Gros Michel bananas may have been the perfect fruit. They were not just tasty. They grew in bunches ideal for shipping, with thick skins that protected the creamy white flesh all the way to American tables.
Unfortunately, they were not resistant to disease. After decades of dominating the international produce market, they were all but wiped out by fungal blight more than 50 years ago. The bananas on shelves today are the Cavendish variety — still brilliantly yellow but somehow a pale imitation of their more flavorful cousin.
The problem was not just the fungus. Growers had put all their focus on a single kind of banana — and when it died off, it threatened entire industries across multiple nations.
That’s the danger of depending on a single source for survival.
On Saturday, Spirit Airlines grounded its bright yellow aircraft nationwide, bringing weeks of uncertainty to an abrupt end as the company closed up shop.
In big travel hubs like Pittsburgh International Airport, the closure was a punch, leaving other carriers to absorb the burden of accommodating suddenly stranded passengers. Michelle and Cody Henderson of Hempfield were left in Myrtle Beach, trying to figure out how to get home from South Carolina.
But when they come home, they won’t be able to fly out of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity again. At least for now. Spirit was its only commercial carrier.
Spirit has flown out of Arnold Palmer since 2011. It has faced financial struggles since 2020, when many airlines took a hit during pandemic travel restrictions. In 2025, it carried just under 120,000 passengers — less than half the totals from 2021 and 2022 and about a third of its 2015 peak of more than 355,000.
Despite that falloff, Spirit remained the airport’s only carrier. That’s a reality we have questioned often over the years — especially with the airport undergoing a $22 million expansion project.
County and airport officials are expressing optimism. They always do.
But while the line on the expansion is that it could attract more carriers, there is seldom evidence of a search for them. There are blueprints and grants, but no paper trail of efforts to court other airlines to serve Unity.
The airport put all its eggs — or bananas — in one basket.
Instead, it should follow the model of a different fruit. Apples are abundant in their varieties. In Pennsylvania alone, more than 100 are cultivated commercially.
Arnold Palmer should be providing the best service from a jewel box location by offering at least two passenger carriers, as well as pursuing freight and private opportunities.
There will no doubt be a push to replace Spirit, but airport officials need to focus more broadly than the monoculture of a single provider.
Without that, it will be only a matter of time before Arnold Palmer is fresh out of bananas. Again.