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Site Scramble: Spirit

The low-cost carrier market faces some stiff competition; after JetBlue and Southwest, there's a precipitous drop-off in the quality of service of the less successful airlines. Spirit has just received an injection of financing to help it make a big push into the Caribbean and Latin American markets with new routes and new aircraft. Their site is a mid-grade entry in the field, just like the airline itself.

Searches are easily done on the front door of the website, and because Spirit is so small, if you try to search for a flight on a day that it doesn't exist, it pops up as a dialog box instead of making you click back and forth. The limited selection is problematic, though; there really aren't that many different options for some flights, especially during the shoulder seasons. The site does contain seating charts for the aircraft, which is nifty, but you can't see seat availability until after you purchase, which renders it useless.

Still, what we find scariest on the front door are the photographs for the named sales. A big picture next to large text screaming "Izzie is Here!" doesn't make the airline seem insouciant. It makes it seem cheap and vaguely creepy, like ads for Captain Morgan rum. If we liked human mascots for airlines, we would have flown Hooters Air when it was still extant.

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