Allegiant or Spirit??

[ShellyMouse]

i've been checking the airfares alot, and wanting a non-stop flight. neither of these airlines have their dates yet for december, but when i put in closer dates they are so much cheaper than the "major" airlines.
for allegiant, its a 1 1/2 hour drive from home (about $600. for 3 people)
for spirit, its 2 1/2 hours. (mid $500's)
both of these are non-stop flights.

just wondering if anyone has flown either or both of these carriers, and tell me about your experiences.

are these both newer airlines?
are they bigger size planes? (bigger means safer to me)

the spirit website talked about their PERFECT safety and on time record!! this will be my first flight, so that really caught my eye!

thanks!!

 

[doc hog]

My family has been flying Spirit for the last 4x's to WDW and we love it! Got frustrated with USAir out of Philadelphia, always late for departure and the wait time for luggage is just bad (usually takes 45-1 hour for luggage). We fly Spirit out of Atlantic City, NJ, they are on time for departures & arrivals and have good fares.

Hope this helps.

 

[chrisann]

Spirit is the one to go with! This will be our 4th time flying with them, never a delay and great customer service!!

 

[Allison]

Are you aware Allegiant flies into Sanford and not MCO? We really like Allegiant. The direct flight was great and the airport is every small and easy to navigate.

I have never heard of Spirit so I can't give any info on that.

 

[mrsmagic]

We live in Grand Rapids, so we have considered these choices, also. I think I've eliminated Allegiant because they don't fly that route every day, and we would have to rent a car at the Sanford airport rather than take Magical Express for free. It may be more expensive to rent a car at Sanford than at MCO because it is a smaller airport, too.

We are flying Spirit for the first time in October. I hear great things about them, and if you check their prices every day, you can get a great deal. They also have choices of times each day. I worried that with Allegiant if something happened to your flight, when would be the next chance to fly out?

Keep an eye on the non-stop flight on Northwest out of Grand Rapids. Right now it is at $250. for our dates in January (although there was an article in the Grand Rapids Press today about how prices are really going up at the airport here). It would be so convenient for us to fly out of GR, but if I could save $500 to fly out of Detroit, I'd do it!

 

[MiaSRN62]

We've flown Spirit once out of Atlantic City (Oct '00). Our flight was due to leave at 8 am. Didn't leave until 11:45 am. It was a mechanical problem they had to correct. On the return flight home---flight was on time and smooth, but we had a 2 hour wait for our luggage. Not sure what was wrong there. The staff and flight itself was fine, and despite these problems we would use them again if the price and times were good.