Late night lost one of its most reliable punching bags this weekend after Spirit Airlines abruptly ceased operations—and on Monday night, the hosts gave it the send-off it had coming.
For years, Spirit Airlines occupied a rare sweet spot in late-night comedy—instantly recognizable and universally understood, earning a place alongside the holiday fruitcake, Joey Buttafuoco, and John Wayne Bobbitt as a go-to punchline.
The discount carrier was eulogized across the dial Monday, with each of the nightly network shows squeezing in a few final shots.
Stephen Colbert opened The Late Show with mock despair over the loss of a dependable bit.
“The high price of fuel took its toll this weekend, because yesterday, Spirit Airlines shut down. Oh, no. I have three more weeks of shows to do. Now I won’t have Spirit Airlines jokes? Quick, somebody check on Arby’s: the Spirit Airlines of shaved beef.”
He added one last jab at the airline’s famously lacking service, noting that its shutdown statement—“all flights have been canceled, and customer service is no longer available”—was “coincidentally… also Spirit’s motto.”
Jimmy Kimmel leaned into the timing of Spirit’s announcement.
“Why they did this at 2:00 in the morning with no advanced notice, I have no idea,” he said of the airline’s early Saturday statement. “But at least Spirit died doing what they love, which is being the worst airline in the history of the world.”
He also acknowledged what the shutdown means for late night itself:
“Spirit being terrible is something every person got immediately, and that’s hard to replace. We are taking applications. I’ve got my eye on you, Allegiant.”
Over on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon framed the news as a changing of the guard in airline infamy.
“Over the weekend Spirit Airlines officially went out of business… When they heard, Frontier was like, ‘Oh no! Are we the worst airline now?’”
Seth Meyers tied the news to another recent development that’s thinned the herd of easy travel jokes.
“If you had a Spirit flight booked over the weekend, good news, you were upgraded to not having one… This is the worst news for my writers since they fixed LaGuardia.”
And yes, Gutfeld! on Fox News—with Kat Timpf filling in Monday night—got its shots in too:
“Spirit Airlines has abruptly ended operations… Now if you want to punch complete strangers in the stomach, you’ve got to take a cruise.”
Beyond the monologues, two shows went further. Fallon staged a bit with a diehard Spirit passenger unaware that other airlines exist, while Kimmel was interrupted by two incredulous “Spirit pilots” in his studio audience—still expecting to depart LAX 20 minutes later.
“If you’re supposed to take off in 20 minutes, why aren’t you on the plane?” Kimmel asked.
“Because it’s a Spirit plane, dumbass,” one of the pilots responded.
