At 6pm on Friday evening, Bob Allen received an emergency phone call, and the message was clear:Prepare aircraft recovery team immediately. At that time, Spirit Airlines was still operating normally and flights were still flying in the sky. However, dozens of its bright yellow passenger planes are owned by aircraft leasing companies. Seeing that Spirit Airlines is on the verge of bankruptcy and liquidation, lessors are becoming increasingly anxious and eager to take back their own aircraft.
Steve Giordano said:"You can't just climb over the wall and drive away. It's not like what's shown on TV."
"I had six hours to scramble 20 pilots," Allen said.
he foundedNomadic Aviation Group, has been on standby for months, keeping a close eye on Spirit Airlines' bankruptcy. Allen and co-founder Steve Giordano quickly assembled a team of pilots, most of whom were veterans of Spirit Airlines. They started a WhatsApp group that soon grew to 40 people.
A pilot received the mission as soon as he landed and asked casually:"Can I fly in shorts?"
It was perfectly fine, Giordano recalled. He replied: "We usually wear khaki pants and polo shirts, but in special circumstances we can only be flexible."
At 9 a.m. the next day, Spirit Airlines officially declared bankruptcy, and the recycling team immediately geared up and set off. Pilots rushed to South Florida, Charlotte, Houston, Columbus, Ohio and other airports to take over stranded passenger planes. Some planes were still parked on the terminal bridge and had just completed their last flight.
The actual process of this somewhat heavy job is extremely cumbersome: it requires several hours of online meetings with regulators and airport officials, and a large number of lawyers. Giordano even stared at his phone during his son's college graduation ceremony, coordinating the dispatch of the first round of aircraft recycling.
Getting permission to take over the plane is a challenge in itself. The airport will not just let someone take away a 200-seat civil aviation aircraft. It must present a full set of compliance documents.The recycling process for a single aircraft often takes several hours.
Giordano emphasized again: "It is impossible to climb over the wall and drive away directly from the plane. Reality and film and television dramas are completely different."
After Spirit Airlines went bankrupt, dozens of passenger planes were stranded across the United States.
The staff needs to position the aircraft first, and then arrange for a tow truck or taxi on its own. Nomad Airlines does everything an airline would normally do, and more: refueling, planning routes, arranging hotel accommodation for crew members, everything.
The aircraft must be inspected and repaired by a certified mechanic and a maintenance qualification document must be signed. At the same time, it must be approved by the Commissioner of the Federal Aviation Administration to confirm that the aircraft is airworthy and flyable.
Things are getting more complicated every day. Once the time limit is exceeded, the aircraft will trigger a new round of mandatory maintenance and inspection requirements, leaving very little time for recovery operations.
Giordano, who is a pilot himself and has a background in aviation, personally piloted one of the recovered passenger planes from Philadelphia on Thursday. The Wi-Fi on board was still working normally, and dispatch messages and inquiries from other Spirit Airlines aircraft kept popping up on his phone, but he had no time to reply. The cabin dining cart is also stocked with drinking water, soft drinks and snacks.
He laughed at himself: "Fortunately, I have these supplies. I went out in a hurry and forgot to bring food."
Finding ground staff to help push the plane out of the parking bay was also a struggle - many service providers were wary of Spirit Airlines-related businesses and worried about not receiving payments, so Nomadic Airlines had no choice but to prepay the fees in advance.
Nomadic Airlines’ operating model is like aMini Specialty Airlines, specializing in cross-continental deployment and recycling of passenger aircraft for global aircraft leasing companies.
In 2024, Giordano made a special trip on a civil aviation flight, taking more than 24 hours to fly to Harbin, China, to recycle an aircraft for a customer (the purpose was to dismantle and retrieve the engine); then he flew to Wales to deliver it, stopping in Calcutta, Muscat, Cairo and other places along the way.
"For our industry," Giordano said,When the industry is stable, there is no business; when the market is bad, we are so busy, but when the market is good, we can’t take any time off.. "
Talking about the niche nature of the industry, he (right) and co-founder Bob Allen said: "What we do is a hidden area that few people in the aviation industry understand."
Now the industry business may usher in a peak period. Skyrocketing oil prices are hitting the aviation industry hard, squeezing airline profits and pushing up ticket prices.
But this business is not something Nomad Airlines wants to see.
Allen said frankly: "From a human perspective, this is a very embarrassing and sad thing."
Giordano records part of the aircraft adjustment journey in his YouTube column "Cockpit Daily". He and Allen also open a podcast, jokingly calling themselves "the takeaway errands of the aircraft industry". The company's exposure on social media has made them a well-known insider at the airport, and it has also provided a lot of convenience for business development.
Giordano said: "We are in an extremely niche corner of the aviation industry. We usually fly around in jeans and T-shirts, which looks very weird to outsiders."
To date, Nomad Airlines has transferred approximately 24 Spirit Airlines aircraft, all destined for the Arizona desert.airplane graveyardPark and seal, waiting for subsequent disposal by the property owner. The local climate is dry and the humidity is low, making it difficult to cause rust and corrosion. It is an ideal place to park and store passenger aircraft.
For veteran pilots who have worked for Spirit Airlines, this is their last time flying the iconic bright yellow airliner.
A pilot lamented: There were no passengers or flight attendants on the flight, and the cabin was eerily quiet. He also had to deliberately change his habit and use the Nomad Airlines call sign instead of the familiar "Spirit Air Wings."
He said: "I knew in my heart that this was the last flight. The moment of landing, taxiing, and shutting down the engine was the last time the Spirit Airlines pilot touched the control stick. Thinking about it makes people emotional."