First Spirit Folded. Now, Two Budget Airlines Are Merging. Here's What It Means for Travel.

What will and won’t change

A Sun Country plane departing Minneapolis-St. Paul. Photo: Sun Country Airlines

The most visible upside for travelers is a bigger network on one airline. Combined, Sun Country and Allegiant serve about 22 million passengers per year, with nonstop flights to roughly 175 cities across more than 650 routes. That means flyers will be able to book more direct connections between smaller cities and popular vacation spots. Sun Country flyers will gain access to Allegiant’s extensive network of small and mid-sized markets, like Provo, Utah, and Asheville, North Carolina, while Allegiant customers will pick up Sun Country’s 18 international destinations throughout Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. Minneapolis–St. Paul travelers may see the most benefit, as Sun Country used the airport as a hub — meaning the new partnership will open dozens of new destinations directly from the Twin Cities.

Loyalty program members should keep an eye on communications from both airlines, as the two programs will eventually be merged into one.

What it means for budget travel

Photo: Allegiant Air

The merger lands just weeks after some budget travelers mourned the loss of Spirit Airlines, known for its stripped-down, bare-bones fares. It ceased all operations on May 2, 2026, following several bankruptcy followings. Spirit helped bring down prices for all flyers, even those you didn’t fly on Spirit.  “You do not have to fly a small carrier in order to benefit from its presence, because they will bring down the big guys’ fares,” William McGee, a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, told NPR earlier in the month. Some travel experts have theorized that the loss of Spirit will drive up prices for flights to key cities formerly served by Spirit.

It raises a question: what will happen now with one fewer budget airline? The two carriers once competed with each other, keeping prices down on overlapping routes. Now that they’re one, and Spirit is out of the picture, there will be much less competition, and much less incentive for the combined airline to keep prices low. Experts have said they’d be surprised if prices went down in light of less competition. However, prices should eventually readjust as other US carriers see that lack of competition as an opportunity to grab customer share. The question is more about how long that process will take, and how much more travelers have to pay in the meantime. So the dream of the $49 nonstop flight isn’t totally dead — but it may just be a little harder to find for a while.