Special Charges and Credits (Details) (USD $)	0 Months Ended	12 Months Ended			1 Months Ended	3 Months Ended	12 Months Ended		12 Months Ended	24 Months Ended		0 Months Ended	12 Months Ended		0 Months Ended
	Jun. 02, 2011 debtors	Dec. 31, 2012	Dec. 31, 2011	Dec. 31, 2010	Jun. 30, 2012 Slot Transaction aircraft_slot	Sep. 30, 2012 Slot Transaction	Dec. 31, 2012 July 31, 2012 Secondary Offering	Jul. 31, 2012 July 31, 2012 Secondary Offering	Dec. 31, 2012 January 25, 2012 Secondary Offering	Dec. 31, 2012 January 25, 2012 Secondary Offering	Jan. 25, 2012 January 25, 2012 Secondary Offering	Jun. 02, 2011 Initial Public Offering	Dec. 31, 2011 Initial Public Offering	Dec. 31, 2011 Initial Public Offering Indigo Partners, LLC Professional Services Agreement Termination	Jun. 02, 2011 Initial Public Offering Repayments to Unaffiliated Debt Holders
Restructuring Cost and Reserve [Line Items]
Number of permanent air carrier slots transferred					4
Proceeds from sale of slots		$ 9,060,000	$ 0	$ 0	$ 9,100,000
Deferred gain on sale of slots					9,100,000
Gain recognized on sale of slots		9,060,000	0	0		9,100,000
Shares sold by certain stockholders in secondary offering (in shares)								9,394,927			12,650,000
Payments of stock issuance costs							700,000		500,000	1,300,000
Common stock, shares held, by Oaktree Capital Management, post secondary offering								0
Reimbursement of stock issuance costs									600,000
Shares issued in public offering (in shares)												15,600,000
Incurred costs													$ 2,250,000	$ 1,800,000	$ 500,000
Number of unaffiliated debt holders paid with IPO proceeds (in debtors)	3