Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, is credited for first using the expression “desperate times call for desperate measures,” and those words still hold true for Spirit Airlines  (SAVE) .

The struggling airline announced a series of drastic steps in an Oct. 24 regulatory filing that include selling airplanes and cutting staff.

Spirit’s shares jumped Friday following the news, and the stock closed up 15.3% to $2.79.

Related: Talk of a Spirit/Frontier merger is starting up again

The company said it will raise $519 million by selling 23 older Airbus aircraft to aircraft-maintenance and component services platform GA Telesis. The aircraft are set to be delivered from this month through February 2025.

Spirit said it will also reduce costs by about $80 million, mostly through job cuts.

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In August, Spirit Airlines said it would demote around 100 captains and lay off about 240 pilots.

Spirit Airlines has announced a series of steps to save money.<p>Bloomberg&sol;Getty Images</p>
Spirit Airlines has announced a series of steps to save money.

Bloomberg&sol;Getty Images

The airline also said it would impose a temporary hiring freeze for pilots and flight attendants and offer current cabin crew voluntary unpaid leave.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Spirit and Frontier Airlines  (ULCC)  were exploring a potential merger. 

Related: This is why Spirit Airlines stock is soaring again

Frontier offered to buy Spirit once before in 2022 for $2.9 billion but was ultimately outbid by JetBlue  (JBLU) with an offer of $3.8 billion.

In January, a federal judge blocked the proposed merger with JetBlue, agreeing with the U.S. Department of Justice’s argument that such a deal would create an anti-competitive environment.

“Spirit is a small airline, but there are those who love it,” U.S. District Judge William Young wrote in his ruling. “To those dedicated customers of Spirit, this one’s for you.”

The idea of the Spirit-Frontier deal had Wall Street veteran and TheStreet Pro analyst  Stephen Guilfoyle quoting the lyrics from the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden’s song “Run to The Hills.”

“That’s a hard ‘no’ from me,” he wrote on Oct. 23. “All 12 sell-side analysts that I can find that follow SAVE have reduced their earnings estimates as the quarter progressed.”

“Is Frontier better?” the veteran trader asked. “Yes, the firm is losing a lot less money, ran a slightly positive operating cash flow for the past quarter and the balance sheet is a lot less awful. How about JBLU? Not much better.”

Guilfoyle said that he thinks “Frontier, while still speculative, is the better investment choice of the three.”

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