ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2026--
As recent airline uncertainty has left many travelers clutching expired boarding passes and loyalty points that were rendered useless, Papa Johns is offering a soft landing. Introducing Skies to Pies, a limited‑time offer that transforms Spirit Airlines’ unusable loyalty program into something reliable: hot Papa Johns pizza.
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“Loyalty points don’t mean much if you can’t use them,” said Shivram Vaideeswaran, SVP of Brand Marketing at Papa Johns. “While we can’t fix cancelled flights or lost membership points, hopefully we can provide a smile and a delicious pizza to those impacted.”
For a short time, eligible former Spirit loyalty members can convert proof of their loyalty into a free pizza. Stranded Spirit members can now find a home in Papa Rewards.
How Skies to Pies Works:
That’s it. No blackout dates. No middle seats. Just – Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.
Not a Papa Rewards member? Join today at papajohns.com.
ABOUT PAPA JOHNS
Papa John’s International, Inc. (Nasdaq: PZZA) opened its doors in 1984 with one goal in mind: BETTER INGREDIENTS. BETTER PIZZA.® Papa Johns believes that using high-quality ingredients leads to superior quality pizzas. Its original dough is made of only six ingredients and is fresh, never frozen. Papa Johns tops its pizzas with real cheese made from mozzarella, pizza sauce made with vine-ripened tomatoes that go from vine to can in the same day and meat free of fillers. It was the first national pizza delivery chain to announce the removal of artificial flavors and synthetic colors from its entire food menu. Papa Johns is co-headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. and Louisville, Ky. and is the world’s third-largest pizza delivery company with more than 6,000 restaurants in approximately 50 countries and territories. For more information about the Company or to order pizza online, visit www.papajohns.com or download the Papa Johns mobile app for iOS or Android.
Skies to Pies: Papa Johns Turns Grounded Spirit Points into Free Pizza
MADRID (AP) — Spanish authorities are preparing to receive a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship headed for the Canary Islands.
Health officials plan careful evacuations of the more than 140 passengers and crew when the MV Hondius arrives in Tenerife this weekend.
At least three passengers have died, and several others are sick. None of the remaining passengers or crew is currently symptomatic.
The U.S. and the U.K. are arranging flights to repatriate their citizens. The World Health Organization says the risk to the wider public is low. Health authorities are tracking passengers who disembarked before the outbreak was detected.
Here's the latest:
The virus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings. Hantaviruses have been around for centuries and are thought to exist around the world.
But global health officials say the risk to the general public remains low because the germ does not easily spread between people.
“This is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness at the World Health Organization. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”
The disease gained renewed attention last year after the late actor Gene Hackman ’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from a hantavirus infection in New Mexico.
Health authorities across four continents were continuing to track down and monitor passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected. They are also trying to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.
On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, the ship’s operator and Dutch officials said Thursday.
It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the World Health Organization said.
The KLM flight attendant who tested negative for the virus was working on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25, and had later fallen ill. She was taken to an isolation ward at an Amsterdam hospital on Thursday.
The cruise passenger briefly aboard the flight — a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship — was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe. She was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died.
The MV Hondius is expected to reach Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, on Saturday or Sunday.
Passengers “will arrive at a completely isolated, cordoned-off area,” said Virginia Barcones, Spain’s head of emergency services, on Thursday.
The MV Hondius is a Dutch-flagged vessel and Dutch officials said Friday they were also in close contact with the ship’s owner and authorities of countries whose citizens are on board.
The United States has agreed to send a plane to the Canary Islands to repatriate its 17 citizens from the cruise ship, Barcones said. The British government also said it will charter a plane to evacuate the nearly two dozen British citizens on board.
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship into an ambulance at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
