Who has flown Spirit?

[Hannibal]

Much like everyone else on here...Spirit is fine if you go in expecting exactly what you will receive. A ride somewhere and that's it. If you have any issues...you will be in trouble. I did swear off them, but if the last flight I had with them had worked out...I would've been more lenient.

My story is similar to the others. Was traveling for work with a couple of colleagues and we were taking spirit for a up and back trip for the same day. DTW to JFK and back. Pretty standard. We got to JFK just fine and to our customer for the meeting. We get back for a 4pm flight back to DTW and we are told we're delayed by 2 hours. No reason why...just delayed. Ok, no problem...our next meeting is back in Detroit the next day. 45 mins after the boards post the delay...flight gets cancelled. It's the dead of summer and not a cloud in the sky. My colleagues and I go back to the main gate desk and attempt to find out what's up. Spirit was expecting some rain and they couldn't risk the flight so they cancelled. They told us we could get back to DTW on Thursday. It's currently Tuesday. After a few minutes of [censored] moments...they offer us $40 for a hotel room or a refund of our ticket. We had to take the refund. It cost us $1600 each to fly Delta to get back to DTW that night. My company paid the bill and understood, but I got a little chewing for that. Not an experience that I was looking to recreate again...

 

[FordBroncoVWJeta]

Hope you have a better experience than I did.

 

[Astro14]

Spirit treats their employees like garbage. Poor pay, pressure, long hours. Gotta' keep costs down, right? Everyone knows that employees are simply a cost, and completely fungible...

(Southwest employees are among the highest paid in the industry, but I digress).

Their pilots are among the lowest-paid in the industry, even with their new contract, and are still leaving in droves for Delta, American, United, FedEx and Southwest, creating high turnover and low experience.

Many of my FOs came from Spirit. All of them hated it.

When things go wrong; weather, maintenance, air traffic control, then you're relying on those employees to take care of you.

 

[MNgopher]

Read and understand exactly what you are getting for what you pay for, and make sure you are OK with that.

Lightly padded seats that become uncomfortable beyond a couple of hours, and NOTHING for free.

If the flight goes off schedule due to weather or mechanical, be prepared to find another way home.

If you can stand all that, then its a deal. If not, book southwest or someone else and don't look back.

 

[Patman]

Originally Posted by wag123
The biggest problem with Spirit is... if your flight gets cancelled for some reason (weather etc), good luck getting where you were going.


We found this out last year when trying to return home from Florida. Our flight was cancelled due to weather and since they only run one flight from Fort Lauderdale to Niagara Falls per day, they were fully booked for a week and couldn't offer us a return flight home in reasonable time frame. We ended up getting a full refund (of the entire cost of all the tickets, not just the return flight) and booked a flight home the next day on Allegiant out of Punta Gorda.

But we will still continue to fly Spirit because the price is so low. For example, if we were to fly to Fort Lauderdale from Niagara Falls on the weekend of Jan 26-27 our tickets would be $82 return each. You simply can't beat a price like that.

 

[cb450sc]

We have used Spirit many times from Detroit to Florida. We have been delayed a few times but we have the time in retirement. I can't see a business traveler counting on them to get them some place for a meeting.

 

[fdcg27]

Finally booked with Southwest.
Considering baggage fees, even for carry-ons as well as time in transit and arrival times at SJU and returning to CMH, it would have saved little to fly Spirit,
If you'd be willing to accept ridiculous times in transit as well as arrivals in the small hours of the morning, then you could save several hundred dollars flying Spirit.
Southwest also offers decent seat width and pitch as well as free snacks and drinks, as many as you'd like.
You do get what you pay for.

 

[nthach]

From what I've heard about Spirit from friends and here, I'd rather ride Greyhound or drive a Prius cross-country than fly Spirit.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted by fdcg27
Finally booked with Southwest.
Considering baggage fees, even for carry-ons as well as time in transit and arrival times at SJU and returning to CMH, it would have saved little to fly Spirit,
If you'd be willing to accept ridiculous times in transit as well as arrivals in the small hours of the morning, then you could save several hundred dollars flying Spirit.
Southwest also offers decent seat width and pitch as well as free snacks and drinks, as many as you'd like.
You do get what you pay for.

 

[fdcg27]

Your airline did offer some competitive fares, but with connections through airports I'd rather avoid in winter, like IAD and EWR.
The whole point of flying is to get somewhere quickly without ridiculous layover times.
Another consideration is that you really don't want to arrive at your destination in the small hours of the morning nor do you want the same on your return home.
Finally, you'd like to fly an airline that might well be able to rebook you in a timely fashion to your destination if things get bad and might even be able to interline you.
You get none of these things with the Spirits of the world.
Low fares do come with a price, after all.

 

[Patman]

Originally Posted by fdcg27
Your airline did offer some competitive fares, but with connections through airports I'd rather avoid in winter, like IAD and EWR.
The whole point of flying is to get somewhere quickly without ridiculous layover times.
Another consideration is that you really don't want to arrive at your destination in the small hours of the morning nor do you want the same on your return home.


For short trips to Florida, I love the fact that Spirit offers a red eye flight that leaves Niagara at 2:30 am and arrives in Fort Lauderdale at 5:30 am. This allows me to fly down there for a 4 day trip and end up with 4 full days in the sun. (the return flight leaves Florida around 11pm) If I flew at a more conventional time, I'd lose half of my first day there, and half of the last day there, turning a 4 day trip into only a 3 day one in reality. And when you combine it with the fact that it's often only around $80 round trip, that makes it totally worth it. I sleep on the plane, then grab a quick nap on the beach in the afternoon

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted by fdcg27
Your airline did offer some competitive fares, but with connections through airports I'd rather avoid in winter, like IAD and EWR.
The whole point of flying is to get somewhere quickly without ridiculous layover times.
Another consideration is that you really don't want to arrive at your destination in the small hours of the morning nor do you want the same on your return home.
Finally, you'd like to fly an airline that might well be able to rebook you in a timely fashion to your destination if things get bad and might even be able to interline you.
You get none of these things with the Spirits of the world.
Low fares do come with a price, after all.


I would avoid EWR in the winter, too...and I'm based there!

IAD runs well in bad weather.

ORD has made tremendous infrastructure improvements (over $10billion) and made dramatic improvements in operational reliability as a result.

We do offer competitive fares, a competitive product, and have the size and route structure to offer good rebooking options.

In many areas, we lead the industry, but we aren't th right fit for every travel situation. SWA and DAL* are good companies and if they fit your needs better than we do, book with confidence.

Enjoy your vacation!


* Personal aside. My daughter is interviewing for residency programs. Dozens and dozens of flights across the country. 16 interviews. UAL has provided great service and best price, except that on last Saturday, she needed to get from BWI to STL in the morning following a Friday night interview and in time for a Saturday evening reception. DAL offered the only flight combination that met those times.

30 minutes after her 06:00 BWI departure, she called me. The airplane had had an engine compressor stall and returned to BWI. They were on the ground surrounded by fire trucks. She said that the crew was calm, and professional, and landed smoothly. She "wasn't freaked out" like a lot of her fellow passengers.

We discussed what a compressor stall was, and why the trucks were a prudent response. Then we discussed flight options on UAL because DAL said only that the flight was "delayed". I assured her it was actually going to be canceled.

A bit later, DAL rebooked her through DTW...she made her evening reception in STL.

Well done by DAL on all counts.

I contacted a friend of mine, the Chief Pilot in ATL, where the crew was based. He agreed that the crew had handled it "by the book" and appreciated my feedback. Through him, I was able to contact the Captain and FO.

I sent them each a bottle of Macallan. An old Naval Aviation tradition - a bottle of "the good stuff" represents thanks from one pilot to another. They both insisted that they were just doing their jobs. And I know that they were.

But I wanted them to know, peer to peer, that I was thankful that they kept my daughter safe.

 

[fdcg27]

We've been stuck overnight in EWR when the hub was still CAL, this when we still had younger sons traveling with us.
Was not that bad as we shuttled to LGA on interline rebook the next morning and had gotten a couple of rooms across the airport for the night as well as a decent hot meal.
Maybe another couple of hundred bucks and the cost for four of us DAY-SJU roundtrip was only around two grand on CAL.
ORD is known to be pretty good in taking care of bad winter conditions while I know little about IAD, other than it's far enough north as to be avoided if possible.
We've flown United, Delta, US Air (old) and American (old) as well as Southwest any number of times and have rarely had any cause for complaint.
AirTran was often our go-to when they still existed since they offered a lot of options out of DAY and were both cheap and reliable, with nice new leased Boeing 717 and 737 aircraft.
Reliable air service is a modern travel miracle and it really is pretty cheap.
Very classy move having sent the Delta crew bottles of Scotch as a thank-you for having kept all of their passengers safe, especially your daughter.

 

[y_p_w]

With Spirit it's important to know what you're getting into. As others noted, they charge for everything, and the fees are designed to be more punitive the closer (distance/time) you get to boarding the plane. If you want to pay for baggage, it's something like $25 at the time of purchase or at least before check-in, $50 at the terminal counter, then $100 at the gate. They are also extremely strict about size. Other airlines let an inch slide because it's easier than fighting the customer. With Spirit it's a profit center to fight with the customer. That being said, I remember at the counter my bag that was a pound over standard weight wasn't a problem, but I could have easily removed something. And check-in standard weight is 40 lbs, so be very careful about that. It's an additional $30 if it weighs in at 41-50 lbs.

The boarding pass printing fee is a little bit odd, but I remember finding a FedEx Office location and spending $2 there rather than $30 for a family of three. My hotel didn't have complimentary printing like some hotels have for customers. It's been a while, but what I recall is that they only accepted printed boarding passes when we flew. OK - I looked it up and they do have an app now as well as PDFs. At least at the time we flew I was under the impression that they'd never do it because it would be one more gotcha where they could extract punitive fees.

However, the way they set up higher fees for carry-on than for check-in does have an advantage. They absolutely won't allow any carry-on sized baggage without a paid tag. When I flew on Spirit there couldn't have been more than 12 carry-on bags on the entire plane each flight. Passengers simply don't fight over overhead bin space since they don't allow anything in them unless it's tagged as paid. That also means no jackets or "personal items" in the overhead bins. They must have the emptiest overhead bins in the industry. But the advantage is that aisles aren't blocked by passengers looking for available space, and there aren't people trying to outcompete each other for overhead bin space. The flights I took on Spirit boarded extremely quickly and took off on time.

 

[JustinH]

This past year I flew three cheap airlines.

Allegiant, Spirit, and Frontier.

I would say that Spirit is the worst out of the three for gotcha prices. Allegiant seems to have the oldest planes, and I've read has the worst safety record (will not be flying them again).

Frontier has new planes, but very small seats.

Either of these three airlines will make southwest seem like a trip in a Rolls Royce.

At least Southwest throws packages of ritz cracker bits at patrons, and gives you half a soda. No more peanuts because everybody is allergic.

Some of the others have no beverage service period, or nothing for free.

My wife and I have racked up quite a few free flights on southwest just jetting from AUS-BUF or SAN-BUF multiple times per year.

I was actually gitty when Jet Blue had a decent rate, at least they have snack boxes for purchase, and decent tv's in headrests.

Delta does a nice job most of the time also.

 

[fdcg27]

Allegiant is parking their old MD-80s and replacing them with new leased Airbuses while Delta retains their MD-80s in service.
I've flown on some really old Delta Mad Dogs and you'd never know their age looking at them in and out, unless you knew what you were looking at.
Delta also has great in-house MRO while Allegiant has none.
Frontier and Spirit also have shiny new leased Airbuses, but they're crammed with seats and those seats make those found in a typical municipal transit bus look good.
The pennies saved flying Spirit, Allegiant or Frontier with all of their limitations are probably not worth it.

 

[DoubleWasp]

I end up flying Spirit usually because of impulse trips I don't want to get robbed on, or when the other carriers don't have direct flights.

I just booked a flight that literally nobody reasonable has a direct flight for. I can get a direct flight by wither paying 3 times the price, being ridiculously off-schedule, or both. Mind you, this is 2 months in advance.

As previously noted, I want to get onboard, sleep for 3 hours, and leave. I don't want to get off, lug a bag, and then get on another plane and take twice as long to get there. If I fly anyone else, I'm likely to spend the entire day flying. No thanks.

With Spirit, I'm at $287 for two people, round trip. Southwest is the closest match at 50% more, and a connecting flight that takes twice as long.

Keep in mind, my $287 includes a checked bag and two seat upgrades. I'm a $9 Fare Club member, so I get half off of bags.

I don't always fly Spirit, but it's the smart choice many times. Be smart in using it, and it can be to your advantage.