Spirit Airlines Forced to Cancel 100-Plus Flights After Grounding Dozens of Aircraft

Image: Spirit Airlines aircraft. (Photo Credit: Spirit Airlines)
Image: Spirit Airlines aircraft. (Photo Credit: Spirit Airlines)
Rich Thomaselli
by Rich Thomaselli
Last updated: 3:35 PM ET, Sun October 22, 2023

Usually, these things are weather related. Not this time.

Spirit Airlines put a ground stop on 25 planes and canceled hundreds of flights on Friday due to an issue involving inspection of the affected airplanes.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the aircraft were temporarily removed for regular inspection related to brackets on the frame of the planes.

The airplanes will not be allowed to return to service with Spirit until the agency finishes its inspections of all equipment. All told, it turns out that Spirit had to cancel 11 percent of its flight schedule for Friday.

The inspections were said to be routine, but mandatory.

In a statement, Spirit Airlines said, “We’ve canceled a portion of our scheduled flights to perform a necessary inspection of a small section of 25 of our aircraft. The impact on our network is expected to persist for several days as we carry out the inspections and endeavor to return to normal operations.”

Almost half of the canceled flights were at one of Spirit's operating bases in Florida's Orlando International Airport. 

According to data from flight-tracking website FlightAware.com, Spirit canceled 89 flights on Saturday and delayed another 86 trips. As of Sunday afternoon, the carrier has canceled 75 flights, with another 73 being delayed. 


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Rich Thomaselli

Rich Thomaselli

Associate Writer

Editor Associate Writer true 9281 14744 Rich Thomaselli has written for TravelPulse since 2014 and has been a professional journalist for nearly 40 years. His work has appeared in USA Today, the New York Times and New York Yankees publications. He is an 11-time writ

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