Blog

Spirit Airlines struggled for years, battered by larger, cash-rich airlines that copied its business model as well as by failed mergers, higher costs and, most recently, a surge in jet fuel prices because of the war in Iran. It then faced the most unforgiving foe: time.

“We just kind of ran out of runway,” CEO Dave Davis said in an interview with CNBC on Monday.

Spirit had hoped to exit bankruptcy, its second in less than a year, in mid-2026. Four days before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, a conflict that has sent fuel prices skyrocketing, Davis said he and his team were optimistic that the exit strategy could still work. But that was contingent on fuel prices moderating in April.

They didn’t.

“Late March, early April, it became clear that it was going to be tough for us to get through,” Davis said, noting that crude oil prices were above $100 a barrel.

To try to save the company from collapsing, Davis and others inside Spirit talked to the Trump administration about a bailout.

“We got connected with some various folks in government, including [Commerce] Secretary [Howard] Lutnick, through some contacts,” he said. “These guys … particularly Commerce, very eager to help.”

The Trump administration had been working on an offer for a $500 million loan to keep the airline afloat in a plan that could have given the U.S. government an up to 90% stake in the carrier. Bondholders weren’t on board and floated a counter proposal.

“Our bondholders also worked very hard to try to get something done,” Davis said.

The two sides were far apart on deal terms and it was clear by Thursday that it wasn’t going to work.

“I think we just ran out of time,” he said.

Spirit said some 17,000 people, both direct and indirect airline workers, lost their jobs in the airline’s collapse. Other carriers, smelling blood, had been circling for nearly a year if not longer, and within hours of the airline’s collapse were scrambling to both fly ticketed Spirit customers and add to their schedules in the absence left by Spirit’s yellow planes.

Spirit hired longtime airline executive Davis, most recently chief financial officer at Sun Country, in April 2025, about a month after the company zipped out of its first bankruptcy. Critics said it avoided bigger changes in that first bankruptcy, like shedding more assets to get costs down.

Last August, the airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection again, facing many of the same problems, though it had slashed flights, gotten rid of some of its Airbus jets and furloughed crew members to save cash.

Davis previously worked at Northwest Airlines, which combined with Delta Air Lines in 2008, and also worked at US Airways, which merged with American Airlines in 2013. Along with United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, the four airlines control about 80% of U.S. capacity, after a major wave of consolidation.

More consolidation is likely and “what the lower end of the industry needs,” Davis predicted. He said if Spirit’s planned acquisition by JetBlue Airways wasn’t blocked by a judge two years ago, “I believe that we wouldn’t be in the situation we are right now.”

Low-fare airlines for a time were a headache for big legacy carriers, since they swooped into markets and offered eye-catching fares.

“There was no better exemplar of that than Spirit,” Davis said.

But then the big airlines started to copy some of the budget model, offering no-frills basic economy tickets and other add-on fees. That hurt carriers like Spirit, which was profitable in the 2010s but hadn’t turned a profit since 2019.

“Everybody saw the low-cost airlines just taking massive share,” he said. “The shoe was completely on the other foot then, than where it is today.”

He said another benefit the larger airlines have is their huge credit card programs, in which they earn money from banks when customers swipe their credit cards, a business that gives them a bigger cash cushion to weather shocks like high fuel prices.

Davis said in Spirit’s final days he was between Washington and the company headquarters in Dania Beach, Florida, trying to get to a deal. Some staff members, including pilots, didn’t get final word about the airline’s last flights until they were getting close to landing Friday night or early Saturday.

“You can’t announce ahead of time that you’re going to shut down,” he said. “What happens is vendors stop working. Fuelers stop fueling. Some crew members probably don’t come in. So then you’ve got airplanes and people and passengers scattered all over the place in foreign countries. It needs to be done in a very orderly way, and it needs to be done all at once.”

Davis said he is staying on at Spirit to oversee the airline’s closure. Leased planes will go back to lessors. Owned ones will get sold. Gates will be overseen by airports and likely used by other airlines. About 130 other employees are set to stay on for that work as well.

When asked if he would stay in the industry, Davis said: “I just love airplanes, and I like the industry, so I’ll probably never leave it, although sometimes it’s very trying and taxing on a person.”

When the Wegovy pill launched in January, telehealth provider LifeMD said its business doubled almost overnight. 

LifeMD went from seeing between 300 and 400 new patients a day to 600 to 1,000 new patients a day, said CEO Justin Schreiber. He knew there would be demand, but that level of interest surprised him. 

“There’s no question that the launch of oral medications has improved access,” Schreiber said. 

Tens of thousands of people have started taking Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill in the four months since it launched in the U.S., the majority of them new to the GLP-1 category. Investors will get a fresh look at the Wegovy pill’s momentum when Novo reports first-quarter results on Wednesday.

The launch has already forced investors to rethink the opportunity in oral GLP-1s — and which company might win it. While obesity and diabetes market leader Eli Lilly launched its own pill, Foundayo, last month, early signs indicate its rollout has been more modest than the Wegovy pill’s start.

“We were all in this camp of Foundayo, Foundayo, Foundayo because Lilly was talking it up and we were also concerned about making enough peptide because Novo was still coming out of shortage,” said BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan David Seigerman. 

Now, Novo’s early success has upended the expectations of some investors and analysts who expected the Danish company would fall behind its U.S. rival in the oral category, as it did in injectables.

Novo’s Wegovy pill uses the same main ingredient as its weekly shot. The company had at times struggled to produce enough of the peptide to satisfy the soaring demand for the injection, and the oral formulation required even more of it. Meanwhile, Lilly was telling investors its GLP-1 pill was easier to make and wouldn’t face the shortages that hindered the shots. 

Doubts about Lilly’s lock on the market emerged last summer when the company said its pill helped people lose about 12% of their body weight, on average. Seigerman noticed Novo pounced on the opportunity and started to highlight the efficacy of oral semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo’s Wegovy, which delivered almost 17% weight loss in a separate trial. 

When the Wegovy pill was approved around the New Year, Novo and its telehealth partners rolled out a high-profile promotional blitz. Ads blanketed New York subways and TV broadcasts. The Danish drugmaker even tapped celebrities like DJ Khaled for its first-ever Super Bowl ad. 

Novo pushed the pill’s lower entry price of $149 per month and injection-like efficacy. The company used its three-month head start on Lilly to shape the narrative and combat concerns that people wouldn’t want a pill that needs to be taken first thing in the morning without food and with little water, which Novo CEO Mike Doustdar said were “a bit fueled by our competitor.” 

“Well, I have news for you, this has been absolutely not the case,” Doustdar told CNBC in March. “People are really interested because it’s the most efficacious pill right now in the market.”

The Wegovy pill — and now Lilly’s own oral drug — are helping to expand the GLP-1 market, reaching patients who wouldn’t have otherwise sought treatment due to a fear of needles or difficulty accessing the injections, which used to cost much more than today’s pills for many patients.

“There’s a fair number of patients that don’t want to be stuck by the needle in the case of a vial and syringe or stung by the price,” Jamey Millar, Novo’s head of U.S. operations, said in a March interview. 

People are choosing GLP-1 pills “by a huge factor” more than shots through telehealth platform Sesame, said president and co-founder Michael Botta. He attributes the preference to the lower price of the pills versus the shots and the fact that people are more comfortable trying oral drugs than going straight to shots.

That could bring in a more diverse set of patients to the category. More men are “definitely” starting the medications than before, he said, though women still make up a majority of new patients. 

Shortly after the launch, Novo said that many of the initial users were taking the lowest starter dose of the drug. Millar told CNBC that the company is closely watching how many patients move to the highest doses over the coming months. 

Eli Lilly appears to have work to do to catch up to Novo.

While Novo was able to leverage the Wegovy brand recognition right out the gate, Lilly is trying to introduce introduce people to an entirely new brand. Its pill Foundayo has a different active ingredient than its best-selling weight loss shot Zepbound. Lilly executives last week sought to reassure investors that it’s going to take time to introduce the drug to doctors and patients. 

In the first few weeks of the launch, more than 20,000 people have started taking Foundayo, Lilly CEO Dave Ricks told CNBC following the company’s first-quarter earnings report. More than 1,000 people are starting the drug every day, and 80% of those patients are new to GLP-1 drugs, he said. Lilly still needs to build consumer awareness around the pill, Ricks said, adding the company hasn’t started widely advertising it on TV. 

“So what we’re seeing now is basically organic demand, which is really strong to us,” Ricks said.

RBC analyst Trung Huynh said investors should wait two or three months to judge the momentum of Lilly’s Foundayo launch because there’s so much early volatility. He thinks it’ll take a year or two for the story to play out. He pointed to the market for weekly shots: Prescriptions of Zepbound surpassed those for Novo’s Wegovy six months after Zepbound was introduced in the U.S., even though it launched two years later.

Because Lilly hiked its full-year sales forecast on strength across its GLP-1 business, it should take some pressure off Foundayo prescriptions in the near term, said Barclays analyst Emily Field. The company plans to start introducing Foundayo in other countries later this year and has touted the pill as the key to reaching people around the world.

Novo hasn’t disclosed any specifics around a potential launch of its Wegovy pill outside of the U.S., but in March it announced a $500 million manufacturing investment in Ireland to meet current and future demand for its oral products outside of the U.S. The European Medicines Agency is expected to approve the Wegovy pill later this year.

Investors will get a better look at the Wegovy pill’s performance this week when the company reports earnings from the first quarter it was available in the U.S. Analysts have praised the strength of the rollout, which outpaced even the launch of its shots.

Even so, Wall Street expects a significant drop in overall sales this quarter, as generic competition for the Wegovy shot threatens sales in India, China and Canada. The pill’s lower price point could also crimp U.S. sales.

Investors will be on high alert for any data related to the Wegovy pill and whether Novo stands by the gloomy forecast it issued in February, when it said sales and profits will both decline by 5% to 13% in 2026. Novo’s pipeline will also be a focus. Disappointments in the clinic have weighed on the stock, causing investors to wonder whether Novo’s pipeline is rich enough to help the company stay competitive. 

And while the pills are important to both Novo and Lilly, analysts say they won’t define either company. 

“Yes it’s shaking things up, but I still think Lilly has enough components to excel,” BMO’s Seigerman said. “And while Novo may win with this, they need more than one win to be the champion.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct Michael Botta’s title. A previous version misstated his title.

Anthropic said Monday it is partnering with private equity giants Goldman Sachs and Blackstone to launch a $1.5 billion firm aimed at speeding the adoption of artificial intelligence across hundreds of companies.

The new entity, formed alongside the San Francisco-based PE firm Hellman & Friedman and backed by a group of asset managers including Apollo and General Atlantic, will deploy Anthropic’s Claude AI model directly inside businesses, starting with companies owned by the investment firms.

Executives say the effort is designed to tackle a growing bottleneck in the AI boom: The scarcity of experts capable of implementing the technology inside real-world operations.

“There’s a big shortage of people who know how to apply these tools into businesses and then transform them,” Marc Nachmann, Goldman’s global head of asset and wealth management, told CNBC in an interview.

The move marks Anthropic’s latest effort to deepen its lead in the enterprise AI market as competition intensifies with rivals including OpenAI. By pairing the latest Claude models with a built-in network of investor-owned companies, Anthropic is positioning itself to gain an edge in middle-market adoption of the technology.

It’s a key battleground as both Anthropic and OpenAI prepare for massive IPOs as early as this year.

Rather than acting as a traditional consulting firm, the venture — which hasn’t yet been named — will embed engineers inside companies to redesign workflows and integrate AI into core processes, Nachmann said.

“Having the model alone doesn’t change your workflows or how you operate,” he said. “You need people who can combine the technology with what’s actually happening in the business and implement those changes.”

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the $1.5 billion commitment of the firms involved.

Goldman and its partners expect to use their own portfolio companies as an initial proving ground for the new platform before targeting other mid-sized companies, especially in the PE-owned universe of healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, retail and real estate sectors.

“We think there’s a lot of value that this new entity can bring to companies to help transform them,” Nachmann said. “Obviously, we’re going to use it a lot at our portfolio companies.”

BALTIMORE/NEW YORK — Spirit Airlines was hours away from its final flights Friday afternoon. Jeremiah Burton was hours away from his first.

“It’s my first time flying,” Burton, a 45-year-old air conditioning and heating technician, told CNBC at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Friday, shortly before he was scheduled to depart for New Orleans to visit his daughter and her newborn twins.

“To tell you the truth, I just went online and Googled the cheapest airline ticket,” he said, adding that he paid about $500 for the trip late last month. He was scheduled to return on May 6.

While Burton waited for his flight, Spirit was making final preparations to shut down overnight, ending a three-decade run that brought discount air travel to millions across the United States and as far away as Peru. Spirit canceled international flights on Thursday, to start, so travelers, planes and flight crews wouldn’t be stranded. The airline said it flew more than 50,000 people the day leading up to its collapse.

Spirit bondholders rejected an 11th-hour bailout proposal from the Trump administration that could have included up to $500 million to keep the ailing airline afloat. The deal would have put the government ahead of other bondholders’ claims and given it an up to 90% stake in the airline.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called Spirit CEO Dave Davis to tell him there was no deal and that bondholders and the government were far from an agreement, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the communication. Bondholders sent a letter to Spirit’s board, confirming that the end was near.

Before dawn on Saturday, Spirit’s website and app were papered over with the message that operations had ended. “To our Guests: all flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available,” it read.

By noon, LaGuardia’s Marine Air Terminal, an Art Deco facility that opened in 1940 and was home to Pan Am’s Clippers — and, most recently, home to Spirit at the New York airport — was nearly silent.

Cibo Express closed half a day early with no customers to serve. CNBC saw the last Transportation Security Administration officer who was sent home early. Screens on the arc of yellow kiosks read: “We regret to inform you that Spirit Airlines has ceased global operations.”

“It has been an honor to bring friends and families closer together for 34 years,” it said at the bottom, with a QR code with next steps.

United Airlines, Frontier Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airways and others said they are capping fares to get travelers home. United said about 14,000 Spirit customers booked tickets on United on Saturday. Southwest said it took in more than 20,000. JetBlue also announced plans to expand its schedule at Fort Lauderdale with a host of new services to destinations ranging from Cali, Colombia, to Nashville, Tennessee.

Crews scrambled to get home.

Jon Jackson, a Spirit Airlines captain, was supposed to fly his retirement flight on Saturday, but his airline shut down before he could.

He hopped on a Southwest flight to get back to Baltimore from Fort Lauderdale. While on board, “we casually mentioned it to the crew,” his son, Chris, a Southwest pilot, said in a Facebook post. Southwest staff organized a water cannon salute when the aircraft arrived and he was met with applause and a reception when he walked off the jet bridge, according to the post, which was confirmed to CNBC by Southwest.

While things came to a head this week with access to cash drying up, Spirit’s problems were years in the making. It was profitable in the 2010s and expanded rapidly as customers filled planes. But it last made money in 2019.

The carrier has faced intense competition from richer, giant rivals Delta Air Lines, United and American.

Spirit was also under pressure from rivals’ own bare-bones fares, soaring costs, a failed acquisition by JetBlue Airways that the Biden administration Justice Department successfully challenged, and an engine defect that grounded many of its jets. Airlines grew more reliant on high-spending customers who shell out thousands for plush, premium cabins. Most recently, the surge in jet fuel prices resulting from the Iran war was a challenge the airline couldn’t overcome, it said.

In August, Spirit filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in less than a year, and analysts said part of the reason was that it hadn’t done enough to reconfigure the airline and slash costs and that it had avoided hard decisions in its first filing in 2024. Weeks before it had hoped to emerge free from its bankruptcy, it faced the added challenge of expensive fuel.

Some 17,000 direct and indirect employees lost their jobs as a result of the airline’s collapse, the carrier said.

“The pain of this decision will not be felt in boardrooms. It will be felt by pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, dispatchers, and ground crews, and by the families and communities that depend on them,” the Air Line Pilots Association’s international president, Jason Ambrosi, wrote Saturday.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the union of Spirit’s roughly 5,000 flight attendants, wrote a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, urging them to try to help ensure that flight attendants are paid and compensated for earned vacation and per diems as the case works its way through bankruptcy court. She also asked that they receive a $600 weekly supplement to state unemployment from the federal government.

“Standard unemployment coverage does not replace full wages, and this enhanced support would help stabilize households while workers secure new employment,” she said.

Spirit had just about 4% of the U.S. market share, according to aviation-data firm Cirium, but an outsized presence in many Americans’ minds — and on their social media feeds.

Henry Harteveldt, Atmosphere Research Group founder and former airline executive, said Spirit was a “true pioneer” of discount air travel but still was the “airline America loved to hate,” in part because of its bare-bones fares, customer service debacles, and spotty reliability in earlier years.

Spirit became a favorite punchline among comedians. “The CEO of Spirit Airlines was like, ‘With $500 million [from the Trump administration] our planes could have two wings again,” “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon said last month.

In 2017, Spirit enrolled customer-facing employees in the Disney Institute, a Disney leadership and professional training subsidiary, to improve its staff interactions with customers and had made strides in improving its on-time performance.

It still had fans and willing customers, right up until the end.

“For a two-hour flight, I could really suffer a lot,” said Kara Snyder, 30, who works in health insurance sales. She said that for a short flight from Florida to Baltimore, scarce legroom and perks don’t matter to her. Snyder said she flew Spirit to Baltimore and was flying back to Orlando on Frontier Airlines. “I tend to stick with budget airlines,” she said.

International flights to Europe or Africa are another matter, said Snyder. “I go Delta,” she said. “I’m picky on that. It has to be Delta.”

Friday evening at Spirit’s headquarters in Dania Beach, Florida, near its home base of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Spirit’s executive team was huddled in a war room, watching its last flights come in.

News broke earlier that at 3 a.m. on Saturday, the clock would run out for the airline and its fleet of bright yellow jets.

“Good luck to you all,” said an American Airlines employee to a Spirit flight, according to audio posted by LiveATC.net. “Sorry to hear what happened.”

One of the pilots on the last Spirit flight, NK1833 from Detroit to Dallas Fort Worth International, shortly before touching down after midnight Saturday, asked the tower: “Is there any other Spirit flights coming in after us?” There were 175 passengers on board.

“I don’t see anything,” the controller said. “So you might be the last one.”

He later told the pilot, “Well, it was a pleasure working with you guys and I wish you the best.”

“Thank you very much,” the pilot replied, according to LiveATC.

Wes Egan, a Spirit dispatcher for roughly 23 years, told CNBC that he was working in the company’s operations center in Orlando late Friday when one of the carrier’s pilots was asking for information about the fate of the airline. Senior managers had just informed the staff there around 11:30 p.m. that operations were about to cease.

He sent a text message to the pilot via a special cockpit system for alerts and other information.

“UNOFFICIALLY WE STOP FLYING AT 0300 EST ON 05/02,” said the message. “GODSPEED MY FRIEND.”

When Branneisha Cooper first began taking GLP-1 injection Mounjaro in late 2022, she heard online that she could experience temporary hair thinning and prepared for the worst.

But it would take about a year before she began noticing her hair falling out in clumps. Cooper said it was especially shocking because she has always had thick hair.

“I was really hoping it wouldn’t happen,” Cooper, 29, told CNBC. “What my provider had told me is that since you’re on the medication that’s allowed you to lose weight at a faster rate, that’s what can cause hair loss.”

Desperate to counteract the side effect, Cooper said she began prioritizing protein in her diet, taking vitamins intended to help her hair and investing in haircare products meant to stimulate the scalp to foster growth.

She’s one of a growing number of GLP-1 users experiencing temporary hair loss from the drugs, creating a new market for hair treatment products amid the weight-loss drug craze.

Cooper took to social media for support, where she found scores of other GLP-1 users experiencing the same thing. While the discourse was less frequent at the beginning of her weight-loss journey, the rise of GLP-1s has meant that more people are flocking to her page to commiserate and strategize.

“There has been an increase of people wanting to know how to tackle it, but it’s also a lot of people who are wanting to know how they can possibly prevent it, and that’s just something that I don’t have the answer to,” Cooper said.

According to Gallup, the use of GLP-1 drugs has more than doubled since early 2024. The KFF Health Tracking Poll found that roughly one in every eight U.S. adults, or nearly 13%, are currently taking a GLP-1 drug.

By 2030, JPMorgan estimates that roughly 25 million Americans will be on a GLP-1, up from just 5 million in 2023.

Many GLP-1 users have seen significant results in losing weight. But the drugs come with a multitude of side effects, too.

Zepbound, manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, advertises common side effects on its website that include hair loss, nausea and vomiting, fatigue and more. Mounjaro, also a Lilly drug, warns of similar side effects, along with Novo Nordisk‘s Ozempic. Wegovy also includes hair loss in its possible side effects.

It’s a risk that’s common with any type of significant weight loss because of the body’s changes, according to Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd, a dermatologist and the chief medical advisor for haircare brand Nutrafol.

“When you are losing weight, either through a GLP-1 or any other type of weight loss, you may be taking in less nutrients, less protein, and the weight loss itself can be a stressor,” she told CNBC.

Those consumers have been increasingly seeking out solutions to ease the physical process, according to Circana. The Chicago-based market research firm estimates that GLP-1 households spend approximately 30% more on beauty products than non-GLP-1 households.

“Hair loss solutions continue to be a standout growth segment in hair care, sustained by prolonged consumer stress since the pandemic and GLP‑1 medication usage emerging as an incremental tailwind,” said Larissa Jensen, Circana’s beauty industry advisor. “Many GLP‑1 users report temporary hair shedding, which is translating into increased demand for at‑home growth treatments, scalp serums, and supplements.”

The hit to a GLP-1 user’s self-confidence from the hair loss can mean even more stress, according to Woolery-Lloyd.

In her practice, she said she’s seen a noticeable increase in patients coming in specifically with hair thinning concerns, many of them because of GLP-1 side effects. Woolery-Lloyd said the last time she saw an influx of patients with these concerns was during the pandemic, due to unexpected amounts of stress on the body.

The hair loss from GLP-1s is one of the most significant side effects that the beauty industry is watching, according to Audrey Depraeter-Montacel, Accenture’s global beauty industry lead.

“GLP-1s have not just changed the way people lose weight, but the way consumers expect beauty and personal care to address the situation,” she told CNBC, adding that it’s not a “one size fits all” solution.

Depraeter-Montacel called the size of the GLP-1 market “unprecedented” and said the business opportunity for the hair treatment market with this growing population sets the scene for innovation.

“On the life science side, we are seeing a lot of pharma brands raising funds to go after innovation and new solutions,” she said. “So a lot of money has been raised in the name of this opportunity, which I think confirmed that there is definitely a commercial opportunity here as investors put dollars in this on both sides.”

Consumers who will be buying into the GLP-1 hair treatment market are also sticking around, Depraeter-Montacel said. Because hair treatment products often take a few months to begin showing results, these customers are expected to be highly loyal.

Brands are taking notice. In early April, Ulta CEO Kecia Steelman told Yahoo Finance that the company is seeing more consumers buying hair treatment products as part of the GLP-1 craze.

Redken, a haircare company owned by L’Oreal, created an entire hair treatment line specifically for consumers with thin hair called the Acidic Grow Full System.

“We wanted to ensure the Acidic Grow Full System range was tested on this specific population of GLP-1 users, as they may have unique hair care needs,” Mounia Tahiri, Redken’s U.S. general manager, told CNBC. “[It] was tested on current GLP-1 users who, when using the products, immediately noticed their hair looked fuller and felt thicker.”

Tahiri said the company also saw a rise in Google searches for hair loss and weight-loss drugs and plans to continue innovating its hair treatment products as the GLP-1 population grows.

Nutrafol CEO Cindy Gustafson told CNBC the haircare brand is similarly seeing increased demand for hair health products.

“While we don’t break out performance tied to GLP-1 use, growth overall is being driven by increased awareness and a shift toward personalized, clinically supported solutions,” she said.

Gustafson said the company expects this growth to continue as more people begin taking GLP-1s and searching for products to prevent or counteract hair thinning.

KeraFactor, another scalp health company, told CNBC that it’s seeing 100% growth year-over-year in its direct-to-consumer store because of an increased interest from GLP-1 users.

“We saw a lot of [hair loss] during Covid, so that was actually the first kind of spike of patients that came to KeraFactor, and then after Covid, it kind of settled,” Lauren Bartholomeusz, the company’s chief commercial officer, told CNBC. “And then now, we’re seeing that rise again with the GLP-1 craze.”

Bartholomeusz said KeraFactor has shifted the way it treats patients to now come from a more preventative perspective to get ahead of the possible hair loss while taking the drugs.

For Cooper, the 29-year-old GLP-1 user, there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

She’s experimented with many hair products over the past three years of taking weight-loss drugs, hoping for her hair to return to its former thickness.

“I’ve been paying more attention to it for about a year, and I’ve been noticing it’s returned,” Cooper said. “A lot of people, they get nervous when they have the hair shedding, because it’s like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be bald for eternity.’ But the hair comes back, so that was what let me have peace with it. But it was scary.”

Spirit Airlines could shut down as early as 3 a.m. ET Saturday, according to people familiar with the matter. The carrier has failed to secure a financial lifeline to continue operating, though it hasn’t commented on the potential shutdown or its plans.

About 290 Spirit flights are scheduled for Saturday, according to aviation site Flightradar24. Another 381 are scheduled for Sunday.

Travelers with Spirit tickets could be understandably rattled. While there have been some U.S. airlines to shut down in recent years, the budget carrier is larger than most recent airline failures and links major cities like New York, Miami, Detroit and Los Angles — and many others in between — with its Airbus jets.

Here’s what travelers need to know:

Immediately? Nothing.

Travelers who are booked on a Spirit flight, like this CNBC reporter is for later this month, are likely to receive a refund if they purchased tickets with a credit card.

If the ticket was bought with a debit card or with loyalty points, however, the chances of recovering funds are slim to none, said Henry Harteveldt, founder of Atmosphere Research Group, a travel consulting firm.

“If you’re holding a reservation for a flight on Spirit don’t proactively cancel it. Wait for the airline to announce it is shutting down,” he said.

Don’t count on it.

Spirit has declined to comment on a potential shutdown. If it confirms an end to operations, the carrier will most likely have information on its website about travelers’ next steps.

Harteveldt said travelers shouldn’t go to the airport expecting to find Spirit staff in the event the airline ceases operations. Call centers are likely to be overwhelmed if they are still staffed.

That could leave passengers with fewer answers than they’d like, but other airlines are likely to help assist affected customers.

Airlines that offer last-minute fares, likely with some discounts, will be available to travelers at airport ticket counters.

United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Frontier Airlines and American Airlines are among the carriers that have said they are ready to assist Spirit customers and crews if the carrier shuts down.

That could mean scheduling additional flights to carry the stranded passengers, similar to what they do during a hurricane or other natural disaster.

Spirit, known for bright yellow planes, low fares and fees for everything else, had been successful for years, but this week it’s been on the brink of liquidation after failing to reach a deal with bondholders for a $500 million government bailout from the Trump administration.

Last year Spirit filed for its second bankruptcy in less than a year, though it’s had a host of problems even before then.

A plan to be acquired by JetBlue was blocked. Rising costs upended its business model. An engine defect grounded dozens of its planes. And, more broadly, upscale travel became more popular with consumers, driving airline profits.

At the same time, big, legacy airlines were selling their own basic economy fares that were similar to what Spirit was offering, but with bigger networks.

Airlines have been adding flights since Spirit’s bankruptcy filing last year on some of its routes and at major airports. They’re likely to keep doing so.

Experts have said they expect fares to rise, at least in some markets, if the discounter goes away, even though the carrier has shrunk substantially.

The biggest horse race in the country, the Kentucky Derby, takes place Saturday in Louisville. If you’re looking to make a wager on Kalshi, Polymarket or another prediction platform around the event — you’re out of luck.

There are no Kentucky Derby event contracts offered on the major prediction platforms, which host contracts on everything from sports outcomes to geopolitical events to reality TV show moments, but not horse racing.

Bill Carstanjen, CEO of Churchill Downs, which owns the Kentucky Derby and the racetrack where it’s held, told CNBC it’s unlikely that horse racing will ever show up on prediction markets because the race track owners don’t want it.

“You need to actually go to us, those who own the race tracks, to cut a deal,” Carstanjen said in an interview this week. “And from our perspective, that’s not something we’re interested in doing.”

Horse racing has long been something of its own little fiefdom. Betting on the races, America’s original form of sports betting dating back to the colonial era, enjoyed special status even before the Supreme Court in 2018 struck down a law that prevented states other than Nevada from offering sports betting.

By law, under the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978, offering wagers on horses requires explicit permission from the host race track, the horsemen’s group made up of owners and trainers and the state racing commission where the race is held.

That’s left the burgeoning prediction markets industry on the outs.

“Prediction markets are not something that that would be good for horse racing, or the economic paradigm under which our industry works, which involves funding purses for the winners of the horse race,” Carstanjen said.

Kalshi declined to comment on the absence of horseracing on its platform. Polymarket didn’t respond to a request for comment. And representatives for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates event contracts, likewise didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The tension raises an interesting question of when — and in what context — permission is needed for prediction market platforms to offer contracts on a given event.

U.S. states have argued companies like Kalshi and Polymarket need their permission (via a license) to offer wagers on sports. Prediction platforms have maintained they don’t need licenses because their platforms offer investing and trading activity, not gambling, and because they’re regulated by the CFTC.

The CFTC has filed multiple lawsuits against states seeking to prevent them from taking action against prediction platforms.

Kentucky, for its part, has taken a tough stance on predictions. Lawmakers in the state have proposed legislation that would ban any of its gambling licensees from offering predictions. It’s also proposed a 17.5% tax on prediction market fees.

Meanwhile, there’s still old-fashioned gambling set for Saturday’s Derby. Churchill Downs said it’s seeing increased betting during Derby Week leading up to the big race.

Caesars, too, said the amount of money wagered on the Kentucky Derby is pacing ahead of expectations.

— CNBC’s Jessica Golden contributed to this report.

Disclosure: Kalshi and CNBC have a commercial relationship which includes a minority investment.

President Donald Trump said he would increase tariffs charged to the European Union for cars and trucks to 25%, without saying what authority he would use to raise the levies.

“Based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States,” he wrote on Truth Social on Friday. “The Tariff will be increased to 25%. It is fully understood and agreed that, if they produce Cars and Trucks in U.S.A. Plants, there will be NO TARIFF.”

The Supreme Court ruled in February that a large part of Trump’s tariff agenda was illegal. The president’s “reciprocal” tariffs were invoked using a novel reading of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, but the high court said in a 6-3 majority that the law that undergirds those import duties “does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, Trump said he signed an executive order imposing a new 10% “global tariff” rate to effectively replace the IEEPA duties, though those tariffs came with a 150-day time limit under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. He then said he would increase the global rate to 15%.

The EU in February had warned that its trade deal with the U.S. could be in jeopardy after the new tariff rate was announced and postponed its planned vote on the agreement.

The European Union said it is following standard legislative practice and keeping the U.S. administration up to date.

“We maintain close contact with our counterparts, including as we also seek clarity on US commitments,” a a European Commission spokesperson said. “We remain fully committed to a predictable, mutually beneficial transatlantic relationship. Should the US take measures inconsistent with the Joint Statement, we will keep our options open to protect EU interests.”

A White House official said in a statement Friday that the EU has “failed to make substantial progress on their agreed-upon commitments” under a trade agreement between the countries.

“The White House has always been clear that the President reserves the right to adjust tariff rates if our trade deal partners fail to abide by their commitments,” the official said.

The Trump administration last year broadly implemented 25% tariffs on vehicles and certain auto parts imported into the U.S., citing national security risks under Section 232. Those levies are still in place.

The European automakers that could most be impacted by a change in tariff rate would be Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen, which import a large percentage of the vehicles they sell in the U.S. from their plants in Europe.

President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration gave a “final” bailout proposal for Spirit Airlines as the budget carrier could be forced to liquidate without a lifeline.

Talks with bondholders for a government bailout this week have not yielded a deal as of Friday. The Trump administration last month had offered a $500 million loan that could have given the government up to a 90% stake in the Florida-based airline, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to speak about the discussions.

“If we could do it, we’d do it, but only if it’s a good deal this weekend, because they haven’t gotten a deal looking at it,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. “I said I’d like to save the jobs but we’ll have an announcement sometime today. … We gave them a final proposal.”

Spirit declined to comment on liquidation plans. The airline’s lawyer, Marshall Huebner, told a bankruptcy court in New York on April 23 that Spirit’s cash “is not going to last for very much longer.”

The carrier is in its second bankruptcy in less than a year and now has the added challenge of a spike in jet fuel prices amid the Middle East conflict.

United Airlines said the carrier is “preparing to support Spirit customers and employees” if Spirit shuts down and strands crews and passengers, a spokeswoman told CNBC. Other airlines are likely to follow suit.

Spirit, which pioneered the low-cost budget airline model, has been challenged for years by rising costs, changing consumer tastes and a engine recall. A planned acquisition of Spirit by JetBlue Airways was successfully challenged by the Biden administration two years ago.

The airline had expected to emerge from bankruptcy midyear before the jump in fuel prices.

From the rise of GLP-1 drugs to backlash against artificial ingredients, current wellness trends are fueling growth for Smoothie King.

“There are significant industry tailwinds behind what we’re doing,” said Gavin Felder, the chain’s president and CFO. “What we’ve learned is people are a lot more conscious about what choices they’re making. A lot of people are focusing on protein now and on fiber and all those good things.”

Founded more than 50 years ago, the privately held chain takes credit for inventing the word “smoothie” and popularizing the health drinks. CEO Wan Kim, previously a franchisee for the brand in South Korea, has owned Smoothie King since 2012. Last year, the company sold a minority stake to private equity firm Main Post Partners and said the deal would help Smoothie King accelerate growth and innovation.

“If you start the clock [in 2012], we’ve been growing system sales at a compound rate of double digits since then,” said Felder, who joined the company two years ago after spending 16 years with KFC owner Yum Brands.

Over the past five years, Smoothie King has grown its number of locations by about 23%, the company told CNBC. The chain’s system-wide sales have increased roughly 64% over that period.

In 2025, the company recorded revenue of $66.16 million, up 4% from the prior year, according to franchise disclosure documents. Its net income, however, fell about 6% to $14.84 million. At the end of the year, Smoothie King had more than 1,200 locations. Franchisees operate more than 96% of the chain’s stores.

Now, as consumer tastes shift more toward maximizing nutrients, protein and fiber, the chain sees an opportunity to both improve its existing locations and build new ones.

In April, Smoothie King announced a new store design with what the company called more “warmth” and “approachability” — a shift away from its current “stark, functional aesthetic” — and plans to gradually introduce it across its footprint.

And more stores are on the way: the chain said that franchisees have committed to opening more than 200 new locations in the coming years. It’s also planning to expand further into food with flatbreads, building off its existing options of smoothie bowls, yogurt bowls and loaded toasts.

Smoothie King and its franchisees will open about 90 new locations this year, according to Felder.

While Smoothie King was growing before the current frenzy for protein and fiber, the trends have boosted its sales at a time when many restaurant chains are struggling to attract frugal consumers.

The growing adoption of GLP-1 medications, like Ozempic and Wegovy, are partially responsible for consumers’ interest in upping their protein and fiber intakes. Then there is the growing push from both consumers and regulators away from so-called ultraprocessed foods and artificial flavors and dyes, fueled in part by the Make America Healthy Again movement led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Smoothie King was somewhat ahead of the curve; in 2019, the chain finished its “Clean Blends Initiative,” which removed preservatives, artificial flavors and colors and genetically modified fruits, while adding organic vegetables.

“We have a ‘no-no’ list that is longer than Panera’s, that’s longer than Chipotle’s,” Felder said.

Moving forward, in tandem with its store redesigns, Smoothie King plans to share more of its story, from its founding to its banned ingredients.

“A lot of our guests, they are all about health and wellness,” Felder said. “They want to make sure they are tracking everything they can. They are very interested in transparency and the level of information that they can get on our brand and our products … It’s a great tailwind for the category.”

As average national gas prices hit $4 a gallon, consumers are showing signs that they are growing more budget conscious. A number of restaurant companies, from Domino’s Pizza to Chipotle, have reported that sales softened in March, after the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began.

There is also more competition than ever in the restaurant space for health-conscious diners and protein-rich snacks and meals.

Still, Felder is optimistic that consumers would still buy a FiberMaxxing Smoothie or Power Meal Spinach Pineapple Smoothie, rather than skipping the drink or making it at home.

“We believe — and I’ve seen this — that when customers are stretched, they are more likely to spend on things that make them feel good, rather than things that make them feel guilty.”