#59 – The Bananas Are Dead: Why The Collapse of Spirit Airlines Should Haunt Every Dealmaker

How do you set a deal up for success when the most dangerous forces in your deal are the ones you can't negotiate with at all?   You've probably heard the news: two weeks ago, Spirit Airlines — the ultra-low-cost carrier known to air traffic controllers as "the Bananas" — shut down for good. After 34 years of operations and a spotless safety record, 17,000 jobs went with it. Now everyone's asking: who killed Spirit Airlines? But dealmakers should be asking something else entirely: how do you make sure your company isn't next? This week on S4N, Gene unpacks the Spirit Airlines collapse through a negotiation lens, not a political one. It's a story of failed mergers, shifting ground, and the question no one at the table bothered to ask: who else has the power to kill this deal? An eerily similar collapse played out twenty years ago, and no one in the industry, or in government, seems to have learned from it. But you can. This episode is about more than an airline. It's about what's missing from your map of a deal: the players you didn't account for, the assumptions you didn't stress-test, and the conditions that can change without warning. If you've ever watched a deal unravel from forces outside the deal itself, this episode will help you see the next one coming. Remember: negotiation is life. Mentioned in this episode: 10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea by Suzy Welch The West Point Way of Leadership by Larry R. Donnithorne "Who Killed Spirit?", article by David Thornton for Ordinary Times, May 3, 2026 Video of Jon Jackson's retirement flight celebration