Jaunted

June 2010: Spirit arouses fury of people around the country when they mock the BP oil spill in a series of online ads. They were eventually pulled, but not before striking a sensitive spot. See the ads preserved for posterity here.

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. Also announced: installation of airplane seats that don't recline.

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 Airlines CEO Defends Luggage Fees; Says Bags 'Not Essential' for Vacations [ABC News]
· Spirit Air Now Charging For Both Carry-on and Checked Baggage [Jaunted]
· Spirit Airlines [Jaunted]

[Baldanza Photo: E. Escarda/Florida Trend]