Spirit Airline Woes
Alex Rudloff, one of the brains behind Gadling's blogging engine, recently tried to fly to Las Vegas from Orlando via Spirit Airlines when he ran into a few problems. First, his flight was canceled. "That's sucks," he wrote on his blog, "but hey, that's the reality of the god awful air industry here in the States."To make matters worse, Spirit Airlines made the rescheduling process a nightmare. "The 800# then hangs up on me. I call back, hitting 0 to talk to an operator, same message, hangs up on me. I try all the appropriate sounding options on their voice mail, and get hung up on every single time. Thanks, Spirit Air! What went from a somewhat understandable situation (relativity is a bitch), now has me pissy. Finally, I try "book new flight" to speak to a spirit airlines sales agent. Sure enough, that one (the option where they take the money) works fine"
Finally, he's able to speak with a representative who puts him on another flight that arrives 5 hours later. "There's no upgrades or anything like that, no option for a partner airline or a transfer, no real attempt at anything. Here's the kicker. They make you pay extra to bring a bag. They refused to even refund this $5 each way fee, not even for one of ways."
How frustrating. Anyone else have any Spirit Air horror stories?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Aug 4th 2007 @ 6:58PM
Alex Rudloff said...
Folks have been sending me links all afternoon with other Spirit Airlines horror stories. Consumerist ran a post a week or two ago about someone even taking them to small claims court and winning!
I've flown a ton over the last few years, and have had similar things happen. It's a sad state of affairs when we just grow to be complacent and accept this kind of thing. Most companies though, will offer a meal voucher or an upgrade, or even a warm smile.
Spirit's refusing to even waive the $5 baggage fee. The fact that they have a baggage fee to begin with is a whole other rant ;)
I'll update the post as my travels progress.. I'm going to try again when I get to the airport in the morning.
Reply
Aug 8th 2007 @ 7:47PM
coleman said...
Same deal different day. They checked me in on a flight from AC in which the second leg to SF had been cancelled two days prior. Needless to say, I was stopped at the gate, luckilly, but my bag went on.
I cancelled my flight because I couldn't get re-booked on another airline in time for my meetings.
After 1 day of no responses, and a day full of dropped calls to the central number, I received a call from their SF baggage line saying my bag was in SF. I've called this number 18 times since then and its now been two whole days with nobody picking up and no way to leave a message. It's the right number because I talked to a Spirit reservation agent who confirmed it. Of course, they can't handle baggage inquiries.
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Feb 20th 2008 @ 4:42PM
ed haffmans said...
They ripped me off for my entire fare.
e hqaff
Reply
May 5th 2008 @ 12:06AM
V.Mazelis said...
Spirit Airlines recently changed my itinerary from a normal one into the one that's totally impossible to fly. Judge for yourselves. Note I am supposed to arrive into Atlantic City on June 3 at 10:20 pm, then take another Spirit flight to Myrtle Beach, which departed some 3.5 hours earlier, at 6:53pm. Return flight contains similar nonsense:
Updated Itinerary
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Spirit # 348
Tampa International (TPA) to Atlantic City Intl (ACY)
Departure: (TPA): June 3, 7:55 PM EDT (evening)
Arrival: (ACY): June 3, 10:20 PM EDT (evening)
Class: Economy
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Spirit # 375
Atlantic City Intl (ACY) to Myrtle Beach AFB (MYR)
Departure: (ACY): June 3, 6:53 PM EDT (evening)
Arrival: (MYR): June 3, 8:18 PM EDT (evening)
Class: Economy
------------------------------
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Spirit # 354
Myrtle Beach AFB (MYR) to Atlantic City Intl (ACY)
Departure: (MYR): June 10, 8:40 AM EDT (morning)
Arrival: (ACY): June 10, 10:00 AM EDT (morning)
Class: Economy
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Spirit # 343
Atlantic City Intl (ACY) to Tampa International (TPA)
Departure: (ACY): June 10, 8:00 AM EDT (morning)
Arrival: (TPA): June 10, 10:30 AM EDT (morning)
Class: Economy
Previous Itinerary
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Spirit # 348
Tampa International (TPA) to Atlantic City Intl (ACY)
Departure: (TPA): June 3, 3:45 PM EDT (afternoon)
Arrival: (ACY): June 3, 6:01 PM EDT (evening)
Class: Economy
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Spirit # 375
Atlantic City Intl (ACY) to Myrtle Beach AFB (MYR)
Departure: (ACY): June 3, 6:53 PM EDT (evening)
Arrival: (MYR): June 3, 8:18 PM EDT (evening)
Class: Economy
------------------------------
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Spirit # 354
Myrtle Beach AFB (MYR) to Atlantic City Intl (ACY)
Departure: (MYR): June 10, 9:45 AM EDT (morning)
Arrival: (ACY): June 10, 11:04 AM EDT (morning)
Class: Economy
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Spirit # 343
Atlantic City Intl (ACY) to Tampa International (TPA)
Departure: (ACY): June 10, 11:45 AM EDT (morning)
Arrival: (TPA): June 10, 2:15 PM EDT (afternoon)
Class: Economy
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