WARNING: Spirit Air

adrienne79 says on Apr 6, 2008, 15:27:

I think the better thing to consider is which airline doesn't have a site like this one full of complaints.

deathnova says on Apr 6, 2008, 15:32:

Avianca has considerably less.

nueva york bombero says on Apr 6, 2008, 15:59:

You get what you pay for.... U want a cheap ride.....

Clinman says on Apr 6, 2008, 16:23:

I have not flown Air Spirit yet but did buy a $300 ticket from Boston to Cartagena. I checked out the complaints on the link and there is no possible way to digest this information on the whole. If this was all the complaints they received from ten of thousands of customers than I would say outstanding service. One needs a percentage of complaints from total customers for comparison purposes. Every airlines has complaints it is the percentage we go by.
I did receive the e-mail about $.05 and $.10 flight which I thought would be impossible to obtain those tickets. I went online and would have been able to obtain a round trip flight from Mrytle Beach to JFK for ten cents with a $16.50 taxes during select days. Of course being in Boston that round trip had no value to me regardless of the ridiculous low price. And yes one has to pay $20 a bag for each ticket. I will not use Air Spirit for business flights but might work occasionally for personal

deathnova says on Apr 6, 2008, 16:25:

Most customers wouldn't bother to go online to that one site to complain.

Mike19 says on Apr 6, 2008, 16:50:

I go to miami alot and have never flown with Spirit but my friends have. They said it's real cheap but the airline sucks. They cancel flights all the time and have you stuck and the planes have broken seats and are filthy as a zoo. Not sure how cheap prices are but fly and check it out....I won't :)

My friend took a flight from ny to miami for like $75 bucks and the plane and seats were a wreck.

deathnova says on Apr 6, 2008, 16:53:

I'd rather fly Avianca and get the complimentary JW =D

Mike19 says on Apr 6, 2008, 17:41:

smart move.

sloopskipper says on Apr 6, 2008, 17:46:

adrienne79 says on Sunday April 6th, 2008 15:27:

"I think the better thing to consider is which airline doesn't have a site like this one full of complaints."

Any company or organization will have complaints, justified, or not.

Being a Copa/Aero República flier and investor, I am prejudiced, but I have read a lot of customer service horror stories about Spirit. If you can believe many of them, any smart business people could have easily defused them, and retained angry clients.

deathnova says on Sunday April 6th, 2008 16:25:

"Most customers wouldn't bother to go online to that one site to complain."

So true, and you can not operate a safe and efficient airline without repeat business/referrals and the profits they bring.

Offering nearly "for free" when almost nobody can get the tickets? What can I say? That is really "bait & switch", again.

Personally, I would not fly "bait & switch airlines" for free. As the coffee-man, John Arbuckle once said, "If it sounds too good to be true, . . . it probably is", and who knows where they are skimping.

You still get what you pay for, and I find "bargain-basement" airlines a bit too scary for this old gringo to sit on.

I'd rather pay a few bucks more.

sloopskipper says on Apr 6, 2008, 17:48:

Fly Copa, Aero República, GOL, or LAN.

We're not invested in LAN, but really liked them, and I was pleased with the arragements made by AA for a trip to Perú, with a hookup on LAN, on miles (AA San Juan-Caracas, and LAN Perú to Lima, and several internal Peruano LAN flights [Lima-Arequipa-Cusco-Lima]

To avoid Caracas on the return, AA, Lima-Miami-San Juan, (with no problems with AA or MIA). But that did cost me a hundred bucks more for the change.

BillBigD says on Apr 6, 2008, 18:50:

Flew Spirit on a brand new plane. Great no issues at all. But flying in and out of FLL on them looks crowded.

Saltador says on Apr 6, 2008, 19:29:

BillBigD,
How is that possible? Do you work for them secretly and are lying to deflect all the criticism?
Bromeando.
Will let you guys know in about 5 weeks, Chitown to CTG round trip for about 400 dollars. Saved me around 400 dollars from my usual AA/Avianca route.
Hope the seats not dirty...LOL!

tomtom33 says on Apr 7, 2008, 00:23:

In my book Avianca sucks big time. They made me buy a second ticket for the same flight because they fucked up. And they never reimbursed me even after finding and admitting the error.

They are my carrier of last choice.

I feel safe on AA knowing that they scare Rubi.

deathnova says on Apr 7, 2008, 01:46:

tomtom33,

They tried something similar with me, I yelled at them until it got annoying (5 - 10 minutes later with my Spanish) and they walked over to another airline and bought me a new ticket out of pocket.

diabloblas says on Apr 7, 2008, 09:25:

seeing as weight is becoming an even greater cost of flying with fuel costs i think they ought to charge by total weigh of customer & his luggage...fair policy i would think

tomtom33 says on Apr 7, 2008, 10:05:

Not for us fat guys.

muchacho_escondido says on Apr 7, 2008, 10:46:

General rule of thumb: if something is cheaper it's probably of lower quality. Or, in other words, you get what you pay for. That is not always true for everything but I think it is true more often than it's not.

Speaking of Spirit, I wouldn't wanna book with them right now. Airlines are under a lot of pressure due to high fuel prices-- 2 airlines went out of business a few weeks ago. One is ATA another is Aloha. It was scary, people just lost their tickets and money, with a very short notice.

It appears that smaller airlines (and Spirit is very small) are likelier to fail spectacularly than the big boys as they have tighter budgets. In addition, FED is likelier to bail out the big boys, like it did after September 11.

nueva york bombero says on Apr 7, 2008, 13:17:

It depends on management. If they manage it right (like Jetblue),
then I think they will work out all the kinks.... we'll see...
In the meantime, I'll roll the dice and try them.
I'm a backpacking son of a bitch and can travel pretty humbly. (is that a word?)

nine inch nails says on Apr 7, 2008, 13:42:

I felt really filthy on the flight coming back from CR on Spirit last Oct. and not from any activity down there.

Some of the PAX were so gross. At least 2 smelt like they you know whated in their pants or hadn't taken a shower in 2 days or more.

Don't they have some type of quarantine rules for humans that smell unhealthy? Just keep em off the plane until they take a mandatory shower and health check. jajajajaja

Yeah muchado I agree you never know which airline is next these days, esp. among the smallers.

get down, get down

BillBigD says on Apr 7, 2008, 18:15:

Saltador- No I do not work for Spirit. If you understood I flew to Colombia that is not the case I flew another international route. But like I said the FLL terminal for Spirit is very crowded.

diabloblas says on Apr 9, 2008, 09:15:

charging by total weight for flight tickets is the fairest policy that i can think of...but looking to hear more & probably will from people with overactivefork disease

adrimm says on Apr 10, 2008, 18:27:

Hmmmm I sort of agree, but sort of not.

tomtom33 says on Apr 11, 2008, 05:43:

All of the flights were not grounded. They are still flying and when inspections are completed the planes will be cleared to fly. A friend flew MDE-ORD on Wed. on AA with no problem.

But they did fuck up big time.

aztec says on Apr 11, 2008, 07:05:

Seems AA overreacted.

BillBigD says on Apr 11, 2008, 21:17:

AA-WHAT A MESS, I flew on a 757 on Thursday no issues, But people scheduled to fly on md80's what a nightmare.