• Spirit Airlines Taps A Nation Of Hate Fliers
    9 replies, posted
[URL="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/02/19/279649208/spirit-airlines-taps-a-nation-of-hate-fliers"]NPR Link[/URL] [quote=NPR]Spirit Airlines is one of the fastest-growing airlines in America. Last week, we flew Spirit from New York to Fort Lauderdale for $68.99 each. Cheap! But that doesn't count fees. We paid $30 extra to pick our seats ahead of time. Once you're on the plane, a bottle of water costs $3. Even putting a bag in the overhead bin costs money on Spirit. Somewhere between New York and Florida, the guy sitting across the aisle from us leaned over and said, "This sucks." "I had to ask them if they charge to go to the bathroom," he said. "This is the first time we used Spirit, and it's gonna be the last time we use Spirit." We were going to Fort Lauderdale to talk to Ben Baldanza, Spirit's CEO. He doesn't pretend that Spirit is a fancy airline. "We're not even Wal-Mart," he said. "We're Dollar General. And we like being Dollar General, because we save people lots of money." When you buy a ticket on Spirit all you're paying for is the transportation. Everything else is extra. All that free stuff you get on other airlines — like, say, checked bags — isn't really free. "It's expensive to carry bags," Baldanza said. "You hire people to load the bags. You pay for bag belts in the airports ... you either charge the people who use it, or you charge everybody whether they use it or don't. And we think it's fairer to charge customers for what they use, and not charge them for what they don't use."[/quote]
The new Airline Simulator looks like shit. Also, how do you miss SH twice?
is this one of those battlefield moments i keep hearing about
[QUOTE=Agoat;43983441]is this one of those battlefield moments i keep hearing about[/QUOTE] Yes. You have to pay to use fighter jets now.
Hum what?
I assume this is supposed to be in SH, moving it there now.
Apparently spirit sucks for much more than the fees They have the smallest seats and cram the most people in compared to any other flight which means its incredibly uncomfortable the whole way. They only let out one or two flights to destinations a day which means if you have to do layover or miss a connecting flight for any reason you have to often wait till the next day. Their customer service is non-existant They often cost more than "normal" flights once you add up fees (so its only worth going on if you do your homework and avoid fees). They don't have any partners in flights that I'm aware of so you can't rack up airline miles with them and you can't fly on partner's airline when connecting flights between destinations. They don't have partners with hotels/rentals/etc which means you will pay more by getting those things at your destination The whole "$30 to fly one way domestic" thing only applies as well during off-peak times under special promotions, otherwise you are paying usually only $50-$75 less than competing airlines (completely negated by fees). The entire company model is built around tricking travel and search engines in showing spirit as the cheapest option but then negate that via fees, seating, layover, etc.
[QUOTE=Swebonny;43984749]I assume this is supposed to be in SH, moving it there now.[/QUOTE] Yeah I pulled a dumb after panicking over an interview for a job.
I've been using Spirit recently, and as long as you don't care where you sit, and don't have a lot of luggage, it is pretty cheap. At least, I've never paid more than $100 a flight between Georgia/Florida multiple times. the fees do add up, but then, I've never really payed for them.
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