Spirit Airlines: Who owns the company and what impact could the incident have on its value?

This weekend, passengers on a Spirit Airlines flight from Montego Bay, Jamaica, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, endured a nightmare experience that thankfully ended without injuries. Passengers were told shortly after takeoff to prepare for a water landing after flight crew discovered a mechanical issue. These measures were taken out of an abundance of caution rather than necessity, but are standard practice in the industry, even though such incidents are extremely rare. After telling passengers to put on their life jackets, the pilot landed the plane back in Montego Bay, where a new plane was waiting to take the shaken passengers to their final destination less than an hour later. The airline has yet to comment on the incident as of Monday, May 27. However, it told CBS News it was investigating the matter and apologized to affected customers.

The financial impact of the incident

Although Boeing has made headlines this year with several aircraft failures, the aircraft involved in this incident was an Airbus A321. Spirit Airlines is a publicly traded company whose stock value is at one of its lowest levels since its IPO in 2011. The current value is $3.73 and the stock is trading up today, so it does not appear that the weekend incident has had a significant impact on the airline’s share price. Looking at the financial institutions with the largest stakes in Spirit, the Vangaurd Group owns 9.52 percent and 7.69 percent belongs to BlackRock.