Varun just got back from trekking to Everest Base Camp. Fourteen days through Nepal, no signal, no news. Meanwhile, a war had started and it’s been escalating. And an airline many budget travelers relied on closed its counters, grounded their planes, fired their staff, and stranded their passengers.
Spirit Airlines collapsed on May 2nd, 2026. 3am. No warning. Seventeen thousand jobs gone before most people’s alarms went off. But this episode isn’t really about Spirit Airlines.
It’s about what Spirit’s death revealed — about jet fuel, the Strait of Hormuz, and the assumption that every American system was quietly built on: that oil would always be cheap, always be stable, always be there.
Raj and Varun spent a Sunday morning unpacking it. The rescue fares that were also a land grab. The Indian aviation system teetering on the edge. Why you can live off a 7-Eleven in Japan and need a car to reach one in America. What Italy, Singapore, and India get right that the US keeps getting wrong. And the middle class that keeps getting squeezed from every direction with nowhere to go.
No scripts. No prep. Just two friends peeling back the layers.
This is The Sunday Draft.
