Spirit Airlines is out of business, but employees still waiting for overtime pay

Former Spirit Airlines flight attendants said they are still waiting for back pay more than a month after the airline shut down.

William Roman and Mauricio Valencia, both former Spirit flight attendants, said thousands of crew members received their final paychecks about three weeks ago — but the checks were short.

“A lot of the paychecks had major discrepancies where they were missing hours, they were missing the per diem, they were missing their overtime rate,” Roman said.

Valencia said he is missing two or three days of work. He added that he tried to dispute the issue but got the runaround.

“When you email the email that they gave us, I get a message saying that this email is not being monitored anymore,” Valencia said.

Roman said the situation has left many former employees frustrated and without answers.

“How is a company that knows that they’re going out of business not prepared to pay their employees,” Roman wondered.

CBS News Miami reached out to the union representing former Spirit flight attendants but had not heard back.

Meanwhile, a viral crowdfunding campaign called “Spirit 2.0” is promising to bring the airline back. The campaign has drawn more than $300 million in pledges and cites the Green Bay Packers’ publicly owned model as its framework.

Aviation experts said a revival would come with substantial challenges because Spirit left behind billions in debt and its assets are being liquidated.

Roman said many former employees are holding onto the idea anyway. “A lot of people have hope for the 2.0 because we’ve run out of hope on everything else, and so when that’s all that you have in front of you, you’re going to grab it,” Roman said.

At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, the Spirit section in Terminal 4 is being dismantled. The airline’s bright yellow kiosks now serve as a reminder of the airline.

“It really hurts us that this is the way things ended, but we just keep moving forward because that’s all that we can do: move forward,” Valencia said.

This report was produced by Miami Herald news partner CBS News Miami.