The OP text claims that Spirit was burdened down by debt. I don't know the exact circumstances, but these days aquisitions often happen by putting the debt on the company purchased, so even otherwise profitable businesses can be made unviable because the new owner leveraged the purchase too heavily.

So if those debts got a haircut in the insolvency process, or the sellers agree to cut them as part of a rescue purchase, that might make Spirit economically viable again.

Also, a normal shareholder company gives votes according to the number of shares owned. The proposed model in the OP text is explicitly only one vote per owner, which is a legal requirement for coops in the US afaik (the profit sharing is more flexible).

Last but not least, research shows that worker owned coops are significantly more resilient to economic down-turns and other shocks. This is partially because of the higher willingness of the workers to go without or lower pay for a while, so it can be seen as a form of self-exploitation, but regardless of that, a Spirit cooperative might be viable when Spirit Inc. was not.

good tidbit about high maintenance planes.

If it can’t exist without being premium prices and offering, does that mean this is now a new thing the lower class cannot have? Ability to fly,

Digression, This feels like a disease of costs. They always have to climb, somebody has to be sacrificed to reach these new ever higher luxuries. I see the same in my industry. And I want to slam on the brakes and yell “not that fast”

Perhaps this gave me a glimmer of hope, can a company operate without all the overhead of middle men. As I believe you’re correctly pointing out, it can operate on marginally profits, but the risks are too high. When mistakes are made there’s no room in the books

If nothing else it seems like a successful buyout could result in holding on to the company and assets until a genuinely viable plan is strategized. It won't really help the existing employees or anything, but it would prevent or defer total dissolution past a point of no return.

It always strikes me as odd that the entire airline industry seems to be operated out of force of habit, because it's not what any of the businesses that do that job make their money doing. There's an old "survival of the fittest, if a business can't work, it deserves to die" streak in me that...if we let that happen, we'd probably have more of a country under us right now.