Former Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza Has Passed Away – View from the Wing

Today’s episode of Airlines Confidential leads with Scott McCartney sharing the news that former Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza passed away last night.

Before we begin this week’s podcast, we have a heartbreaking announcement to make. Ben Baldanza passed away last night after a valiant fight against the horrible disease ALS.

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. A competitive strategist and a devoted friend.

I’ll have more to say about Ben next week, but for now rest in peace brilliant Ben. May your memory always be for a blessing.

Ben started the podcast with reporter Seth Kaplan, and did an amazing job offering real industry commentary based on his experience and no holds barred opinions.

Most CEOs studiously avoid controversy. Baldanza was willing to audaciously articulate and defend his takes on the airline industry, even when they were unpopular with consumers or might alienate industry colleagues. He even articulated a case for the American Airlines board to fire Doug Parker in 2021, though ultimately concluded that the airline didn’t have obvious better options. American at the time still had its JetBlue partnership, and Baldanza was a JetBlue director.

He made an actual, honest case for airline bailouts during the pandemic. I disagreed strongly with it, but he didn’t pretend it was about ‘saving jobs’. He was willing to address my arguments directly, and I was always incredibly honored when he’d cite me in his Forbes columns (especially because I do not think he liked me much, but he was such an intellectually honest guy). A former board member of Wow Air, he even dished on why that airline failed and took controversial stances on vaccines.

Spirit Airlines under his leadership became profitable, and helped drive transformation in the industry. He unabashedly argued that consumers were better off with his unbundled, fee-based model. He brought down fares for millions, including travelers of other airlines who competed with him on price. Today’s Spirit focuses more on service and reliability, while Baldanza famously accidentally hit reply-all on a complaint email telling his staff (and the world) that they owed a customer nothing over their concerns,

Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.

Baldanza had served as Chairman of Six Flags, and worked at US Airways, Continental, TACA Northwest and American before Spirit. I first met (along with Barry Biffle) him twenty years ago in Crystal City after an online FlyerTalk chat. I’d hear from him occasionally when he disagreed with something I wrote. He once emailed me more than a dozen times in a day (I’d made him especially angry, though more with my framing than the substance of the argument). But I hadn’t spoken to him in three years. His engaging and gregarious nature, even and especially in disagreement, will be sorely missed. He was 62.

The Airlines Confidential episode is worth a listen for this week’s interview with Frank Lorenzo, one of the most infamous men ever to run an airline. He has has a new book that’s a must-read that walks through his acquiring Continental, Eastern and more; selling the Eastern Airlines Shuttle to Donald Trump; and eventually being ruled by DOT to be unfit to run an airline.