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Spirit Airlines CEO: "Let him tell the world how bad we are."
Remember our post a few weeks back in which Alex Rudloff (one of the brains behind our blogging platform) detailed his terrible experience with Spirit Airlines? When Alex wrote the post, comments immediately started to flood in. One of those commenters was a woman named Christy who -- along with her husband -- had a similar bad experience, and emailed Spirit Airlines' customer service department looking for answers. The email was eventually escalated to Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza.It seems that having a basic understanding of email isn't required to obtain such the CEO position, because Mr. Baldanza made the mistake of hitting "reply to all" (which included Christy) in his snarky response to her quest for answers. Here it is:
"Please respond, [Customer Service Representative], but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny."
Well isn't that just lovely?
Head over to Alex's blog to see the email in its entirety.
Filed under: Airlines
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kristen Aug 24th 2007 8:35AM
I had the pleasure of meeting Christy and her husband at Orlando International as we waited for our delayed flight. It seemed we all had the same destination the Fox Theater in Atlanta. Meeting them was the best part of the trip since thanks to Spirit and their lack of communication and customer service caused us to miss what we were traveling for. This airline has such a lack in customer service it is rediculous. We were left with little information on our delayed flight that remained on the board as on time for the 2 and a half hours we waited past our departure time. When the airline employees were asked the status of the flight they would tell us it will be arriving in 30 min or it will be here at this time when it was still sitting in Ft. Lauderdal with mechanical problems. When the airline was asked if they could find us another flight or what were our options, they handed you a card with an 800 number and said "as long as the flight is still scheduled they couldn't help us". If they would have told us up front the plane was having mechanical problems we would have had time to get on another flight. When boarding the plane a there was a spirit employee standing in one of the first rows of seats, a woman was trying to pick up her bag and put it in the over head compartment and was having a difficult time. She looked at the man and said "could you help me" his response, " I am not working this flight". To that man, then you shouldn't be in uniform! The woman next to me was looking in the back of the seat for a bag in case she felt sick, when she couldn't find one she asked a flight attendant for one. After the flight attendant gave this woman a horrible look she went and got one of their big trash bags and made a spectical out of giving it to this poor woman.
When we arrived at 8:45 in Atlanta the gate we were supposed to go to had been locked and they had to wait atleast 30 min to get someone to open it. Everyone on the plane, new Spirit customers as well as veterans were speaking to one another about what a horrible experiance this was. I tried numerous times to contact the airline to complain and finally gave up sitting on hold over and over again because even if they gave me another flight I would not want to travel with this airline. To Mr. Baldanza, He needs to think one persons word of mouth can go pretty far and he did not loose one time customers from this travel experiance and from his email he lost repeat customers as well. I would have let this go and just never flown this airline again but, when I heard from Christy and her husband on what had happened I wanted to share this. Good for them for sending their email to Mr. Baldanza which then by his mistake has allowed all of us to see that the way their customer service is deffinetly comes from the top!
vyomesh Aug 25th 2007 2:12PM
I flew with Spirit from Detroit to San Francisco.
The day before my schedeuled return flight I got a message at my Toronto residence that Spirit has cancelled its Sunday flight back from SF to MCO detroit.
It took 40 minutes to get a rep to discuss the possibilities of another flight who offered to take the next flight on Tuesday or to take a refund of 131 dollars when I paid 358 for the return.
When asked for a manager she asked to hold and eventually after 3 minutes of hold disconnected.
Again after 45 minutes of wait to get the next rep on line she too hung up on my face.
I had to buy a $288 single way ticket by U S airways and despite calling them 7 times in two weeks wasnt able to speak with any Manager.
Heard Excuses like the Manager is not in...
The computer system is down please call after two hours.
I emailed both Tony Lefebvre, SVP Customer Service as well as B. Ben Baldanza, President/CEO but in vain...
My flight was cancelled and I had to change my business plans and pay dearly for single way fare.
I believe other passengers should be made aware about this cheating.
Also the fact that one has to ask whether the baggage or snacks are extra is rather surprising..
On the whole it was a very bad experience and I still await replies from Spirit..after 3 weeks of occurence
Cyndi Aug 27th 2007 11:07AM
I want to let everyone know how UNACCEPTABLE Spirit Airlines is, and what a bind they put me and my family in on our vacation which should have been a relaxing worry-free time. I will NEVER fly with them again, and hope all who read this will choose other airliners and not give them business, which is the only way to make Spirit notice or change.
My Husband and I had roundtrip tickets from Tampa to St. Thomas USVI. We get to the airport the morning of our flight with plenty of time, and it is chaos at the Spirit Ticket counter. Finally a ticket agent told everyone that the one plane we were all scheduled on to Ft. Lauderdale was "Down for Maintenance" and we would all miss our connecting flights to our destinations. People had connecting flights to Cancun, Nassau, Kingston, you name it, we were missing their connections. Spirit said they would try to get all 100+ people on the same flight the next morning, or the day after. Yeah, right. I knew those flights were booked solid too! So I took the ticket agent aside and asked him to be real with me and what should we do to get to St. Thomas today (my husband had just come back from Iraq and we not only really neede the vacation, but he only had a few days until he had to be back at work). He said if it were him, he would check if another airline had flights to St. Thomas today, fly with them, and when we get to St. Thomas go to the ticket counter and they would notate our reservation, so our return flight wasn't canceled as a no-show, and give us travel vouchers for our inconvenience. Sounds like the procedure for any airline, Right?
WRONG! we found a flight on American ($700), got on that flight, got to St. Thomas, went to the ticket counter, and there was no one. So I stopped a custodian, asked him if Spirit Airlines had any agents on duty, and he showed me to a back room where there were three agents sitting gabbing, NOT working. They all rolled their eyes at me when I told them my issue, and said they were closed. It was 1:30 PM in the afternoon. I said I was told to fly here by the agent in Tampa and that you would help me. They said I should call back to that agent in Tampa and have him help me. I said that's impossible and you should be able to do the same thing for me. They said they couldn't help me and I should call the 1-800 number.
So, I left them to their chat, and called the 1-800 number. I was told by that agent that there was nothing they could do for me, because they were in India, they could only look at the computer, and that only a ticket agent could help me. I told them I'm standing in front of the ticket counter in St. Thomas and they are closed. He said they should be open until 5 PM and it's only 1:30. I said I know but they are refusing to help me and say they are closed. Then there was a long silence....
He then told me that it is Spirit Policy that the customer FORFEITS their ENTIRE RESERVATION including their RETURN ticket, if they do not fly the outbound flight. I told him that flight we were scheduled to fly was down for maintenance and we would have missed our connection, and it was on advice from the Spirit Ticket Agent in Tampa that we flew another airline. He just kept repeating the same policy (off a cew card probably) and told me there was nothing I could do. I said that was so unfair, nothing is wrong with our return flight, it was unaffected by today's flight, and how could they just cancel a flight I had already aid for,, when it was no fault of mine in the first place? Not to mention now we were actually in the USVI - how are we supposed to get back? What if we were in another country, an unsafe country at that? what if I didn't have the financial means to buy another ticket for us to get back home? The operator also had no one else I could talk to, no complaint procedure, and said I could not speak to the floor supervisor because they were too busy.
We bought our return tickets (another $600) and made it back to Florida. I have seen such a blatant lack of basic customer service and unprofessionalism in an airline. And if that is their policy (they said it was "buried on their website somewhere" but I still haven't found it) It is unfair, unsafe, and downright illegal! The terms are unconscionable - you have to agree to their terms to buy the ticket! To leave someone stranded in another country with no way back to the U.S. is unacceptable. I have had plenty of flights delayed or cancelled in the past with other airlines, but my return flight was NEVER cancelled too! And they always attempted to make some type of compensation for the inconvenience.
I thought they were a bargain because their rates were cheaper than the other airlines, but now we have paid more than 2 times the cost of that one ticket. No Bargain There!
So EVERYONE, please do not experience what we did - save your money and stress and don't buy a ticket on Spirit Air!
varda Lifshitz Aug 28th 2007 7:51PM
I would like to tell you about my experience with spirit air line.
I flew with my family from L.A to Punta Cana ( Dominican Republic) on August 10-August 18. On the way back we had a flight delay of three hours in Punta Cana that made us late for our connection flight in fort Lauderdale to L.A. The customer service representative at the air port couldn’t arrange a flight for us until the next night after three hours waiting at the counter at 11p.m. We explain to them that we are scheduled to attend a wedding and we need to fly earlier then the next night, but still they said they could do nothing. We had our own computer with us and we searched the internet for an earlier fight that is available, surprisingly we found one for the next morning with different air line. When we asked the representative of Spirit air line if they could book that flight for us they said that they can’t because they have no relation with the specific air line we found on line. They offered us a voucher for the amount of four tickets to fly any where within a year with Spirit air line. We took the offer and purchased the connection flight our self. It cost us $400 each. The representative did not provide us with the paper voucher he only gave us a number to enter when we book the flight with Spirit on line. We trusted them and we thought it’s worth it for us to get four free tickets and get to the wedding for the amount of $1600. When I got home to book the free tickets I found that our voucher is worth $100 per ticket. We paid close to $1000 each ticket to Punta Cana.
I wasn’t promised $1000 for each ticket but I was promised free ticket any where which was a lie.
Thank you for helpping me take action, if I wouldn't see your story on CNN I would probely forget about my free tickets and do nothing.
Varda Lifshitz
capitan j kirk Aug 29th 2007 3:22PM
don't loose your bags in DETROIT it took them 3 days to retrieve my bags. the lady in baggage clam said they take that long since they changed delivery service.(use to be 4 hours) my wedding dress was in that bag i had to get married in a rented gown WHAT WERE THEY THINKING. we spent over $20,000 on the wedding and they can not get my bag in time for the wedding. i will never fly this airline again.
Ronnie 20 Sep 5th 2007 8:55AM
Spirit Airline is the worst airline ever, my daughter travel with her grandparents on July 3rd from Ft. Lauderdale to Kingston Jamaica, the ticket agent cancel my daughter's flight and her grandparents were allowed on the flight, luckily her dad took her to the airport, otherwise she would be straunded in Ft. Lauderdale, I will never forget what they did to my daughter and to top it off they refuse to give me back my money, and she cannot fly at a later date, in other words I just give $230.00 to an airline who does not give a crap about their customers, it does not matter how long it takes me I will not give up until I get my money back, I will stop at nothing, the customer service representatives are so rude and disrespectful they think that human beings are animals, I will not stop If I have to fly to washington I will do it you have no idea how angry I am. I am a single parent I was making a sacrifice for her to be with her family this summer, but spirti airline job her of that time with her family and they rob me my money. If I have to go to the media I will do it. I will write a million CEO's I want my money from this airline. Believe me I will not give up because they are pigs, they have no morals and most importantly they do not know how to treat customers, it's a damn shame. I do not even want to hear their name.
Wayne Sep 28th 2007 1:41AM
SpiritAir is the worst company, not just an airline. i had the similar situation,i booked twice, got cancelled twice, and i finally went to civil court with them, they lost. But a month after i still have heard any response from them. I called them today, short waiting time on the phone (shocked me, usually it's at less 30 minutes waiting time), but again, talked with another horrible Rep,she didn't offer me any help, she just keep said that i couldn't get my refund. and she can't issue me the refund. I told her that i already go an court decision that they have to issue my refund no matter what. I asked for manager, but she said manager is busy with other caller(which i believed in her word), and i tried to leave my contact info, but she refused to take it for the manager to call back, only thing she offered me was ask me to write to the main office in FL. which i already did after i got the court decision. then she told me to go there in person, which is full of sh.., since i live in NY. (Sometime what they said is so shocking, i don't even know how to response).
Conclusion,i wasted another 30 minutes of my time and nothing is done. Final word about SpiritAir, it's one of the worst company, not just airline i even see. bad decision from me, i should google it before jumped into this "cheap" ticket, well, not "cheap" any more. i wasted time and money. and pissed off from their horrible service. But i do pity their customer care. I believe it's all bad management.