Ted Christie, the long-serving chief executive of embattled low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines, made the surprise announcement that he is stepping down from the job with immediate effect on Monday, opening up the possibility that Spirit now accepts a revised merger offer with rival Frontier Airlines.
The news comes just weeks after Christie rejected a takeover bid from Frontier and instead pushed for Spirit to go it alone in a pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy process.
Last month, Spirit successfully exited the financial restructuring process, although questions about whether the Flordia-based carrier can survive as an independent airline in the long term are still very much unanswered.
Having been at the helm of Spirit for the past 13 years, Christie, however, now finds himself without a job at the airline.
Christie did not provide a comment in the formal press release announcing his immediate departure, but chairman Robert Milton thanked him for keeping “the company together through challenging times.”
“We wish him all the best going forward,” Milton continued.
In January, Spirit once again rejected a takeover bid by rival ultra-low-cost airline Frontier, describing the $400 million offer as “woefully insufficient.”
Frontier has made three attempts to acquire its rival, with the first initially accepted by Spirit’s board before a supersized counteroffer from JetBlue upended the deal. The JetBlue takeover, however, ended in disaster when the Department of Justice mounted and won a legal bid to block the merger over competition fears.
Last summer, Frontier again returned to make an offer to acquire Spirit in a deal that would have valued Spirit at $580 million and given shareholders a 26.5% stake in the combined company. Following months of talks, however, Frontier unilaterally decided to walk away from negotiations, and Spirit eventually went down the Chapter 11 bankruptcy path in a pre-packaged deal.
Frontier then made a third unsolicited offer to acquire Spirit in early 2025, but this time, the airline was only offering $400 million and 19% in equity for Frontier’s shareholders.
In correspondence between the two airlines that had to be filed with the SEC, Christie made it clear that he wasn’t impressed with the terms of the deal and wanted Frontier to match the offer it had tabled back in 2024. Frontier rejected Christie’s demands.
Christie began his airline career at Frontier Airlines in 2002, where he took part in a financial restructuring of the Denver-based carrier before moving to the now-defunct regional airline holding company Pinnacle Airlines Corp as chief financial officer.
In 2012, Christie landed at Spirit as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer before being promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in 2017. A year later, Christie was named as the airline’s President.
