Do You Fly Spirit Airlines?- 5 Reasons I Never Will Again

Do you fly Spirit Airlines?  Well, I did  on my trip to Costa Rica, and let me say, I will NEVER fly Spirit Airlines again.  In this post I will break down my top 5 reasons, but I can assure you there are many more reasons.  But first, a little background as to why I even booked my flights with them in the first place:

I am a pretty loyal American Airlines customer, especially because I use their credit card for almost everything and earn great points for travel.

This trip was different.  Friends of ours organized this tour.  They were flying out of Newark. They chose Spirit because of the so-called “savings” over other airlines.  Because we wanted to arrive as a group, we decided to join our friends and fly Spirit as well.  When we booked the tickets (through Expedia), we couldn’t believe the “deal” we got.  From there, it all turned to shit…

Top 5 Reasons Not To Fly Spirit Airlines 

1)  They Kill You On Baggage:  

 

So part of the reason the flights are so cheap is Spirit Airlines hammers you on baggage charges.  Not only do they charge you for your checked luggage, as many other airlines do, however they also charge you for your carry on!  I have never paid money for a carry on before.

On top of that, Spirit lowered the weight limit to 40 pounds per suitcase.  Now,  50 pounds is typical on most airlines, according to THIS CHART courtesy of www.cheapair.com.  So your options are to pay through the nose for an “overweight” bag, or pay for a 2nd checked bag.  It’s all a little confusing, because you can be part of the their discount club…or you can pay when you book your tickets for savings…or you can pre-pay online for savings…or, well you get the idea.

Needless to say, it cost us (a family of four) $670 in baggage fees!

2)  They Charge You Extra If You Check In At The Airport:

Crazy huh?  They charge you an extra $10 dollars per person if you check in at the airport rather than online.  Their theory is it’s more cost-effective to do it online, thus “passing” those savings on to you.  HA!  I have heard less bullshit come out of the mouths of (alleged) loan sharks for the mob about their fees!

Luckily, I caught this, and we checked in and printed our boarding passes online.  At least this should save us some time at the airport, right?

Easy, not so fast.

You see, for some reason, when you print your boarding passes from home, their bar codes won’t scan through the initial security check point.  You don’t find this out of course until after you stand in the security line for 20 minutes.  Once you find this tidbit out, you have to go back to the Spirit desk and have an agent print out a standard boarding pass for you.  So much for saving time, and Spirit Airlines saving money.

3)  They Added More Seats To Their Planes (which means less room for you):

Spirit Airlines boasts about how the more people they fit on their planes, the less it costs per person (they printed this on the back of my boarding pass).  While this is true on paper, what about the comfort of your patrons?

Speaking of the comfort of your patrons, they shrunk down the size of the folding tray as well…to the point that an iPad mini won’t fit right on it.  In fact, about the only thing that will fit on it is the complimentary nuts and water.  Oh wait, there are no complimentary nuts and water.  I must be thinking of a different airline.

4)  They Did Not Collect The Departure Tax:

When we got to the San Jose airport to fly back home, we went to the kiosk to print our boarding passes.  A Spirit Airlines employee promptly took them from us and had to call someone to see if the departure tax was paid.  Departure tax was news to me, and I just assumed it would have been covered in the cost of the ticket, as most airlines are doing these days.

Nope.  Not Spirit Airlines.

So we had to go wait in a long, snaking line. A supervisor for Spirit made us get out of line and go across the walkway of the airport to form a new line, because the current line was causing a traffic jam.  Less than a minute later, the same supervisor had us move back to the original line.  It took an hour and a half just to make it to the counter.  Once we got there, we received the news…add another $116 to the cost of the flights for departure tax.

Finally, we make it through security and board the plane.  This is just in time to overhear one of the employees tell the flight attendant that we were going to be delayed at least half an hour.

The reason?

There were still people at the counter trying to resolve the departure tax issue…almost an hour later, we finally took off.

The Final Reason (at least for the purpose of this blog post) I Will Never Fly Spirit Airlines Again

5)  The Customer Service At The Airport Was Horrible:

Once we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, we had a 3 hour lay over.  Plenty of time to get through customs, get our bags, and make the gate for the next leg of our flight, right?

Wrong.

We cleared customs without issue.

Then came the baggage claim.

They had 3 different Spirit airline flights dumping bags onto the same carousel.  We wasted an hour just waiting for our bags.  People were taking the wrong bags because the board was not updating which flight was on the belt at the time.  We finally get all our bags and head for the check in kiosk.

The kiosk told me there was an error processing our tickets, so I went to speak with an employee.  She was in the middle of fielding a question from another upset customer.  Before she would acknowledge me, I had to listen to her tell another customer that she doesn’t have any time for people’s attitude, and she is just trying to get through her day.

Great.

Finally, she turns to me and asks what do I need.  I tell her I am trying to print boarding passes but it won’t allow me to.  She tells me the flight is closed already and we missed it.  Now, you have to understand, our flight wasn’t leaving until 8:55 PM.  It was 7:15 PM at the moment.  I asked her how that was possible and she said “The gate is closed, I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Awesome.

I lost my temper with her, and asked how they could move the time of the flight up on us.  Her response was “Look, all I can tell you is you can try to go to the counter, but your not making this flight.”

Perfect.

I go to the counter, ready to unleash holy hell on someone.  Instead, I  hear that my flight is not closed, and the person I was speaking with was referring to another flight to Newark, that was scheduled an hour or so before mine.  Hmmm, shouldn’t she know there are two flights to Newark, an hour apart from each other?

Anyway, we now get to our gate and await our 8:55 flight.

Boarding begins around 8:20, or so…at least it is supposed to.

At 8:30 PM, they show our flight delayed until 9:30 PM.

I go to the counter and ask what happened, as our plane is already at the gate.  I am told there are issues with air traffic control out of Newark.  Oh and that flight before mine? Cancelled for the same reason.  “Don’t worry,” she tells me.  She will have another update at  9:15 PM.

9:15 Pm comes and goes.  At 9:25,  go back to the counter.  Unfortunately, they can’t give me an update.  There is a crisis at hand.  It seems one of the employees cell phone fell behind the check in desk.  At least that what it turns out to be.  First they thought someone stole it, but after calling it SIX times, they pinpoint the ring coming from inside the kiosk.

Phew!  Crisis avoided.  So…can I get an update?

“Oh yea”, she says, The captain said we will be boarding in 15 minutes.”

Un F’ing Believable!

I will never again fly Spirit Airlines.

Is it any wonder Consumer Reports ranked Spirit Airlines 1 star out of 5?  You can see for yourself HERE.

Do you think you will fly Spirit Airlines after seeing what I went through?