Too Cheap for Comfort and Safety
Written: Apr 30 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Young, happy, optimistic staff.
Cons: Inexperienced, naive, second rate staff.
The Bottom Line: Avoid it if at all possible. I am guessing that the tickets are cheap because they have used equipment, second rate crew and also seemed to be under-staffed.
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| husker_rich's Full Review: Spirit Air |
Flight 782 from Ft. Lauderdale to Chicago O'Hare 4/27/01 departed at 11:40AM.
I had a bad feeling about this flight after I entered the plane. It was a small plane, noisy and dirty. I am six feet tall and had no leg room in my window seat, in fact I had little to no room to place my carry on luggage under the seat in front of me - especially when compared to American and United. There was much less space in the overhead compartments as well. The flight crew told us that most of the overhead compartments in the back of the plane were being used for "emergency equipment" and that we could not place our carry on bags in them. This seems strange to me, but at least we knew they had some emergency equipment....
My window seat did not provide a very good view because the windows were very scratched and marred. The seat cushion next to me was soaking wet and I guessed that someone has spilled a drink or something, but I later guessed what the probably reason was....
After take off, the pilot seemed to be handling the plane rather roughly, turning a lot and almost going in circles. I was sitting in row 30 near the flight crew station and I though it was odd that the lead member who was working the forward part of the plane came to the back and formed a huddle with the two other crew members in the back. They were getting the drink carts out and after they were finished with their huddle, the captain came on and said that he was going to land at Orlando because an indicator light had come on that he did not feel comfortable with flying all the way to Chicago. In the mean time the crew is working very quickly to put everything away and preparing for landing. No on was panicking yet.
The passengers did not know it at the time, but the captain was actually making an Emergency lading at the Orlando Airport because his "indicator light" is telling him that their is a fire on the airplane. The passengers knew that this was not just a simple little "detour" landing by the manner in which the pilot brought the plane down. He dove the plane downward and banked the plane very steeply several times. Since we did not know it was a fire "indicator", our imaginations were in fully gear and by the way the pilot seemed unable to control the plane, many of us wondered if we were even going to make it to the airport... I could say more, but suffice it to say that all of us were very scared....
When we landed the fire patrol was waiting for us and that is when we got further confirmation that something was seriously wrong. We sat on runway for few minutes and then taxied to the gate with the fire patrol in tow. Everyone and the crew got off the plane in regular fashion, but we still did not know what caused the problem, or what was going to happen next.
A young and optimistic Spirit employee at the Orlando gate said that "it was a false indicator" and that they were filling out paper work as the result of the declared emergency lading, but we should be aloud to get back on in 25 minutes or so. Long story short, we were in the Orlando airport for about four hours. I was not to looking forward to getting back on the same airplane, and I was glad when someone finally decided to put us on another airplane.
What actually happened was our flight bumped the next Spirit flight from Orlando to Chicago Midway. After "relaxing" in the Orlando airport for Three hours and unable to get another earlier flight out of Orlando on any airline, I boarded the new plane. It took about an hour to board and this time I got an isle seat.... :-)
This plane was quieter, but just as dirty and the windows were just as scratched and marred. During the flight I noticed that many of the overhead panels were dripping water on the passengers. My best guess is that a compressor or some other piece of equipment related to the air conditioners were leaky. I counted no less than six separate rows where passengers were using paper napkins to try to keep dry. I am guessing that this is how the seat next to me on the first plane got wet this way also....
No special apologies were ever made to the passengers by the crew or pilot, they just seemed to have a "back to business as usually attitude." The pilot did not handle the landing in Chicago any more gently than the emergency landing he made in Orlando, which was very surprising to me. A fellow passenger even commented that this pilot seemed to be a little bit of a "cowboy". All I know is that he seemed to like to bank the airplane and dip the nose down a lot. He also seemed to slow down and speed up a lot during his approach.
I booked this flight through our corporate travel system and I did not know anything about Spirit. Well I do now, and I will never take this airline again and I will tell as many people as I can to avoid it as much as possible.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
husker_rich
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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