Spirit Airlines planes were left parked at airports across the country after the budget carrier shut down operations May 2, leaving leasing companies scrambling to reclaim the aircraft.
After Spirit ceased operations, Nomadic Aviation was hired to repossess the planes - in some cases using recently laid-off Spirit pilots to fly them to Arizona storage facilities.
"They're literally just abandoned by Spirit at that point," Nomadic Aviation co-founder Bob Allen told the Wall Street Journal. "They close the doors. The airplanes sit where they were parked when they dropped off passengers."
Allen said his company had just hours to assemble crews and retrieve the jets.
"We had six hours to find 20 pilots for that initial group of airplanes," he said.
Where are Spirit airplanes now?
More than two dozen Spirit Airlines jets are now lined up in the Arizona desert while leasing companies decide whether to lease them again, sell them or scrap them, according to the Wall Street Journal. Some aircraft engines were leased separately and could be removed independently.
Many of the pilots hired to move the planes had just lost their jobs when Spirit shut down. Some had been preparing for flights that never departed.
Allen said he related to their uncertainty.
"The reason I'm empathetic to all this is because I've been in the same situation four or five times," he said. "I woke up the next morning not having a job. I'm worried about how am I going to make my mortgage? How can I make my health care?"
Once paperwork was finalized and planes were refueled, crews flew the aircraft to Arizona.
"That starts involving us literally sending pilots knocking on doors of airport security, the airport authority and saying, ‘I'm here to pick up our airplane,'" Allen said. "And then the airport authority looks at you like you're completely crazy."
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