Inexpensive Spirit Airlines

April 2, 2010

Mean spirited: Spirit Airlines or pampered passengers?

After travelling by very inexpensive bus for some months around Central America I now have had the pleasure of travelling by relatively inexpensive airplane too, following a decision to bring my Latin American travels to a close, at least, for the mean time.

I decided to pay a visit to the UK but before that, a little trek via my sister’s northern hemisphere winter hide-out in La Jolla, California, although I fully acknowledge the undoubted Hispanic connections mean that arriving in southern California could actually be deemed to be some kind of Latin American continuity.

I was in Guatemala and had long considered that I would always opt for bus over air travel until I focussed a little closer on the inexpensiveness characteristic which also tied in rather well with always knowing that I would get back to the Spiritual way sooner or later admittedly not least because I had a $110 credit so deservedly gained from Spirit Airlines for my “unplanned” journey back in October. Propelled then by a very prickly price sensitivity I discovered that a one-way flight from Guatemala City to Los Angeles, California once again via Fort Lauderdale, could be had for a mere $220 and by adding in the credit the entire journey would cost me just half that. This, in contrast to somewhere in excess of $250 to reach California by bus and, as somebody correctly pointed out, that is without counting the cost of all the meals and drinks along the way and finally the idea of being cooped up in a bus, however luxurious it might be, for several days on end meant that the decision was easy!

Only after I had made the internet booking for my ticket did I find myself on a web site containing nothing but complaints about Spirit Airlines including a number of customers stating that they would most certainly NEVER fly with them again. I was fascinated by an entire blog dedicated to the subject (very worryingly actually more than one) and this particular link address without even reading the contents shows how far the anti-Spirit Airlines sentiment can reach: http://spirit-airlines.pissedconsumer.com/never-fly-spirit-airline-again

I immediately and healthily put this right out of mind but perversely the very first thing I heard when I settled into my window seat in Guatemala City for the first leg of my flight was the passenger immediately behind me repeating that “never fly them again” mantra as she heaped all the blame -fairly or not I do not know- on Spirit Airlines for being two days behind in her travel plans.

Spirit is definitely offering a “no frills” service but the overriding objective is to get you and your bags from place A to place B safely and as on time as physically possible, right? There are no free meals or drinks or in-flight-entertainment and you do have to pay between $19-25 for each item of luggage you check into the hold but these departures from “normal” service are widely recognised to be easily offset by the genuinely inexpensive label the airline carries.

I wondered in our ever frillier world if the simple A to B objective is being clouded and if our increasingly pampered society takes almost schadenfreudish pleasure out of an invented suffering somewhere in an unrealistic orbit outside the perimeters of essentiality. However one practical thing did surprise me: that in spite of fairly extensive flying times approximately 3 hours and then 5 hours for my particular two legs there were no in-flight meals that you could buy other than a cup of hot noodles that the flight attendant in ever so old-worldly fashion had to take individually to the galley and fill with hot water each time there was such a purchase. I could not help thinking it was a profit opportunity lost by Spirit Airlines to have a few light meals available for purchase but considering that watching their profit line is their byword I surely must be wrong, mustn’t I?!

I also noticed that Barry Biffle, Spirit’s chief marketing officer, has been quoted as saying that more than 99% of its passengers are satisfied. I wonder if that is a casual unthinking riposte to criticism from the mass media who are arch panderers to the unthinking pampered masses or actually based on fact? However, he could certainly count me in his 99% and both flights of my most recent spiritual journey were full so there are clearly a lot of satisfied customers although the dear lady who was behind me will of course NEVER be seen on a Spirit Airlines flight ever again.