31.How to Identify Execution Collapse Before It Happens (Spirit Airlines Case Study)

Every business is measured by its financial performance.

Revenue. Profit. The bottom line.

That’s what people look at when something collapses.

But by the time the numbers reflect the problem, it’s already been there.

There are other indicators that get overlooked.

Decision speed starts to slow.
Pressure builds in places no one is tracking.
Options begin to narrow long before anyone calls it a risk.

I didn’t look at Spirit Airlines and think this was sudden.

I thought about how long it had probably been building.

In this episode, I walk through what most people miss when they look at business failure.

Not the outcome. The pattern behind it.

Because collapse doesn’t start with financial results.

It starts inside the system.

And if you’re not paying attention to those signals early, you don’t get time to react. You get forced to respond.

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If you want to assess where execution may be breaking down in your current projects, take the Execution Intelligence Diagnostic to identify gaps across leadership, decision making, and team alignment.

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To learn more about how organizations eliminate execution friction and turn strategy into measurable results, visit Makoway Consulting.

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Transcript

I'm Brittany Wilkins 

This is Project Management Masterclass

Different day. Same pattern. Another company is collapsing under pressure.

Spirit Airlines is preparing to shut down. Tough news to hear in this economy especially with the job impacts both directly and indirectly. The consumers who made Spirit their preferred choice for their personal and business needs.

If you paid attention or followed this story, what came to mind for me.

They been in business for quite some years, did you view this as a business failure?

I read the articles and said to myself this collapse didn’t start when the headlines hit.

It started long before—inside their execution system.

And that matters.

Because the same pattern is playing out right now inside organizations that still look “stable” on the outside. Inside they are collapsing under pressure.

I want to talk through and show you how to identify execution collapse before it in our world in projects and businesses.

I never traveled Spirit so I don't have the full experience of what it's like as a consumer to be part of their ecosystem. From friends and colleagues I heard some pretty interesting stories.

1. Their Business Model Got Exposed

Spirit built its edge on ultra-low fares and fees.

That worked when:

• Fuel was cheaper
• Competitors weren’t matching prices

But that environment changed.

• Larger airlines adapted
• Customers got fed up with the experience
• Margins disappeared

Now here’s the part most people miss:

The model didn’t fail because it was wrong.

It failed because it only worked under specific conditions.

That’s not strategy.

That’s dependency.

We always say control what you can control.  

External environment factors are uncontrollable outside forces—

political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental (PESTLE)

2. External Pressure Crushed Them

Jet fuel prices spiked.

Costs increased beyond what they planned for.

And their recovery strategy depended on those costs coming back down.

That’s not bad luck.

That’s fragile planning.

Because if one variable doubling can break your model,

that variable is not just a cost.

It’s a vulnerability.

 Then you look at their strategy

3. Strategic Failure (This Is the Big One)

Their merger with JetBlue got blocked.

They filed bankruptcy twice.

They cut routes. Reduced staff.

And still couldn’t stabilize.

Translation:

They had no viable standalone strategy once consolidation failed.

Which means everything depended on one outcome.

And when that outcome disappeared, so did their options.

So the real question is not:

“What happened to Spirit?”

The real question is:

How do you know when your system is heading in the same direction?

 Framework: Identifying Execution Collapse Early

I’m going to walk you through three indicators.

 Indicator 1: Decision Lag Under Pressure

When pressure increases, decisions should speed up.

Instead, what often happens is the opposite.

• More meetings
• More alignment conversations
• More waiting

And decisions take longer.

That’s a warning sign.

Because decision speed is not just a leadership trait.

It’s a system output.

If your system requires excessive coordination to move forward, 

it will slow down exactly when speed matters most.

Question to ask yourself:

Where are decisions currently slowing down in your organization?

Because that’s where pressure is already building.

 Indicator 2: No Clear Breaking Point

Most organizations don’t know their limits.

They operate on assumptions like:

• “We’ll adjust if needed”
• “We’ll figure it out”

That’s not a strategy.

That’s exposure.

Every system has a breaking point:

• Cost thresholds
• Capacity limits
• Timeline compression

If you don’t define those in advance, you don’t control them.

You discover them.

And discovery under pressure is expensive.

Question:

Do you know the exact point where your current execution model fails?

Not generally. Specifically.

 Indicator 3: Over-Reliance on a Single Outcome

This is where things become dangerous.

When organizations start depending on one outcome to survive:

• A deal going through
• A project landing
• A market shift

They stop adapting.

They start waiting.

And waiting is the fastest way to lose optionality.

Once options shrink, recovery becomes unlikely.

That’s what happened here.

Question:

What outcome is your organization quietly depending on right now?

Because if that doesn’t happen, what’s the plan?

 The Real Pattern 

Here’s what execution collapse actually looks like:

• Pressure increases
• Decisions slow down
• Limits are unclear
• Options narrow
• And then it becomes irreversible

By the time leadership recognizes the severity, the system is already 

too constrained to recover.

So what do you do with this?

You don’t wait until there’s a problem.

You build awareness into your system.

Here are three things you can do immediately:

1. Map Your Decision Bottlenecks

Where does work slow down when it needs approval?

Not in theory. In reality.

That’s where your execution risk lives.

2. Define Your Pressure Thresholds

Ask:

• What happens if our primary cost doubles?
• What happens if timelines compress by 30%?

If you can’t answer that clearly, you don’t have a resilient system.

3. Identify Your Hidden Dependencies

What are you relying on that hasn’t happened yet?

Call it out.

Because dependency without contingency is risk.

Close

Spirit Airlines is not an isolated case.

It is a visible example of something that happens quietly every day.

Execution systems don’t fail because people stop working.

They fail because the system cannot adapt under pressure.

And by the time it’s obvious, it’s already too late.

Final Line

If your primary cost doubled tomorrow, what happens to your execution plan?

If that question is difficult to answer, that’s not a gap.

That’s a signal.

CTA

If you want to go deeper into how to assess and strengthen your execution system, start with the Execution Intelligence Assessment.

Because the goal is not to react to pressure.

It’s to be built for it.