While the Florida-based Spirit Airlines (SAVE) was founded in the 1980s and took its first flight in 1990, the budget airline’s true heyday began in the mid-2000s.
The period marks a time in which lower airfare costs increased traveler numbers, as well as heralding a period of the airline’s rapid expansion into markets, both across the U.S. and to international destinations like Costa Rica, Haiti and Venezuela.
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In 2005, longtime American Airlines (AAL) and Northwest Airlines executive Ben Baldanza was tapped as the airline’s new president with the goal of bringing it to profitability (the low-cost airline continues to struggle on this end today). He was promoted to CEO in the same year and ended up leading the airline for more than 10 years.
Four Spirit Airlines airplanes are seen lined up on a tarmac.
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Ben Baldanza: ‘A competitive strategist and a devoted friend’
Baldanza has largely kept a low profile aside from co-hosting a podcast on aviation since his sudden resignation in 2016. The former Spirit head passed away on Nov. 5 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative illness also known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
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“As listeners know, Ben was a pioneering and visionary airline executive who made air travel affordable for millions of people and he was much more: a generous teacher, a clever and funny wit, an amazing communicator who could explain complicated concepts with simple clarity,” Scott McCartney, with whom Baldanza led the podcast Airlines Confidential, said after Baldanza’s death. “A competitive strategist and a devoted friend.”
Industry insiders and airline executives were quick to express sorrow at Baldanza’s death with statements expressing condolences and sharing memories.
At the time of his death, Baldanza also served on the board of the airline JetBlue Airways (JBLU) , the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and the Six Flags Entertainment (SIX) theme parks conglomerate.
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Industry responds: ‘Rest in peace and fly high’
“Ben was a maverick in our industry who challenged the status quo and helped to revolutionize the business for the benefit of employees and travelers,” former WestJet CEO Gregg Saretsky wrote in a comment under the LinkedIn post announcing Baldanza’s death. “Rest in peace Ben and fly high, free from the earthly shackles that held you back in the past year.”
Former Boeing (BA) CEO and current NAA Chair Jim Albaugh wrote a statement saying that Baldanza was “universally respected for what he has done, not just at Spirit Airlines, but for how he has impacted the industry over the last several decades.”
This refers to Baldanza pioneering the low-cost economic model in which budget airlines offer a low base fare and then make up for it by charging for additional services like baggage. In the 20 years that passed since Baldanza popularized it at Spirit, even mainstream airlines started to move toward a similar business structure for their lower fare classes.
“Great guy, great CEO [with whom] I had the pleasure to work under his management,” Fort Lauderdale-based pilot and captain Wilfredo Rodriguez wrote of Baldanza.
Former Spirit chairman and Frontier (FRON) founder William Franke had earlier said that “Ben took pride in the airline, and negative comments directed at Spirit were difficult for him.”
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