Is Spirit Air going out of business?

[Kimmielee]

I've been pricing my Easter trip... out of Detroit.... I can get round trip for 2 for around $600 but the same itinerary on Spirit is $1800!!! What's up with that?

 

[cats04]

Kimmielee,
I hope not, we're flying Spirit this September before our cruise. Haven't heard anything yet. By the way, hello from your neighbor in Clarkston.

 

[Kimmielee]

Howdy Neighbor!

Isn't it odd? I can almost ALWAYS get a better priced flight with Spirit and their prices are sky high all of a sudden!!

The good news, I have time to watch both....

Where are you going in September? This is our first cruise and I am BEYOND excited....

 

[DisneyPhD]

We will be going to WDW in Jan (3rd to 12th) hopefully. However airfare for Jan 1st, 2nd and 3rd are all very high right now. Jan 4th on is only 75$ each way. I think they are hikeing for high travel times.

I just head on the news of a new airline (trans air I think, but I am not sure) that is doing non stop flights from Detroit to Orlando and Atlanta. This should cut down on airfare to Orlando, since we will now have 3 non stop options.

Also Spirt keeps doing this flight from Detroit to Orlando with a stop in NYC and it cost like twice as much as non stop. Why even offer it?

 

[cats04]

Kimmielee-We're going on the Western from 9/24-10/1. This is our first disney cruise too. I think I'm more excited then our dd's.

disneyPhd- Hello! I heard something about US3000 having inexpensive flights but I think they fly into Tampa. Once I booked w/Spirit I stopped looking, didn't want to find a cheaper flight after the fact.

 

[talicskai]

We will be going to WDW in Jan (3rd to 12th) hopefully. However airfare for Jan 1st, 2nd and 3rd are all very high right now. Jan 4th on is only 75$ each way. I think they are hikeing for high travel times.

I just head on the news of a new airline (trans air I think, but I am not sure) that is doing non stop flights from Detroit to Orlando and Atlanta. This should cut down on airfare to Orlando, since we will now have 3 non stop options.

Also Spirt keeps doing this flight from Detroit to Orlando with a stop in NYC and it cost like twice as much as non stop. Why even offer it?

I just wanted to say that the baby picture in your signature is absolutely adorable! I just want to squeeze her cheeks!

 

[DisneyPhD]

Kimmielee-We're going on the Western from 9/24-10/1. This is our first disney cruise too. I think I'm more excited then our dd's.

disneyPhd- Hello! I heard something about US3000 having inexpensive flights but I think they fly into Tampa. Once I booked w/Spirit I stopped looking, didn't want to find a cheaper flight after the fact.

I just saw this on the news tonight. DH asked like he knew about it already. All things being equal (price and times) I would rather fly Spirit since we have many times and are comfortable with them.

Did you know that Spirit will issue vouchers if the airfare you bought goes down? We keep checking all the time and get them to go towards our next flight. We saved $200 towards one trip once that way (it went down to $69 each way!)

 

[cats04]

Wow! I didn't know that. Maybe I should keep checking. There's nothing worse than thinking you got a great price and seeing it go even lower. We usually fly NW or Spirit. Whoever has the better price wins.

 

[DisneyPhD]

Wow! I didn't know that. Maybe I should keep checking. There's nothing worse than thinking you got a great price and seeing it go even lower. We usually fly NW or Spirit. Whoever has the better price wins.

Same here, but if they are the same I will go with Spirit, since the new NW terminal is nice, but so big it is more work. Also Spirit actually seems to be on time more.

I think the new airline was Air Tran, DH said flights start in Nov 2005 out of Metro Airport.

 

[southjerseymom]

I fly Spirit out of Atlantic City. Usually it is $79 each way. With taxes for February it is pricing out at $300. I didn't know they would honor cheaper fares. How does that work? I get the syber specials and it says it can't be applied to previously purchased tickets. Is it only for regular fare tickets that go down in price? Is the original post correct that they could be going out of business? I really like Spirit Air and I hope it is not going "south"

 

[JLDSMD]

DisneyPhD,

You might be thinking of Air Tran Airways. They aren't a new airline, just new to the Detroit area (per their press release on August 4th). They have actually been in business since 1993.

We are actually flying them from Milwaukee to Orlando for our October cruise. Unfortunately, we didn't get on the non-stop and have to connect through Atlanta. They did change our outbound flight 3 times now, however.

I believe they have a pretty new fleet of 717's and 737's, but not sure how new.

It is nice to have several options of non-stop flights. We have 3 airlines here that fly non-stop to Orlando (not counting USA 3000).

 

[JanDave]

Hi fellow Michiganders: We are flying out of Detroit on Spirit on a direct flight to Orlando in a month for our 9/3/05 Magic cruise. I booked the flight in late 2004 and got rates of $167.00 r/t, including taxes. I didn't know about the reduced rate/voucher program they have. We have flown Spirit a few times and have had no problem with their customer service, etc.

For those of you in northern Oakland County, have you looked at flights out of Flint's Bishop Airport? I'm not sure if Air Tran flies direct to Orlando from Flint. We don't use the Lansing airport to fly to Orlando for cruises because there are no direct flights.

Jan

 

[Kimmielee]

The Flint flight has a direct flight out on Saturday mornings only... both ways! So it isn't a good option for the return flight home... and the other flights stop at Metro anyways and then the price gets jacked up to match the Metro flights!! I'll check AirTran out of Metro though... Thanks!!

 

[LtlTee]

I fly Spirit out of Atlantic City. Usually it is $79 each way. With taxes for February it is pricing out at $300. I didn't know they would honor cheaper fares. How does that work? I get the syber specials and it says it can't be applied to previously purchased tickets. Is it only for regular fare tickets that go down in price? Is the original post correct that they could be going out of business? I really like Spirit Air and I hope it is not going "south"

We're in South Jersey also and used to fly Spirit out of AC all the time. However, for our last few trips we have flown US Air, which was way cheaper than Spirit. The only think I can think of is now that Southwest flies out of the Philadelphia Airport, US Air has to be much more competitive with their pricing. Spirit pretty much has the monopoly flying out of AC. I think the only other carrier is Delta, and Spirit is cheaper than Delta. So, if you absolutely want to fly out of AC, Spirit is it. US Air beat Spirit's price by over $79 per ticket (for a family of 5, that adds up!) for our last trip. I haven't heard anything about them going out of business.

In the past I had a fare go down with US Air and they gave me a voucher for the difference to be used on future airfare.

 

[CleveRocks]

Not only is Spirit Airlines NOT going out of business, they're one of the only airlines to make an actual profit every year! They just bought a new fleet of Airbus aircraft to slowly replace their aging Boeings. Spirit is happy and healthy! And they'd better be -- they're pretty much the only airline serving my airport!!!

-- Eric

 

[Pinnie]

AirTran will fly one non-stop per day out of DTW to MCO using the SMITH Terminal. There will also be one non-stop per day back from MCO.

Here is a copy of the press release from Aug. 4:

http://www.airtran.com/aboutus/detroitpress.jsp

Keep in mind that flights in and out of DTW are often higher because of the high landing fees.

pinnie

 

[bronwyn]

I find it really hard to predict pricing on Spirit. Some of their regular fares are so expensive but... if you buy during a sale you can get a great deal.

Just as an FYI, they will issue credits if the price goes down but generally will charge you a $40 change of ticket fee to do this. Basically they cancel your original ticket and rebook you on the same flight. Our flights went down $40 each only 2 days after I booked them so we would have saved a total of $160. With the $40 change fee (per ticket) they were going to charge me to rebook it obviously wasn't worth it.

I've had luck booking about 2 months out with sales. Don't know if this would be the case with Spring Break tickets though. Also, most sales come out on Tuesday. HTH

 

[Brian Noble]

It seems to me that Spirit's prices more than, say, six months out are often very high. They drop around five months before, and then slowly creep back up. Last year, I watched airfare all summer for my President's Week trip, and finally got direct, saturday-to-saturday flights with good times for under $200pp on Spirit in mid-September---a pretty good deal for a busy holiday week.

 

[Tinkerbell58]

I fly Spirit out of Atlantic City. Usually it is $79 each way. With taxes for February it is pricing out at $300. I didn't know they would honor cheaper fares. How does that work? I get the syber specials and it says it can't be applied to previously purchased tickets. Is it only for regular fare tickets that go down in price? Is the original post correct that they could be going out of business? I really like Spirit Air and I hope it is not going "south"

I fly Spirit out of Atlantic City. I believe you will get a voucher for the difference in price for a FUTURE flight. It wouldn't apply to tickets you have already purchased. You have to book a flight within one year from the original booking date of your orignal flight.

Hope I'm making sense here.

 

[pearlieq]

Just as an FYI, they will issue credits if the price goes down but generally will charge you a $40 change of ticket fee to do this. Basically they cancel your original ticket and rebook you on the same flight. Our flights went down $40 each only 2 days after I booked them so we would have saved a total of $160. With the $40 change fee (per ticket) they were going to charge me to rebook it obviously wasn't worth it.

That seems very odd. I've done the price adjustment several times and I'm simply issued a voucher--no change of tickets and certainly no fee! I'd be pretty PO'd if they tried that!

The only downside about the vouchers is at unless things have recently changed you can only use them over the phone which means you may not get the same low price offered online and that you won't be able to select your seats early. Sometimes the $$ is worth it, though!