Hunter Peterson does voice work and posts clips on TikTok. A throwaway idea he floated in May, travelling under the name lets buy spirit, turned into a public push to reopen Spirit Airlines under shared ownership by ordinary flyers. Pledges climbed past $400 million. No money ever changed hands. By late August the campaign had dropped the Spirit name entirely.
Why Lets Buy Spirit Began After the Shutdown
Spirit Airlines cancelled every flight on May 2, 2026 and wound down operations effective immediately, closing 34 years of service.
Passengers were left mid-trip. Thousands of staff lost their jobs. A Chapter 11 reorganisation had collapsed and jet fuel prices had climbed, which the carrier’s lawyer described in court as leaving no remaining way out.
Peterson’s pitch was blunt. Gather small sums from the public, hand the money over, and take the airline off the liquidation block.
Lets Buy Spirit In Hunter Peterson’s Own Words
Days after the shutdown he ran quick sums on camera. The country holds over 250 million adults, he said. Take one fifth of them. Ask each to part with roughly the price of a typical Spirit seat, somewhere near $30 or $40.
That pot, by his reckoning, covered the whole airline.
He wanted a laugh. He got a movement. He stepped out for a meal, returned to his laptop, and saw $2.3 million already promised.
Later videos showed the strain. His first web page buckled under the traffic. He put out calls for coders, publicity help and aviation lawyers. He also said thousands of former Spirit cabin crew had backed him after he sat down with their union leaders.
Lets Buy Spirit By The Numbers
Pledge totals posted on the campaign page show how fast the idea travelled once the first video landed.
first night May 4 May 6 May 10 Late May
peak
| Figure | Amount |
|---|---|
| Pledges logged | Over 133,000 by May 6 |
| Value promised | $132 million by May 6 |
| Smallest pledge accepted | $45, described as a usual one-way Spirit fare |
| Average pledge | $989 |
| Stated target | $1.75 billion |
The $989 average sat well above the $45 floor, closer to what people commit to online earning routes than to a discount ticket.
Every figure was non-binding. Peterson said repeatedly that a pledge marked interest and nothing more.
Where The Lets Buy Spirit Ownership Model Comes From
Peterson leaned on the Green Bay Packers for his template. That club belongs to more than half a million shareholders and remains the only publicly held NFL side.
Community property of this kind is not a fresh idea. Pricing it, though, is the hard part, and even the people running a business tend to get the valuation math wrong.
How Spirit 2.0 Ownership Would Differ
| Point | How Spirit 2.0 would differ |
|---|---|
| Money back | Profit could be returned in step with the size of a pledge, which the Packers arrangement does not do |
| Say in decisions | Each pledge carries a single vote, weighted the same as every other |
What Happened Next For Lets Buy Spirit
The June fundraising round stopped short. Organisers reported $2.2 million from 443 investors by a June 26 deadline, under the $5 million minimum, and said they had chosen not to continue. Money was returned.
Pledges were never payments. The orange bar is the only real money.
Spirit’s liquidation carried on regardless. JetBlue took the LaGuardia slots with a $58.5 million bid. The headquarters sold. Google agreed to pay $10 million for internal records, excluding the customer database.
An email sent on August 22 asked members to sign up again under a new name: Let’s Build An Airline. Peterson now describes a membership carrier, a Costco of airlines, where members pay for cheaper fares and everyone else pays more.
The September 1 Plan
The group says September 1 brings a new airline name, a management team and a capital raise. Up to $5 million through Regulation Crowdfunding, up to $75 million through a Regulation A Tier 2 offering.
The route to flying runs through Part 380 public charter rules, with an existing certificate holder doing the actual flying. No partner, aircraft type or route has been named.
Fake Lets Buy Spirit Sites Are Spreading
Attention pulled in fraudsters, and copycat pages appeared within days. Peterson used TikTok to name the only two addresses tied to his effort: letsbuyspirit.com and letsbuyspiritair.com.
He stressed that no cash was being taken. Any Spirit ownership page asking for card details is a con, he said, and those are the checks shoppers run on an unfamiliar site anyway.
Card details handed to a copycat rarely stay put, as breach figures across industries show.
A clean layout proves nothing now. Domain age, contact details and named staff matter more, the same tests people apply when judging whether a news site is credible.
FAQs
What is Lets Buy Spirit?
A crowdfunding campaign started by TikTok creator Hunter Peterson in May 2026. It collected non-binding pledges toward buying Spirit Airlines out of liquidation and running it as a passenger-owned carrier.
How much did Lets Buy Spirit raise?
Pledges peaked above $437 million, none of it collected. The only real money came in June: $2.2 million from 443 investors, short of the $5 million minimum, and it was returned.
Did Lets Buy Spirit buy Spirit Airlines?
No. Spirit’s assets went to other buyers. JetBlue won the LaGuardia slots, the headquarters sold, and Google bought internal records. The campaign obtained no planes, gates or operating certificate.
Which Lets Buy Spirit websites were official?
Only letsbuyspirit.com and letsbuyspiritair.com, both named by Peterson on TikTok. Every other Spirit ownership page requesting payment details was a scam, since the campaign never took money.
What is Let’s Build An Airline?
The renamed project announced on August 22, 2026. Instead of buying Spirit, it plans a membership airline funded by a September 1 retail offering, with flying outsourced to a certificated partner.
