Last Yellow Wing Tour leg 11

LEG 11 — NOMADIC FLIGHT 189 (KFLL → KGYR) Fort Lauderdale → Phoenix Goodyear Mission: Recreate the documented Nomadic ferry flight from Spirit's former Fort Lauderdale hub to Goodyear.

📖 The Final Ride This leg represents one of the repo flights documented publicly after Spirit's collapse.

Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix Goodyear.

NPR reported Nomadic Flight 189 making this journey with no passengers aboard—only the skeleton crew required to move the aircraft into storage.

So treat this flight differently.

Leave the cabin empty.

Don't use Spirit Wings.

You're not operating an airline flight.

You're transporting an asset.

Push back from Fort Lauderdale and look at the terminal one last time.

Perhaps the pilot sitting beside you worked here.

Maybe they spent years commuting through this airport.

Maybe their children grew up while they built seniority at Spirit.

Maybe they expected to retire there.

Now they're flying their former employer's airplane into the desert.

Four hours later, Arizona fills the windshield.

The yellow airplane descends toward Goodyear.

Gear down.

Flaps extend.

Landing checklist complete.

The wheels touch.

Reverse.

Decelerate.

Taxi clear.

And somewhere on the ramp waits an employee holding orange wands.

They guide you toward a parking position beside another Spirit aircraft.

Then another.

Then another.

Parking brake set.

Engines off.

Fuel pumps off.

Beacon off.

The Airbus becomes silent.

For the pilot who spent years flying it, there is one final checklist item nobody wrote down:

Walk away.