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Spirit Airlines Gets Busted For Bullying Its Customers

September 21, 2009 at 9:13 AM | by kjb | 0 Comments

The latest news from Spirit Airlines doesn’t involve a risqué ad campaign or other semi-clever marketing gimmick. This time the news is pretty serious, and they are going to have to break out the checkbook to make it go away because we don’t think the US government takes plastic.

The low cost carrier was fined $375,000 late last week for allegedly violating consumer protection rules. Specifically, they didn’t do such a good job about following guidelines regarding bumping passengers from their flights.

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Spirit Tempts Us With Another Sale, But Is It Even Worth It?

April 17, 2009 at 9:41 AM | by kjb | 0 Comments

Even though Tax Day has come and gone, the marketing staff over at Spirit Airlines filed an extension. That means that you can still fly from only $10.40 each way to a number of their destinations. However, there’s a catch—which isn’t surprising with this low cost carrier. You’ll need to sign up for their $9 fare club which will set you back about $40 for a year’s membership. Seems a little odd that we’re signing up for the $9 club just to get fares for $10.40.

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Spirit to Charge $4.90 'Passenger Usage Fee' For Just Buying a Ticket

March 9, 2009 at 10:11 AM | by Omri | 1 Comment

Last week we covered a couple of customers who vowed never to fly Spirit Airlines again, no matter how competitive the fares. Given the direction the airline is going, that's not going to be a problem.

Spirit has decided to introduce a new fee, something called the passenger usage fee of $4.90 per ticket for flights purchased outside of Spirit's own airport ticket counters. Yes, that includes the tickets you buy online at Spirit's own website.

The fee, designed to cover reservation-booking costs, will be part of Spirit's aggressive and edgy strategy, which doesn't always fly well with passengers... For airlines, one huge advantage of fees is that they don't show up in most reservation systems when consumers are shopping for airfares. That's because airlines aren't required to advertise fees that only certain customers will pay, like those checking baggage.

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New Routes and New Complaints on Spirit Airlines

March 2, 2009 at 11:46 AM | by kjb | 8 Comments

Low cost carrier and marketing maven, Spirit Airlines, recently announced new flights from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Santiago, Dominican Republic. They’ll fly this route starting in June and will go back and forth four times a week. Although we love us some new routes and airfare options, we’re wondering if taking a trip on Spirit is worth it.

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Snow On The Bluegrass

January 28, 2009 at 5:25 PM | by egw | 3 Comments

With so much travel news raining down on us, we don't always have time to give every story its own forecast. Here's more of the day's news, in brief.

Gross, East Coast!: Winter storms today disrupted travel plans in Boston, New York City and... Lexington, Kentucky? Some 473,000 citizens are powerless today from last night's ice storm, surpassing the number affected by 2003 ice storms in The Horse Capital of the World. Blue Grass Airport is open but currently run by generators. [Kentucky.com]

Jets On Sale?: Boeing announced it will cut 10,000 jobs after posting a fourth-quarter loss of over $56 billion. The airline cited a 2-month worker strike in its announcement along with, of course, the recession. [Bloomberg]

Time for a spirited debate: Should flight attendants be made to wear ads? New uniforms for Spirit Airlines' flight crew have been criticized for including an apron with a Bud Light logo slapped on the bib. The company countered the charges that such ads were "demeaning" by saying the ad sales are necessary to keep fares low. [South Florida Sun Sentinel]

Gateway to the West: Angel Island Immigration Station, San Francisco's answer to Ellis Island, will reopen in February after a four-year, $60 million renovation project. Originally built in response to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 -- that is, to detain or turn away Chinese immigrants -- the station became a national park in 1954 but visitors were largely restrained to the grounds. [USAToday.com]

[Photo: temporaryspastic]

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Tracking JetBlue's Latin America Takeover

Where: Costa Rica
December 11, 2008 at 2:45 PM | by pbb | 2 Comments

Early adopters may remember all the way back to before 9/11, when all JetBlue seemed to do was ferry people from Upstate New York to JFK. Now, nearly nine years after its first flight, the carrier is pushing ever-southward, with its latest new route, between Orlando and San Jose, Costa Rica, set to start March 26, 2009.

It's one of many new Caribbean and Latin American routes JetBlue has planned for the coming months. Next week, flights leave both Tampa and DC for Cancun for the first time, and Dulles will also get a connection to San Juan, Puerto Rico. In addition to Costa Rica, the airline will also start flying to Bogota and Nassau from Orlando early next year.

Why the big push at a time when other airlines are cutting service? We think it might have something to do with another LCC: Spirit has heaps of flights to the Caribbean and Latin America on Airbus 319s with 31 inches of seat pitch. But JetBlue is planning to fly E-190s--complete with live TV, two-by-two seating and at least 32 inches of pitch--to Costa Rica. With both carriers offering low fares to San Jose, who would you choose?

Related Stories:
· Open Skies over Colombia [Jaunted]

[Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas]

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Spirit Airlines Planning In-Cabin Advertising

September 18, 2008 at 12:14 PM | by pbb | 0 Comments

Obviously, Spirit Airlines would be the carrier to try this. It didn't really work out for Skybus, but then again, the now-defunct LCC didn't lure in passengers with attention-grabbing fare sales.

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DOT to Airlines: Sorry, Losers

July 7, 2008 at 5:00 PM | by pbb | 0 Comments

In late 2007 and into 2008, a group of airlines petitioned the Department of Transportation for permission to fly to Colombia--a move they had to take because flights there are regulated by treaty. But thanks to recent astronomical price increases on jet fuel, some carriers no longer want to go there--at least for now. So last month, a bunch of airlines filed with the DOT asking if they could keep their slots while delaying their entry into the US-Colombia market. (That's called a dormancy waiver.)

With so many airlines asking, it seemed like the DOT would grant the waiver, but it didn't. The agency's decision basically says "Sorry. Start flying or loose your slots." The DOT will continue to evaluate stuff like this on a case-by-case basis, but on this big one, the department made a pro-consumer call.

Spirit Airlines, which broke industry ranks and filed with the DOT against the waiver, will undoubtedly release some sort of tasteless fare sale soon to celebrate the finding.

Related Stories:
· DOT Rejects Blanket Dormancy Waiver [Travel Industry]
· JetBlue Travel: Colombia's out but Spanish Is in [Jaunted]
· New Routes: Open Skies over Colombia [Jaunted]

[Photo of El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá: aguno]

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Adventures of Link: The Latest from Spirit

June 18, 2008 at 6:02 PM | by pbb | 0 Comments

By now we shouldn't be shocked by any of the marketing Spirit Airlines puts out.

But the latest hype from the LCC isn't crude; it's just terribly hard to belive. Spirit says if you sign up for its new credit card, you'll get a free flight.

There probably will be, like, eight people who snag the free tickets. Us? We'd rather not read through pages of conditions to save $17.

Related Stories:
· Spirit Airlines' Credit Card [Official Site]
· Spirit Airlines' Current "NC-17" Sale [Official Site]
· Frat Guy Continues to Head Spirit Airlines Advertising Division [Jaunted]
· The Spirit MILF Returns [Jaunted]
· Maybe Spirit Isn't That Bad: Ryanair Planning "Beds and Blowjobs" [The Cranky Flier]

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Chris Elliott Gets Some Spirit Digits

June 11, 2008 at 5:30 PM | by juliana | 1 Comment

Spirit Airlines may be trying to whittle away its customer service department by removing important email address of Spirit execs and closing down their call center. But they can't get by Chris Elliott who received tips from Spirit insiders of the names, phone numbers and emails of Spirit execs who can help you.

Now that these execs have been "outed," we're not so sure how long those extensions and addresses will stay valid. All of these "hiding from the customer" shenanigans by Spirit can't mean anything good. As Elliott points out, the same thing happened at Skybus right before it shut down.

Then again maybe Ben Baldanza is taking his "Reply All" lesson to the extreme.

Related Stories:
· Spirit Contacts Reveiled [Elliott]
· Spirit Airlines coverage [Jaunted]

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Staff Cuts Coming to an Airline Near You

June 3, 2008 at 3:00 PM | by pbb | 1 Comment

Tacky advertiser and low cost carrier Spirit Airlines may be laying off about half its in-flight staff. The airline notified union leaders this weekend, saying cuts are planned for August 1, though a final decision hasn't yet been made. Any accompanying route cuts haven't been announced either, but you've got to expect them.

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Frat Guy Continues to Head Spirit Airlines Advertising Division

May 19, 2008 at 11:37 AM | by pbb | 4 Comments

Seems you either have to be a Maxim devotee or an Urban Dictionary savant to keep up with Spirit Airlines' ad campaigns. The latest--which is running on Jaunted at the moment--features "Big Spirit Deals."

And just in case you didn't catch the double meaning of BSD, the "$19 each way" part of the ad actually swings back and forth. More tacky than Spirit's "MILF" sale? We didn't think it was possible!

Related Stories:
· Spirit Airlines: Home to the MILF [Jaunted]
· The Spirit MILF Returns [Jaunted]
· Spirit Airlines coverage [Jaunted]