What is the past perfect?
The past perfect (had + past participle) shows that one past action happened before another past action. When we tell a story in the past simple, the past perfect lets us step further back to explain the background.
Take the sudden collapse of Spirit Airlines. The airline stopped flying in May 2026 (past simple), but it had been in financial trouble for years before that (past perfect). The earlier event uses had; the later event stays in the past simple.
Spot the mistake
Each sentence about the Spirit Airlines collapse has one mistake with the past perfect. Find it and correct it.
- By the time creditors rejected the rescue offer, fuel prices have already doubled.
- Spirit had filed for its first bankruptcy in late 2024, before it reach a new deal in early 2026.
- The airline had budget for cheap fuel, so the price rise was a disaster.
- Thousands of passengers were stranded because the website had went dark overnight.
- Spirit closed only three days after it had signed the agreement with creditors.
CEFR Level B1 / ICAO Level 4
For more practice with this tense, revisit our first past-perfect lesson and its aviation examples.