Laid off Spirit Airlines workers share their heartbreak: 'I felt like a part of me died'

FOX 2 - Thousands of former Spirit Airlines employees suddenly left without jobs and without answers after the budget airliner abruptly went out of business over the weekend.

Spirit employed about 17,000 people - with many telling FOX 2 that they spent more time with each other than their own families.

The backstory:

A group of Metro Detroit and even some Canadian Spirit employees met up Tuesday to comfort each other — reminisce about the good times in the air — and to grieve together after Spirit went out of business.

Many of the flight attendants FOX 2 spoke with, had worked for decades — and now they have got to go weeks without their final pay checks, no longer have access to their benefits or travel miles — and are just heartbroken.

For some, this was their final flight — saying they don't plan to join another airline — others hope they can find work — but worried they’ll have to start from the bottom again.

There is a lot of stress, uncertainty and emotion.

"I felt like a part of me died," said Cindy Williams, Spirit Flight attendant. "My kids, my grandkids grew up with me being a flight attendant for Spirit. It was a part of me. It was my identity and I honk was. And it just felt like in a second everything was stripped from me.

"I felt like a part of me died. I was grieving. I don’t think I’ve cried that much since my mom died."

Ryan Seidel was a Spirit flight attendant for 26 years.

"We didn’t have warning. But there were warning signs there was trouble financially. We didn’t think it was going to come to this."

Sherri Mercier was a Spirit flight attendant for 12 years.

"It looked grim. I kind of knew that was the last time I put my uniform on," said Mercier. "I couldn’t bring myself to take it off. I stayed in it and stayed away until 8 o'clock at night. I had been up for over 24 hours. It’s devastating."

You can see here at Detroit Metro Airport, the Spirit kiosk is empty.