Never fly with this airline!!!
Written: Dec 19 '00 (Updated Sep 01 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cost
Cons: Customer Service, understaffed, not certified to fly around storms, perpetually late, skimp on fuel
The Bottom Line: NEVER FLY THIS AIRLINE! They are cheap, un-reliable, have been known to skimp on fuel, and are dangerous!
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| LionsCub's Full Review: Spirit Air |
As a travel agent I have to make sure that the airlines I recommend to my clients are decent companies. Spirit is not!
This is my second epinion on Spirit, because I unfortunately had an emergency that I had to fly for and ended up using spirit.
My trouble with them started when I tried to book my ticket through my website which uses a network called Amadeus. It is a network used to book tickets that is run by several different airlines. Spirit is listed although they do not have a permanent connection into the network, so when I hit confirm it told me that my reservation was canceled. When I called spirit the man on the phone seemed to be intent not to help me. When I asked if he could figure out what went wrong he told me that the problem has nothing to do with them. Their connections were all ok, and it was my websites fault. Finally when I called customer support for the website the technician explained that Spirit is not connected full time so reservations for them can not always be confirmed. So I decided to book my ticket strait through Spirit.
This was the next step of my difficulty. I told the lady exactly which flights I wanted. I told her what times they were, where they left and flew into and what flight numbers they were. The total should have been $484, so I was slightly surprised when she said it would cost $586. Of course, when I double checked the flight numbers she said, "Oh, you wanted that flight?" Well lets see, that may be the reason why that was the flight number I gave her. So finally I get the tickets booked and we leave for the airport.
Here's some quick advice I recently learned. LaGuardia only has one runway. This means if there are any delays or trouble on the runway, EVERYONE is delayed leaving that airport.
So, I don't know what the problem was, but Spirit got all of us on the plane and then left us sitting there for two hours on the runway. Now, part of the problem was all the planes in front of us, but there was also some problem with out flight pattern. The captain said that we were rerouted by dispatch and control two or three times. Finally we got out of LaGuardia and had a decent flight to Ft. Lauderdale.
So the trip there had minor problems, nothing that couldn't happen to any other airline. The trip back however, was the clincher.
We're on out way to the airport and call ahead to find out if our plane is on time. We were supposed to take off at 6:30pm. The automated message, after a 10 minute wait, said we would take off at 1:30am. We got to the airport and got our tickets and the person behind the desk told us there was a change. They got another plane to fly in, we'll "definitely" be leaving at 10:45pm, be back at 10:00 for boarding. At 10:00pm we get there and there are no Spirit employees at the gate. We wait, and wait, 10:30 rolls around and I went to another gate to ask that Spirit employee what's going on and she tells me that she heard we would be leaving at 11:00pm, but that was a while ago. Meanwhile there is a Spirit plane at the gate next to ours, which they just left there over night as opposed to flying one of the three flight they had, which were delayed until as late as 2:00am, out. Around 10:45 we heard a rumor that the plane was supposed to land at 11:00pm and we would leave by 11:30. There was also a plane at our gate already, but what we didn't know at the time, because there was sill no one there to give us any information, was that it was already full of passengers going to West Palm Beach, and they sat there for about 40 minutes. After going back to the Spirit employee at the other gate three or four times, and listening to her call for someone to come to our gate, it became clear no one wanted to deal with us. I decided to call their 1-800 number in an attempt to get a live person, instead I got the message, “Due to the large call volume we are receiving, we can not handle your call at this time.” Ok, so there was no way to find a live person. Around 11:00pm a voice came over the loud speaker saying the flight was landing at 11:30 and we would leave at 12:10am. There was still no one to ask any questions to. Around 11:15 they changed our gate, and sent out two employees who were never told what the situation was. At 11:30 the plane landed and pulled into our gate. Finally a supervisor showed up.
So here are the reasons we had trouble: "Every airline was delayed." Not true, we were the last airline stuck in the terminal. So why was that? She explained that the other airlines have the clearance to fly a certain route, which for some reason Spirit cannot. The Jet Blue flight at 8:30 got out on time because of this. Why was there no one to give us any information for the last hour and a half? "Because of the holidays coming up we have poor representation" So because the busiest time of the year is coming up, they could only find one employee to stand any where in the terminal?
By the way, we didn't leave until 12:30am. Finally landing back in New York at 3:00am. Needless to say my next day was destroyed because I was exhausted!
So in short, do not fly Spirit because:
1) They are understaffed
2) They refuse to keep their customers informed
3) The employees they do let you see are sent out as sacrificial lambs and know nothing
4) They do not have the clearance needed to fly around storms in such a way that they can avoid delays.
Do not fly spirit! Spend $100 more if you need to, unless you enjoy stress, the uncertainty of your flight time, and terrible customer support, DO NOT FLY SPIRIT!
Since I have written this epinion I have heard a story from relatives of mine that I couldn't believe. A friend of their flew spirit down to Miami from New York. They had to make an emergency landing in North Carolina, because they ran out of fuel. So if you want a cheap airline, with bad service that skimps on fuel, then try this one.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
LionsCub
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Member: Hanan Schwartzberg
Location: www.lionscub.com
Reviews written: 58
Trusted by: 8 members
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