Former Spirit Airlines employees claim they’re still owed pay, lawsuit says – National
A class action lawsuit was filed by six former Spirit Airlines employees against the company, claiming that it failed to provide proper written notice of termination and that they are still owed pay and benefits.
In the lawsuit, obtained and viewed by Global News, the former employees claim they were not given the advance notice required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which helps ensure advance notice in cases of qualified plant closings and mass layoffs.
On May 2, Spirit Airlines announced that it had gone out of business after 34 years and “started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately.”
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs include Alexa Garcia, a compliance specialist; Jonathan Dionne, a software engineer; Kenneth J. Mangione, a senior maintenance planner; Billy Moss, a heavy maintenance project manager; Erick Salazar, a senior software engineer, and Nicole Ali, a flight attendant.
The class-action lawsuit is also “on behalf of all others similarly situated.”
When reached out to by Global News for comment on the lawsuit, Spirit Airlines said, “We don’t comment on litigation.”
The former employees claim they received an email sent from David Davis, chief executive officer of Spirit, stating that the company “has decided to cease operations immediately,” according to the suit, filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
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“We regret that we are not able to give you more notice of your layoff. We were not able to do so because the Company was actively seeking capital to avoid these layoffs and closures and notice would have precluded the Company from obtaining the capital needed,” read an email, obtained and viewed by Global News, sent to Spirit employees on May 2.
The lawsuit states that approximately 17,000 employees were “suddenly without jobs or benefits and still owed pay for their accrued sick leave and vacation time.”
Spirit failed to provide the six plaintiffs and 17,000 other employees with “at least 60 days’ advance written notice of termination, in violation of the WARN Act. Accordingly, Plaintiffs and Similarly Situated Employees are entitled to recover a judgment equal to their wages and ERISA benefits for 60 days,” the legal documents add.
Although Spirit had gone bankrupt twice before, the company said high oil prices, which have been rising amid the war with Iran, made it impossible to continue.
Spirit Airlines’ parent company says it expects to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the late spring or early summer after striking a preliminary deal with its lenders and secured creditors that provides the support needed to finish its restructuring.
On or around May 4, Spirit filed a motion seeking permission to pay retention bonuses to certain employees who remain with Spirit during the wind-down process, according to the lawsuit.
“Spirit requested permission to pay US$10.7 million in retention bonuses to these non-executive employees. However, Spirit has failed to disclose the amounts it expects to pay the three unnamed executives, believed to be Davis, Fred Cromer, Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer of Spirit (‘Cromer’), and John Bendoraitis, Executive Vice-President and Chief Officer of Spirit (‘Bendoraitis’), who will participate in what is called the ‘Wind-Down KEIP,’” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit claims that failure to identify any sum of money or expected recipients of those sums is because “the amount is in the millions of dollars for each of these senior executives.”
“As recently at April 16, 2026, Spirit had advised its employees that it planned on continuing operations and that they should ignore rumors that Spirit was near a termination point,” the lawsuit says. “Plaintiffs and other Similarly Situated Employees were reassured by Spirit and its senior executives, including Davis, through this statement of confidence.”
According to the lawsuit, Spirit continued to disseminate positive, misleading statements to employees and others, assuring them that normal operations would continue in the hours immediately prior to the announcement.
Once the former employees received the news that the company would be shutting down, they were told their last day would be May 2 and they were provided with a link to a website with information about “termination, pay, benefits and a detailed Q&A,” the lawsuit says.
“The announcement stated that employees would be paid ‘for hours worked through May 2, 2026.’ However, to date, employees have not received their final paychecks, accrued vacation time, or unused sick time,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit also alleges that Spirit has “failed to make retirement contributions and provide them with health insurance coverage and other employee benefits” following their terminations.
The suit seeks an amount equal to the sum of unpaid wages, salary, commissions, bonuses, accrued holiday pay, accrued vacation pay, pension and retirement contributions, and any further relief as the court may deem just and proper.
—With files from The Associated Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
