Opinions on Spirit Airlines

[akclayton]

We just booked a trip to Disney for the end of August. The original plan was to drive. We live south of Houston. My husband told me today that if I can find flights that are under $1200 then we'll fly. Well.. everyone except for Spirit and Frontier are $1700. But Frontier doesn't fly from Hou to Mco anywhere close to the days we are going. Spirit of course, was only $817. Then I've read countless reviews of their extra charges. Upon reading this, I checked them out. If I understand them correctly, We could be paying almost $300 extra in fees. That's ridiculous but, it's still under our budget.

My question.. Other than their crazy fees, are there any other complaints about the airline? Are they usually on time? Is the seating bearable? How's the cabin pressure? (it may sound like a funny question. I hate flying in the brown SWA planes. every time i ride one, my ears hurt as soon as they close the doors and it never fails.. I have a migraine for well over 24 hours afterwards. I never get migraines.) I thought I'd get some feedback on here. It may help with our decision. TIA

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

There are many, many threads here discussing Spirit. Try doing a search; you'll find a lot of information.

As far as cabin pressurization, I don't know that there is any difference between different commercial aircraft or airlines.

 

[akclayton]

I did do a search. No matter how I typed it, nothing comes up.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I did do a search. No matter how I typed it, nothing comes up.

Just a few from the Transportation Board alone:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3110129&highlight=spirit

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2575879&highlight=spirit

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3056958&highlight=spirit

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3027746&highlight=spirit

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3020944&highlight=spirit

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2999686&highlight=spirit

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3048526&highlight=spirit

 

[Disneygirl NY]

My own 2 experiences from Spirit: Granted they were a while ago, but it left a bad enough impression that I will avoid them.

In 2000 I planned a 30th bday trip for myself and 5 friends to fly out of Islip, NY on Spirit. Got a great rate - but starting about a month before, they started changing our flight times. This is common, but they changed a morning flight to a very late afternoon flight basically taking a whole day away from our already very short trip. I complained and tried to get some compensation, so we basically added an extra unplanned day to the end and stayed off property the last night.

They stopped flying out of Islip, but then about 5 or so years later they tried to come back. They scheduled flights and started selling tix and my MIL and FIL bought tix to FLL. A few weeks went by and my MIL read in the paper that they were not going to fly out of Islip. So - no phone call, email or communication of any kind to their ticket holders and my MIL had to call THEM to get their money back.

Based on that and what I've read about their fees, they will not have my business. I am SW and Jetblue all the way....

 

[bianca]

Perhaps our experience is different since we live at the original home of Spirit airlines (Detroit), but we love them. On one occasion they did re-schedule our flight. It was really more of a consolidation, though, as they had two flights that day ...... Neither one was full. I do not begrudge them that, as that is part of their business model that keeps costs down. Everyone does it.

With all that being said, we have always been on time and almost always have an amiable staff. No cabin pressure out of the ordinary. We always upgrade to big seats, but never pay for checked bags. Since we have an owners locker in FL, we just carry personal bags. For an entire family I would recommend that each person carry the proper size personal bag/backpack and then pay for only 1 checked bag with everyone's overflow in it ......HUGE cost savings.

I just scored $59 flights from Detroit to/from Orlando or October for DH and myself a couple of weeks ago. How can you bet that? Seriously, I know a lot of people rag on Spirit, but they are really doing a lot of things right if you're wanting to save $.

 

[amcnj]

Just make sure you know all their rules, fees, etc to avoid unexpected surprises. Over the years I have also experienced, or know of others who experienced, delays as they fly their planes on a tight turn around schedule, and don't seem to have any back-up aircraft, so a delay (weather, mechanical, etc) somewhere along the chain backs everything else up for the rest of the day. But maybe most airlines do that now? Also know people who got bumped at the airport due to overbooking, and there were no other Spirit flights that day, leading to a scramble to another airport as they had to get out that night for an event the next day at their destination. But for all I know these are common occurrences at other airlines too.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Go here. Type "Spirit" in the Search button

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g1-i10702-Air_Travel.html

Read and beware.

Personally having read about Spirit I am staying home if they are my only choice. If everything goes well you will be fine, but if ANYTHING goes wrong you will discover that they don't do customer service (and that is their official stance per the President. "folks fly us because we are cheap")

 

[glen65]

Besides changing the times, we were delayed and they took us to EWR instead of JFK on the way back from Jamaica. They told us that JFK was closed and we could take cabs back to JFK at our own expense. We were also told that they would reimburse us back at JFK. When we got to JFK, it was a ghost town. Took over a year to get my cab far back.
Do your research, they are one of the worst rated airlines for good reason.

 

[Lewisc]

Personally having read about Spirit I am staying home if they are my only choice. If everything goes well you will be fine, but if ANYTHING goes wrong you will discover that they don't do customer service (and that is their official stance per the President. "folks fly us because we are cheap")

I, "sort of" have to give Spirit credit. They determined their customers want to see the lowest possible fare displayed when they check fares. Spirit decided that a dollar spent on customer service is a dollar wasted.

A warning. The seats on Spirit's new planes don't recline and only offer pitch of 28". They only have 5 planes so configured. That means there is no value to posts which say the seats are OK unless the passenger flew in a plane with the new configuration. You can check and see if your flight is scheduled to be flown with an older aircraft but you don't have any grounds to complain if the equipment is swapped for a newer aircraft.

 

[Sandi]

We flew Spirit RT DTW-MCO two times. Both times had lots of problems. Will not use them again.

 

[stargazertechie]

We fly spirit if absolutely necessary, but only for short (4 or fewer day) trips as to avoid the checked back and the carry on fee (we can fit 4 days of clothes in our "personal item")

Never had a flight cancellation, thank God, but then again we've also never paid more than $50/person each way for flights.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I, "sort of" have to give Spirit credit. They determined their customers want to see the lowest possible fare displayed when they check fares. Spirit decided that a dollar spent on customer service is a dollar wasted.

.

Some of us vote with our pocketbook... I decided a dollar spent on Spirit was a dollar wasted. They won't get it!

 

[Greysword]

The head of the nation's most fee-happy airline told Congress today that bringing luggage on vacation was "not essential" to travel and his airline was actually helping the poor fly by charging up to $45 to place a carry-on bag in the overhead bin.

One of the most popular responses to his blog came from an Orlando couple who e-mailed Spirit's CEO and other executives to lodge a complaint. Jim and Christy Boswell had booked a flight from Orlando to Atlanta to see a concert. The flight was delayed 170 minutes and they missed the concert. Spirit offered the couple $200 in travel vouchers, but they wanted the airline to pay for their concert tickets, hotel room, parking and other fees.

After getting the e-mail on his BlackBerry, Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza accidentally hit "reply all" when responding to fellow executives and sent his response back to the couple.

"Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned," Baldanza wrote. "Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny."

Spirit CEO: "We owe him nothing"

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I have never flown Spirit and never will. However, I do agree with their CEO about the missed concert. Spirit doesn't owe those people a dime. They should have flown in the day before to be safe, just as people should do for a cruise. NO airline would have paid this couple's added expenses.

 

[airplanegod]

They are the one US airline I refuse to do business with. No legroom, fees up the ying yang, and they have a tendency to cancel flights a few hours before it departs for no reason, and if that is the only flight that day (They do not have partnerships with other airlines) you are screwed.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I have never flown Spirit and never will. However, I do agree with their CEO about the missed concert. Spirit doesn't owe those people a dime. They should have flown in the day before to be safe, just as people should do for a cruise. NO airline would have paid this couple's added expenses.

To me it's not the concert, I agree the demand was unreasonable it's the "they only fly us because we are cheap" In other words "we don't do customer service because we are cheap"

And it's pretty common. The CEOs actions during the strike a few years ago showed how he feels about his customers. He lied, he claimed he had a plan and had arranged flights etc.. WRONG, the airline did NOTHING to help their passengers. I have lived through a couple of airline strikes... this was the worst. It was "well what did you expect for cheap" and he's right. Folks only see "CHEAP" and they get upset when they discover cheap has a price!

 

[CarolMN]

We had a very good experience on SPIRIT, but we will not fly them again unless we have no other viable choice.

The reason - the most uncomfortable seats I have ever experienced! (We must have flown in one of the new configurations). I didn't mind that they didn't recline, but both my husband and I got off the plane with a horrible back ache. First time ever that happened on a flight. I have short legs and my knees were pressed to the back of the seat in front of me. I have no idea how anyone over 5'10" could even fit!

Again, everything else - service, cleanliness, on-time, price, etc. was just fine. The extra fees were not an issue for us. So no complaints there - in fact, kudos to the FAs for the service on the plane.

But the horrible seats made all that seem unimportant. If we ever try them again, I'll give the Big Front Seats a try and see if those are any better - I'm thinking not since the extra room won't make up for the way the seats are made (I think).

 

[hcruz496]

I too am flying spirit airlines from Houston in August. The way I look at it is it is a very short flight, there is actually a website that reports on the statistics of flight cancellations and delays per airport and per airline and I saw no red flags for spirit at IAH. Also, when you think about the people who write reviews, it is very often the people who are very upset, it's never really the people who had a just ok flight. Surely many people have an uneventful flight and you don't hear about it. As long as I get from point A to point B I am happy, baggage fees and all.