unraveling in real time.
One woman and her elderly mother told CNN they had a flight to Charlotte for a family funeral and had not received notifications about their canceled flights.
Alexandra Merino, who had been planning a trip to Florida for Mother’s Day, told CNN from outside of LaGuardia Airport that she did not realize what was going on until she arrived.
“I just got here, and the people that were standing here just said, ‘there’s no flights, Spirit went out of business,’” Merino said, adding she hadn’t checked her email and didn’t know if any notice had come overnight. “We’re trying to get Expedia to book a new flight … Happy Mother’s Day to me.”
Nearby, another traveler caught off guard said he only realized what had happened after getting to the airport for a flight to Orlando, where he was supposed to attend his Master of Business Administration graduation ceremony.
“This is wild,” Danny Nunez told CNN, explaining that everything appeared normal when he checked his flight the night before. At a kiosk, he was told his flight had been canceled and to see an agent — but there were none. “(I’ll) try to find a way to hopefully make my school ceremony this afternoon, at two,” he said. “I’ll probably head back into the office right now and see what I can figure out.”
Emergency relief rolls out for passengers and employees
Amid the confusion and mounting disruption, other airlines are rushing to step in and fill the void.
Stacked behind a wall of digital check-in monitors were several news releases from other major airlines – Frontier, Southwest, American and United – offering assistance for stranded passengers looking to rebook their travel. JetBlue Airways and Delta Air Lines are also offering capped ticket prices.
A mother and her son lingered just outside the terminal doors, scanning hastily taped flyers listing phone numbers for other major airlines – one of the signs of help in an otherwise empty space.
The airlines say they’re offering capped “rescue fares” — most around $200 — to help stranded Spirit passengers rebook flights across the country, while American an