Spirit Airlines' Carry-On Fee is Just the Latest in a History of Bad Ideas

April 12, 2010 at 2:45 PM | by JetSetCD | Comments (3)

When Spirit Air made their huge announcement last week that they'd begin to charge passengers for both carry-on and checked baggage, making them the first airlines to do this, we can't say we were too surprised. With the way that airlines have been nickel-and-diming over the past year, a carry-on fee was bound to happen. Although we would have expected it more from European budget airline Ryanair, Spirit's history of bad decisions proves that they were due for a boneheaded move, and this happens to be it.

Stupid ideas of their past include such lovely things as a hidden "Passenger Usage" fee and that time that their CEO, Ben Baldanza, hit "reply all" on an embarrassing email. Oh yea, that last one was particularly eye-opening.

After the jump, we look at Spirit's milestone of stupidity...

April 2010: New fee for carry-on bags as well as checked bags hits Spirit customers
How would you feel if you got a nicely-priced flight and went to the airport and tried to carry onboard a small bag other than your purse and they charged you $45 for the privilege? Would you feel like never flying that airline again, especially knowing that the same thing would happen on your return flight, even if you wanted to check it? We rest our case.

November 2009: Spirit apologizes two years too late for customer complaint
Two years after a man posted a complaint about Spirit Airlines to his blog, the airline got tired of his story showing up in Google search results and decided to apologize. Two years later. TWO YEARS. An airline can go out of business way faster than that.

September 2009: Spirit fined for bullying its customers
Back in 2009, the US Government fined Spirit $375,000 for two reasons. One: Spirit did nothing for the passengers they bumped from overbooked flights, not even giving them meal vouchers or hotel discounts. Two: Spirit was shady about the true cost of one of their tickets, getting busted for all those hidden fees.

March 2009: New "Passenger Usage Fee" of $4.90 added to tickets
In addition to other fees you'll find in the fine print of your Spirit tickets, is this fee that's essentially just a booking fee. Except you aren't buying this flight from Expedia or Priceline where you might find a booking fee, but directly on their website. That's $5 just for buying a ticket with Spirit. No thank you.

April 2008: The "MILF" sale takes tackiness to new heights
Perhaps realizing that they needed an injection of hipness and customer attention, Spirit began running tackily-named sales. There was the "B.S.D. Sale" and a couple other, but the "M.I.L.F. Sale" took the cake. Sure they said it stood for "Many Islands Low Fares," but c'mon. Anyone can see through that.

August 2007: Spirit's CEO hits "reply all" on embarrassing email
This was a real doozy. CEO Ben Baldanza hit "reply all" on an email directed to one of his staff, who was dealing with a passenger complaint. What exactly did he say? Here it is:

Please respond, Pasquale, 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.

Wow. It's been over 2 years and still, all we can say to that is "wow."

July 2006: Spirit Endorses Jeb Bush for President
We know that Spirit is based in Florida, but still...why did they have to get political back in 2006 by throwing a sale that endorsed Jeb for President? Sale fares were "$20.08," and there was a bawdy mention of passengers dreaming of "six extra inches." Although they meant leg room, they wanted your dirty thoughts instead.

Related Stories:
· Spirit Air Now Charging For Both Carry-on and Checked Baggage [Jaunted]
· Spirit Airlines [Jaunted]

[Photo: Willamor Media]

Comments (3)

Return to » Spirit Airlines' Carry-On Fee is Just the Latest in a History of Bad Ideas

Plus, when fuel prices went way up in 2008, Spirit dropped seven of their planes as they couldn't fly them profitably. And not terribly long ago, their CEO mentioned that his predecessor ordered A319's which weren't as efficient as the A320, with an additional 8% fuel burn per seat. It was under that same management that Spirit tried to go after the business customer in Detroit before turning to FLL and Caribbean leisure traffic. Maybe Indigo and Oaktree Capital will sell Spirit to Jetblue and these issues will be solved.

Wow, at least there are blogs where people can draw attention to the ridiculous airlines who take advantage of customers. I didn't know that they endorsed Jeb Bush back in '06. I laughed so hard when I read that.

Here, is a somewhat edited, but true-to-fact email conversation I had this past week, with a Spirit Airline representative. "Dear Messrs. Baldanza; Lefebvre and, Ms. Harvey, Spirit Air's practice of automatically, (without advance notice/warning) withdrawing my pre-arranged, payment of $39.95, has caused me great difficulty." "Your 'ambush' withdrawal...has found me unable to pay an important bill that was due, the Monday following your action. From: Susan 58420, 10/01/2010 at 3:16 PM. "Our records reflect that you have been a $9 Fare Club member since September 23, 2008 with your annual membership renewed on September 24, 2009 and, most recently, on September 24, 2010 as per the Terms and Conditions you agreed to during your initial enrollment. I conveyed to you that, due to a technical issue, prior notice alerting you of the $39.95 renewal fee which was sent to you in 2009 was, unfortunately, not e-mailed to you this year." Later, that day, in response to her reply, I wrote: "How will you make good, for the inconvenience you caused me? All I see here is you covering your own mistake, by offering me nothing but a refund or a renewal in the future at a higher cost!. You failed to send me a advisory that you were withdrawing money from my account. And all you can say is, sorry about that." Finally, to my retort, here is '58420's last word, (for the moment) on the subject. I received it 10/01/2010, at 10:24 PM. It looks like Susan burnt a couple of ounces of near-midnight-oil...to find the following 'stip!.' "Agreement to the Terms and Conditions of our $9 Fare Club is required during the enrollment process. It is illustrated that "Initial or renewal membership fees are subject to change by Spirit at any time without notice to the Member. Any increase in the annual membership fee will take effect upon renewal of a Member's membership." "Memberships will automatically renew upon expiration if Member has not cancelled prior to their renewal date. The renewal charge will be assessed to the credit card originally used when joining the Club. Spirit will attempt to, but is not obligated to, notify current Members at the email address provided in the Member's profile prior to charging Member's credit card for annual fees." It appears '58420' is a bit hazy on this matter.

Jaunted

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