(Bloomberg) -- Ben Baldanza, who helped pioneer discount air travel as head of Spirit Airlines Inc. and became a target of passenger irritation over no-frills flights, has died. He was 62.
Airlines Confidential, the podcast Baldanza co-hosted until stepping down in August, announced his death at the start of Wednesday’s episode. An obituary posted on Baldanza’s LinkedIn page said he died on Tuesday. He had been diagnosed in 2022 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Baldanza was known in the industry as an innovator who helped William Franke — Spirit’s former chairman, who went on to hold the same title at the parent company of Frontier Airlines — usher in the concept of “ultra low-cost carriers” before that term was derided by flyers and the subject of jokes from late-night talk show hosts.
Spirit became known for rock-bottom fares as well as the ancillary fees it charged for coffee and water, printed boarding passes and other extras. Its low-cost model was copied not just by upstart competitors but also by traditional carriers, which introduced bare-bones “basic economy” options alongside standard fares. Spirit remained the poster child for the market, however, and a combination of service issues and poor on-time performance in the years after the switch earned the company the title of America’s most-hated airline.
“Ben took pride in the airline, and negative comments directed at Spirit — and him — were difficult for him,” Franke said in an interview in August. He called Baldanza “a fierce competitor” who believed “that efficiency and cost management were essential to the success of an airline, particularly when competing against much larger, established airlines intent on putting Spirit out of business.”
Award Ceremony
The National Aeronautic Association in June selected Baldanza to receive its annual Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy in a ceremony set to take place next month. Baldanza’s discounted fare, low-cost model created “an avenue for middle-class and working-class Americans to fly to leisure destinations,” the group said in announcing the decision.
“Ben’s career is a storied one,” Jim Albaugh, chairman of the group’s board, said at that time. “He is universally respected for what he has done, not just at Spirit Airlines, but for how he has impacted the industry over the last several decades.”
Baldanza’s mother died from ALS in 1983 at the age of 58, and the former executive took part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge fundraiser in 2014 and 2015, years before he was diagnosed with the disease, he said in an August 2023 posting on LinkedIn.
At that time, Baldanza said the disease was progressing more slowly than normal and he was hopeful that he might live to see progress in addressing his ALS because it resulted from one known gene mutation. “But if my body cannot hold out until science has a real cure, then I will just do what I can,” he wrote. “I will be sure that my wife and son are cared for in the best ways I can manage, and I will try not to leave problems behind that I could solve now. Most importantly, I will be honest with myself, my family, friends, and colleagues.”
After about a decade as chief executive officer, Baldanza stepped down in 2016 and began teaching an airline economics class at George Mason University. He also joined the boards of JetBlue and Six Flags Entertainment Corp.
He was a licensed pilot, a trombone player and, according to an Associated Press story, a devoted board game enthusiast.
Podcast Host
He maintained a public profile through Airlines Confidential, the aviation industry podcast he co-founded in 2019. He continued to host following his ALS diagnosis in 2022, even as the disease began to compromise his ability to speak. For much of 2024, Baldanza used an artificial intelligence device that converted words he typed on a keypad into audible speech, using examples of his pre-disease voice to sound like him.
He stepped down from the podcast Aug. 11.
“I am saddened to say that this will be my last appearance on the show,” he said to open its 250th episode. “The ALS in my body has advanced to the point where I have very little energy. The energy I do have needs to be spent with my family and on my health.”
Basil Ben Baldanza was born in Rome, New York, on Dec. 3, 1961.
He received a bachelor’s degree in policy study and economics from Syracuse University and a master’s degree in public administration from Princeton University.
He held a number of finance, operations and marketing roles early in his career at US Airways Group Inc., Continental Airlines Inc., Northwest Airlines Inc., American Airlines and El Salvador’s Grupo Taca Holdings Ltd.
At American, he worked under CEO Robert Crandall and alongside Doug Parker, Tom Horton and David Cush, each of whom would become airline CEOs.
He was named president and chief operating officer at Spirit in 2005 and promoted to chief executive about 14 months later.
‘Do Something Different’
In a 2023 podcast interview with Aviation Week Network, Baldanza recalled joining Spirit soon after a 12-month period in which it had lost $70 million on revenue of about $450 million. “We realized we would have to do something different,” he said.
His team’s analysis, he said, showed that the carriers that were consistently profitable were “super premium, like a Singapore maybe, or those who were super-low-cost, like Southwest was in the ‘80s or Ryanair or an airline like that. And we said, well, if we want to be profitable, we have to be at one of those extremes, and there’s no way we’re going to become Singapore or Emirates, right? So we said we’ll look to Ryanair and make that our model.”
Spirit Chief Executive Officer Ted Christie said he was “deeply saddened” by Baldanza’s passing, saying he “played a pivotal role in Spirit’s history and made air travel more accessible to millions.”
“Ben was a close friend and mentor of mine, and I’ll cherish the moments we shared during our time together at Spirit,” Christie said Wednesday.
Frontier Chief Executive Barry Biffle, who worked for Baldanza as Spirit’s chief marketing officer, said the former executive “was one of the smartest people ever to work in the airline industry and was a true legend in low-cost innovations.”
Baldanza was ousted from Spirit early in 2016, following a year in which the airline’s expansion into larger rivals’ turf led to a 47% collapse in its shares. But the carrier’s profitability remained near the top of the industry.
Baldanza was an adjunct professor of economics at George Mason University, teaching a self-designed course called Airline Economics. With his wife, Marcia, a school-turnaround expert, he had a son, Enzo.
(Updates with NAA comment in sixth paragraph.)
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