What Spirit Airlines’ Collapse Means For Cheap Flights

What does “set the floor” mean in English?

A “floor” is the lowest point — the bottom of a room. “Set the floor” means to fix the lowest price in a market. When one company always offers the cheapest price, other companies have to match it or lose customers. If that cheap company disappears, prices can rise freely again. The floor is gone. This clip uses Spirit Airlines as the example — and it clicks immediately.

In the clip, the speaker explains why Spirit Airlines mattered to passengers who never flew with it: “Spirit set the floor when it came to prices, and every other airline had to move based on that.” Because Spirit always offered the lowest fares, bigger airlines like Delta and United had to offer lower prices too — just to compete. When Spirit shut down, that pressure disappeared. You hear this phrase in business news and opinion content when one low-cost player forces a whole market to stay cheap. For example: “The discount supermarket set the floor on grocery prices in this neighbourhood” or “Their free plan set the floor — now no one can charge for basic features.” The image is simple: a floor stops you from falling any lower. “Set the floor” means to fix that lowest point. It fits business and news talk but also shows up in podcasts and opinion videos like this one. Note: this everyday phrase is different from the economics term “price floor,” which means a lowest price fixed by law — like a minimum wage.