Let’s be clear about the timeline. Jet Blue and Frontier bid for Spirit in 2022. Spirit’s board said Frontier [1]. Lower price but less risky, regulatorily. Retail, however, chose the shinier sticker price [2][3].
Khan and pals, as expected, blocked; a judge concurred [4]. Jet Blue pulled its bid [5]. Then Frontier did, too [6].
Nobody was right. But a lot of folks were wrong, some more than others. It's a black eye for direct-democratic shareholder rights: the board made the better call.
There have been a lot of good antitrust action recently and in the past.
But this particular decision didn’t make sense from the beginning. There are 3 major airlines in the U.S. already (4 if you include Southwest). Those guys are also too big to fail.
Everyone else is competing against them in a highly uneven playing field. You need to let the remaining players act in ways that make sense. Even if they consolidate down to a 4th big player that’s not a bad thing.
That’s because of the additional peculiarities of the airline industry. There’s always investors willing to go into it for some reason. But more importantly, you are completely dependent on airplan manufacturers which is a highly monopolized backlogged industry that rewards bigger players.
> "Nobody was right. But a lot of folks were wrong, some more than others. It's a black eye for direct-democratic shareholder rights: the board made the better call."
Is there actually enough information to conclude that for sure?
Maybe there is, but based solely on the info you mention it could be the case that both options were equally likely to get blocked by the FTC, in which case choosing the option which offered a higher price was the better choice even though it didn't work out. Or maybe it was only 0.1% more likely to be blocked, while being significantly more than 0.1% higher price meaning a better EV even though both options had a chance of failing and a chance of succeeding.
I feel like you may well be right, but equally may well be doing the equivalent of looking at someone who put a roulette bet on black and lost and concluding based on that single spin that the person who bet on red was more intelligent.
> Nobody was right. But a lot of folks were wrong, some more than others. It's a black eye for direct-democratic shareholder rights: the board made the better call.
Echoes my opinion on Elon Musk's Twitter takeover: we would be better off if the SEC had not done its job and ensured the promised purchase went through.
In English, "filing for bankruptcy" can be read in two ways: the one is the literal interpretation of filling out the forms. But the other is simply stating the inevitable destiny and which is worth highlighting since it has many implications (for employees, airports, debt holders, shareholders, etc.).
So I don't think the article title is intended to mislead.
Not sure which English you are referencing, but "Filing for bankruptcy" only means the legal/literal definition, at least in my 40+ years in the PNW. "Declare Bankruptcy" tends to be used more colloquially...
Regardless of the intent, it is a misleading rewording of the original article title.
As - I think - a reasonably experienced English speaker, I strongly disagree. "Filing for bankruptcy" is not a phrase used to mean "going bankrupt soon, but not yet officially". It's always used literally.
"Filing" is distinct from "Filling". In this context "filing" means lodging the papers with the court, and that typically has an immediate automatic legal effect (the Automatic Stay).
I would argue these are still distinct meanings: one has speculative implications the other has tangible results. Announcing a marital engagement may be important, but the marriage is not formal until the marriage certificate is filed. In the context of news, its important to get right.
It's interesting how major airlines competing with them has made things worse for everyone. I have many times seen passengers ignorant about what "basic economy" means (or at least feigning ignorance) and it leads to passengers trying to negotiate seat swapping on their own, or gate agents getting involved when it's a young child getting separated. All of it leads to boarding delays, which leads to delays pushing back, which leads to sequencing delays for takeoff.
> interesting how major airlines competing with them has made things worse for everyone
It's been great for the poor and middle class. Tickets are cheap, before taxes and regulatory charges. Go to Europe and you see what competition can truly bring: <$50 tickets.
A lot of those flights in Europe are pretty short. You can get pretty cheap flights from Boston to Washington, DC, or from Houston to Denver, too. (Texas is about the size of France, so Houston to Denver would be roughly equivalent to Paris to mid-Europe)
anecdotally, that's not what i recently experienced. I used to envy cheap cross-Europe flights, but somehow nowadays I can fly from SF direct to Paris for $250 or Cancun direct for $150 (cheaper than roundtrip Uber to SFO)... local Europe travel didn't feel that much cheaper all of a sudden.
Based on these I think airfare in the US looks better, especially considering the longer distances. Barcelona-London is the same price as San Francisco-Denver but 75% as far for example.
Major problem with your survey there: Google travel doesn't appear to cover Ryanair or easyJet, or most of the other major European budget airlines. Select London Stansted, say (from which there are uncountable <100eur flights) and you only get one (because Stansted is mostly budget airline focused).
Your data is, more or less "if you ignore the budget airlines, there are few cheap flights from Barcelona", which is true, but not particularly useful. Dublin<>Barcelona, say, tends to be 25eur each way when there's not much demand, including taxes and charges (though you'll pay extra if you want to take _bags_).
Huh. Weird. It's showing them as options if you click in (sometimes cheaper than the headline option) but if they're the only option under the price point it doesn't seem to show them (set it to Stansted to see).
EDIT: Ah, I found the problem (I suspect this is a bug in Google's flight thing). They had carry-on bags set to 1. If you set it to 0 it shows flights (mostly Ryanair) to almost everywhere in Europe. It may be getting tripped up by Ryanair's wonky treatment of carry-on bags (you can add 'priority boarding', which gets you a carry-on, as an extra fairly cheaply, but if you want it as a headline feature it comes bundled with a bunch of other stuff).
Even with this option off, though, it's still not showing easyJet.
My last holiday I was under the wrong assumption that I was allowed to check in luggage.
It cost me 60 euro at the airport desk for a single bag.
Won't make that mistake again.
Don't think it's even that. All they had to do was match or get close to Spirts fares until they drove them out of business. The major carriers don't need to collude, it's part of their playbook and apparent when they go after a route or market. AA, Delta, and United could afford to lose money on routes longer than Spirit could. It's a shame if Spirit doesn't make it.
Disagree. Airfare has been one of the most deflationary parts of the economy this century because of budget airlines. I paid $3(plus taxes) to fly from utah to arizona because of sprit. If you fly with any regularity the rules are easy to follow, especially solo.
How many here flew on spirit knowing what to except via an Ultra Low Carrier yet had a bad experience cause they expected more (one I.e. ..expected same experience as on southwest where bags are free)and or as well what were your experiences.
Mine were all great (enjoyed dozens of flights with them)..clothes & travel stuff in a book bag or sometimes in a vacuum seal bag then in book bag and stuff book bag under the seat. Saved hundreds and flew a lot more!
I've flown on almost all of the major airlines in the US and Spirit was always pleasantly better than expected compared to the horrible experiences I've had on other airlines. I don't see why people are bashing on Spirit. Flying in the US is uniformly terrible and there is no "luxury" option (unless you consider getting free peanuts or crackers with your $500 ticket a luxury).
No, it isn't. It's uniformly terrible when you choose the cheapest option which coincidentally is the driving force behind air travel reducing extra comforts.
It very much is, compared to other countries. In Europe and other places they might feed you two full meals in economy the time it takes SFO to NY. Here, you get puke-inducing "pretzels" and half a plastic cup of water.
In that regard, Spirit was refreshingly honest because they didn't even pretend to care.
There is no intra-Europe flight as long as SF is to NY. There is no narrow body flight that serves two full meals in economy in Europe. There are practically no wide-body intra-Europe flights, certainly none that serve any meals. Most flights in Europe are super short and nearly all of them are on narrow body planes that don't have the capacity to serve meals for everyone.
> There is no intra-Europe flight as long as SF is to N [...] There are practically no wide-body intra-Europe flights, certainly none that serve any meals
That depends on how you define "Europe".
Europe-the-continent, Athens to Reykjavik is roughly the same distance as NY to SF.
If you define Europe as "Any territory belonging to a European country", then the longest domestic flight is between Paris and Saint-Denis, Réunion. It's about 9000 Km, which is twice the distance between NY and SF.
Tenerife is quite a popular destination, and is also relatively far from the mainland.
speaking for myself, i fly every other week, sometimes i don't care for food, other times i could be hungover or hungry flying into or out of a full workday and meetings. Realizing that a nice hot meal or two are sometimes pretty amazing when flying e.g. Turkish, I personally would love the ex-Virgin America approach (RIP another legend) where I could punch a button on the screen and they would bring a meal on demand if/when i need it, without having to stay awake waiting for the stupid cart or bothering other people too much. But, here we have United that offers nothing.
I'm in Europe and I always liked flying on Ryanair. They're not bad if you just pay for what you want. You have a lot of food choices where 'premium' airlines give you a sandwich you might not like. You can buy priority boarding without having to accumulate frequent flying points. And they're still cheaper than the pompous airlines when you pay for the addons.
If you try to get the things without paying, eg bringing too much baggage, that's when they fleece you. But just follow the rules and it's fine.
I've flown Frontier a few times and the most recent time they were delayed by like 5 hours (maintenance issue, no replacement plane) and once they finally started boarding, they plucked out like 40 people whose bags were "too big" and had to pay $100 at the gate so they can board with them. You have to have extreme contempt for your customers to waste even more time after you already wasted 1000+ human hours just on this flight alone, let alone all the subsequent flights that day that will be impacted because your operations rely on every plane being on time. No apology at any point either.
Spirit is no different. They hate you and they make sure you know it.
I can vouch for Spirit. I've Never had any issue on Spirit and flew 20 different flights out of one of their hubs in Baltimore. Spirit no doubt has those crazy long layover flight u can choose which I've never booked. Heck no, just book their non stop flights.
I can't vouch for frontier I've never flown with them ..not yet at least.
There are a lot of theories for why the low-cost carriers are suddenly failing since 2020 in the US, but in my opinion the big one was inflation - of costs, of disposable income, and of expectations.
Pilot salaries and fuel costs both skyrocketed since 2020, and at the same time the US got significantly richer and people got more of a taste for luxury. Expensive, premium things have never been doing so well in the US. All of a sudden, you have a double whammy of low-cost carriers being forced to raise prices and get less competitive, while consumers are more inclined to pay for luxury.
Not to mention - American LCCs were never in that great of a position, structurally, vs the European LCCs. Ryanair thrives on quick turnarounds, cheap airports, cheap pilots, short flights and high population density. The US has none of those. The EU's population density is 112 people/km2 vs 36 in the US, even cheap US pilots are very expensive, turnarounds are slower, and there are few budget airports where the people live. The Port Authority is spending 25 billion dollars on revamping the three NYC area airports. Meanwhile Europe is full of cheap semirural airports like Frankfurt-Hahn, where the most recent renovation cost in the single digit millions. Where do you think you can land a 737 for cheaper?
I would be curious to know exactly _why_ you think my argument is wrong, especially when I have proposed a decent mechanism relating to population density: cheap semirural airports and short flights. Frankfurt-Hahn or Paris Beauvais or Girona or Weeze have millions of people living right next door and are dirt cheap (multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than US airports.) Meanwhile, there are far more small rural airports in the US than in Europe, by approximately a factor of three [0] [1], but not enough people live by them to make regular flights efficient. For a great example of this, look at the Essential Air Service and how many taxpayer dollars the US spends to serve the many rural communities that would otherwise have no flights at all.
Ryanair doesn't really fly to those anymore though. They just fly to the low cost terminals at the major airports now. Here in Barcelona they just go to El Prat, not Girona.
Hmm... no? They still fly plenty out of all of those airports. Beauvais has 33 Ryanair departures on the board, Hahn has 8, Weeze has 15, and I see eight Ryanair flights for the day on the Girona departures board right now, in the off-season when most flights there don't operate. Less than El Prat, sure, but way more than you could ever imagine Spirit doing from a comparable area in the US, which is my point.
The concept is that it is fundamentally wrong to smear the population of NY across the total area of the US. You make a point to back an argument - the argument might be correct but your point is not.
> Frankfurt-Hahn or Paris Beauvais
Note that they are close to dense population areas Frankfurt and Paris. Not part of average density areas.
I am just saying I have seen the pattern occur repeatedly where "population density" is used to attempt to prop an argument: density is averaging and is often meaningless.
Hmm. So you don't disagree that cheap semirural airports with a population base and short flights are important parts of the model, but you don't think they are related to population density? I don't see how those could be unrelated.
Perhaps a simpler way to convince you of the importance of population density to today's LCC model: Take a look at a map of where Ryanair flies. Under the 58th parallel, on the entire European continent, there is only one place over 250km from a Ryanair airport! Look at all the tiny airports, Limoges or Valladolid or Brive or Osijek or anywhere really. Ryanair flies to 250 airports and they do it with hundreds of 737s operating like clockwork, one short flight to another, not a tiny regional plane to be seen. Meanwhile, Delta flies to a similar number of airports in the US (in the 200s) but the majority of those are with small regional jets which are way less cost-effective than 737s; if you're an LCC, that means that you can forget about flying there. Obviously Delta is flying all those regional jets not for fun, but because they can't fill a 737, because the local population is not large enough to support one. I don't see how population density is not a core part of the issue here.
I think transport in the US might be a factor, though. While Frankfurt-Hahn and Beauvais are particularly extreme examples (they're further from the notional place than most budget airports) you can still get to the the relevant city relatively cheaply (if not particularly _quickly_, in the case of those two; about two hours). In many parts of the US, I suspect you'd really have no option but to hire a car, which instantly wipes out any price advantage of the budget airline.
I think a better measure would be an average of averages of adjacent populations.
Define a node as a population center (say NYC) and then edges as cities (Boston, Philly, DC, Pittsburgh) with the weight being the population of the respective city. Average the populations for each mode and then average those averages.
The idea of this number is it would represent the average population of points of interest.
AIUI low-cost flights work best in an area where there's a lot of sizable city pairs about 1h-3h away from each other. Europe has more such pairs than the US, as indicated by the much higher population density.
I imagine most non-corporate, non-loyalty fliers use flight search engines where they can easily compare prices. If Spirit has the worst reputation, which I think is a given, consumers have to weigh the price difference between Spirit and a 'regular' carrier against that bad reputation.
That begs the question, how much cheaper is a Spirit flight compared to other carriers for a given itinerary? In my experience, it's maybe $50-$150, compared to a trip that might cost $500-$2000 overall. It's not like fliers are choosing between Spirit and first class on Delta. They're deciding whether or not to spend an extra ~$100 to be slightly less miserable on a trip that may be one of their largest single expenses of the year, and maybe their only trip of the year.
Exactly. In America today people have very little vacation time, a lot of money, and a taste for luxury. With the recent increases in salaries and fuel costs, the delta between the LCCs and the legacy carriers has dropped. You're a consumer in America taking your single yearly vacation. Are you going to save $40 on your several-thousand-dollar trip to fly Spirit? Apparently not. Meanwhile in Europe you're flying shorter distances more frequently, you don't care as much about Easyjet vs Lufthansa, and 40 euros is a lot more money.
On the other hand, when I fly to Vegas, typically Spirit and Frontier are less than $100 round trip. Southwest is $250-$275, and the traditional airlines are over $300. And it’s for the same no-meal, shitty legroom, unpleasant experience. So what am I paying 3X for? A brand name?
The low cost airlines in Europe are very sustainable though. They're doing great and even the old airlines are following their models now, like charging for luggage.
Also, Europeans have a lot more time off. When you're making a long weekend trip, catching a Ryanair flight and suffering through it (it's not super comfortable, but you get what you pay for) is not a big deal because the flight is short, it probably gets you close to your destination which was maybe picked because of this, and it doesn't matter that much because this might be one of your multiple trips that year.
It's not the same flight. I avoid American, United and the discount carriers because they have the smallest seats. Spirit is also one of the only airlines without power outlets. Personally, I don't care if it's a 1-2 hour flight. I'd be happy to stand. But on a 4+ hour flight, a hundred bucks isn't so bad for bigger seats, a power outlet and maybe even a TV and free WiFi depending on the carrier.
Caring about seat size makes sense, but power outlets - for $30 you can get a good quality battery that will charge a mobile phone multiple times from its capacity, for $100 you can get one that'll fully recharge a laptop once or twice. So unless the price difference for flying is tiny, it's really not worth paying more because a plane has power outlets when you can pay less to get a device that's not only just as good for the one trip but that you can then use on future trips without paying more (except for the tiny cost of electricity to recharge it before the flight).
I thought I didn't care, but I chose Delta instead of Southwest on a flight and not having to think about it at all (did I charge my laptop? my phone? my headphones? it's okay, I have a portable battery, wait, is it charged? did I remember it? can everyone else get up, I left my battery in the carry-on?) makes flying less stressful. Plus, it's one less thing to carry around for a week. Same goes for assigned seats, it's one less worry while being shoved into a tin can and flung into the sky.
Fair enough - I elaborated here [1] on why it's by far the better option for me, but I completely accept that different people have different priorities and different weightings to the pros/cons, so whatever works best for you is great too.
Yes, there are novel solutions to many problems, but an outlet is the most reliable and lowest effort solution. And nearly every plane has them these days, so why overthink it.
For me personally, taking into account whether or not a plane had power outlets is the overthinking option.
I've been on planes / trains / coaches that are expected to have them, but who had faulty outlets at my seat for that particular journey and I wasn't able to use them. So I just have a small battery pack (little bit bigger than a pack of cards), and a big one for laptop recharging, and I take one or both (plus my slightly bigger than a lipstick one that's light and fits easily in pretty much every clothing pocket I own) depending on the trip I'm going on, meaning no added complexity as it's just like remembering to take my laptop's power cable, and I no longer have to spend any time thinking about whether the transport will or won't have a power source for me.
I appreciate what works for me won't be the preferred solution for everyone, but for me it definitely leads to less overthinking per trip not more. (And personally I don't notice the added weight of these batteries in my bag; and I would want them for travelling even if I could be guaranteed every flight & train had working power outlets, as I've had times when they were useful to have when visiting a client's offices, or when staying in a hotel with a dodgy outlet, or when going hiking an nowhere near power outlets - so in my case it wasn't even an additional cost caused by not trusting planes to provide a good power supply.)
Unfortunately, the more useless the signal the more effective it is, and the degree of signaling in recent years has only increased. This reminds me of an excellent article from almost twenty years ago: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aggressive-ostentation/
The thing is, comfort is sticky (as I well know sadly, second class is hard to bear for me).
Low-cost companies targeted people with low disposable income at the cost of comfort.
People who used to have low disposable income have now not enough to travel by plane (or at all), and people who had enough to use standard companies have still enough to use them.
A very interesting fact is that median income grew in the US (less than average, but close enough). The standard deviation (from memory, if this isn't the translation of 'écart-type' I'm sorry) grew also, which indicate that the recent economic 'boom' the US experienced since the end of covid took more than 50% of us citizen with it, but clearly not a huge majority. Germany experienced a very similar thing since 2012. To my knowledge, in Germany it was most likely caused by a transfer from progressive taxation to a fixed one, reducing purchasing powers of people with low disposable income. In the US it seems it's a direct income issue.
In the US? Absolutely. Look at Apple's market share post-pandemic, the growth of organic food, luxury spending, cars, anything really. There has been an overwhelming shift to luxury. Google the 2020 vs 2023 Prius. Hell, even McDonalds is trying to move upscale!
The low cost carriers I've flown in Western Europe and Asia were way better than the the regular US carriers (United, Delta, Southwest, etc.) They had much better seating, planes, restrooms, policies, etc.
By contrast the US has the worst airlines out of anywhere I fly. Even the regular non budget ones are bad. Frontier and Spirit are the only airlines on my "never ever again" list, no matter how much cheaper they are. I've never felt as dehumanized, like cattle to the slaughter, as when flying on them...
> low cost carriers I've flown in Western Europe and Asia were way better than the the regular US carriers (United, Delta, Southwest, etc.) They had much better seating, planes, restrooms, policies, etc
Examples? I’ve done every mode of transport in Europe. The planes are your buses.
The only domestic flight I've been on in the US was United, and it was possibly the worst flight I've ever been on, though my judgement may be coloured by how late it was. Beyond that, though, I'm not sure I've ever been on a plane that felt as much like it was... falling apart (I'm sure it was structurally safe, but some of the ceiling panels were out of place, a number of seats were broken, etc). It wouldn't fly (see what I did there?) with Ryanair.
Legroom and general plane modernity/comfort were the big ones for me, as well as check-in and luggage drop-off procedures. The European and Asian airlines do the basics really well, and I never felt uncomfortable in them. I remember loving my experience with Norwegian Air, for example, which beats ANY US airline I've ever flown on (United, Delta, Southwest, American). Only Alaska came close, but only during covid (when there was a lot of empty space). Otherwise, in normal times, the US airlines have incredibly cramped legroom, really old planes that you often can't stand up in, have minimal overhead space, etc. This is especially true in regional/rural routes, but even the urban hub to hub ones are not great in my experience.
The US airlines are generally tolerable, but they just feel... bad. Like they don't really care about their customers at all and are just trying to milk you for every last cent and would really prefer that you simply not be a customer if you're not satisfied, so that somebody else can take your place, rather than trying to make you comfortable. Everything is cramped and dirty and in a rush and poorly run all the time. By contrast, the processes in Europe and Asia are so streamlined and the staff were much nicer.
However, Frontier and Spirit were especially atrocious. I've never known anyone who was willing to fly them more than once. "Never again" is a common refrain I hear whenever I discuss them with other travelers, or even just walk past one of their lines in the airport. Ugh.
> I’ve done every mode of transport in Europe. The planes are your buses.
Sorry, what do you mean by that? Not sure what "planes are your buses" means?
Over here, some of our airlines are about as bad as our (terrible) Greyhound buses. Some are even worse than that. I never had that kind of experience abroad.
For international flights, US airlines are better than the horrible domestic flights, but it's still really pathetic when you compare any US airline to any Asian airline. Even the staff on Asian airlines are far better; American staff generally have attitude problems.
That was not my experience flying in China. The staff was bad, the plane was bad and the facilities were retched.
I’ve not done it more than a handful of times so don’t want to say it’s universal but Chinese airlines do not compare favorably to American ones in my limited experience.
Well, Americans have attitude problems (which I say as an American)...
I've never had any problems with American flight attendants, though. Or even the planes. I mostly just want to get there, I bring a book or a programming project, and all I need is a seat. Low expectations, I guess.
Yeah, this is it. Frontier is great if you're flying from something like Las Vegas to Phoenix by yourself and have nothing to carry besides a water bottle and a protein bar in your pocket. Anything else the experience gets wildly unreasonable.
>The low cost carriers I've flown in Western Europe and Asia were way better than the the regular US carriers (United, Delta, Southwest, etc.) They had much better seating, planes, restrooms, policies, etc.
Which carriers exactly? None of these things are true. Most ULCC have thin plastic seats that don't recline, no IFE, no Wi-Fi, paid food and drinks (good luck getting even a cup of water), charging for selecting seats even at check in, same restrooms (they don't choose the restrooms), policies that include steep fees if you have to interact with any staff, draconian adherence to sizes of bags that will clearly fit just fine but they need to make extra money somehow, super thin fleet that is all but guaranteed to leave you stranded if there is IRROPS, flying out of airports with limited amenities located far from civilization, websites and apps that barely work, the list goes on and on.
There are only two benefits: they are cheap and if shit goes wrong, EU261 will compensate you. That's it.
After spending an 11 hour flight recently with the person in front resting gently on my knees for about 9 hours, I'm all for non-reclining seats; Ryanair is into something there.
I've never had this issue as a 6'3" person that's in the 99.9th percentile for miles flown across 30+ different airlines. You must be a giant. For giants, they have economy seats with extra legroom, premium economy, and business class.
I saw a video stating that they couldn't compete once the main carriers introduced "basic economy" and the like, which brought their prices significantly closer to Spirit.
I came across a video a few weeks ago [1] citing gate usage being monopolized by the largest 4 carriers being responsible for low cost carriers not being able to compete.
- Spirit having so many flights out of Florida has hurt them (climate change with heavy storms more common, and ATC staffing particularly bad in Florida, so operations has been harder)
- Leisure travelers have been willing to spend more for luxury travel in the past couple years and Spirit doesn't have a real offering to that market segment
I don't really buy that last one: successful LCCs (Ryanair, AirAsia, etc) know their niche and their audience, and don't even try to compete outside it. Luxury travel has fatter margins but also demands way more overhead in everything (cabin crew, catering, cleaning, etc), so it's not compatible with the rest of the LCC business model, which relies on fast turnaround times and minimal services.
I think luxury is the wrong word. I have a hierarchy of US airlines in my head that guides my domestic airfare purchase decisions and Spirit is at the bottom. American and United are near the bottom too. I never fly first class or business class, so I'm always looking for the least miserable coach ticket. For me, that's Delta, JetBlue and Alaska. I imagine a lot of fliers think the same way and though their own rankings may vary, Spirit is at the top of nobody's list.
And what's the difference is cost anyway? Maybe $40.
@eskibars was specifically talking about luxury. And yes, there are people who will fork out $10000 or $50000 for a 10-hour flight where they get their own little multi-room apartment complete with a shower and free flow champagne.
Lets not forget that Airlines make a ton of their revenue from co-branded credit cards. [1]
Spirit has a credit card from Bank of America [2], but it's terrible outside of the introductory bonus miles offer, which for an airline card gives you a lot of miles for a low intro-spend. Other than that, you get priority boarding and that's about it. No real other perks. I got it, and was probably flying on Spirit more in a few months than any other time in my life because I was traveling last minute to see my late father while in hospice and Spirit was far and away the cheapest flights for next-day flights.
As for status, you have to basically fly weekly roundtrips to get any perks (free bags, etc.) [3]
On top of all that, most business travelers won't take Spirit, and it's often not an option in Concur/Biz travel middleware because companies know the hidden fees so it's often not worth listing for budgeting against known airlines.
I never did manage to fly them. Their website just returns " You don't have permission to access "http://www.spirit.com/" on this server." Preventing customers from buying tickets isn't a good way to run a business.
Hyatt and their associates do this for me even on Hyatt's own WiFi. I guess Firefox and Chromium are banned user agents if your an Android or Linux user...
what a sad day for affordable travel in this country! my favorite trashy airline, so many memories. But then again, if it became Jet Blue, then it would also cease to be Spirit, right?
My favorite airline... flew 20 flights with them and all were the same experience as pricier United, Delta, etc (seats were a bit thinner but no biggie for me). As well I saved hundreds of dollars using Spirit by putting all my travel stuff/clothes in a book bag and sliding it under the seat. Which once it landed I was off the plane and out of the airport ASAP.
Ive always thought that the pricier airlines have spent huge amounts of money on social media marketing to give Spirit a very bad rap using Tiktok, Reels, etc to create negative content about them. If half of such is true (ive seen the CEO of Spirit say something to that extent) their marketing dollars were unfortunately well spent!
The US is very status-oriented and in recent years that has only increased. While I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a negative marketing campaign against the budget airlines, there are many millions of Americans that will trash the budget option to boost themselves by association. I think this was another headwind for the US LCCs that Ryanair and friends didn't have to deal with. In Europe, if you're an adult with a stable job and you fly Ryanair or Easyjet you typically won't feel you have to explain or defend yourself, but your average American counterpart likely will. No temporarily-embarrassed millionaire would be caught dead on a LCC without a good excuse.
The implied status comes from not subjecting oneself to the kind of people that have to fly Spirit. You're paying for dignity and not having to deal with screaming fighting people that will end up on viral videos.
Europeans with adult stable jobs fly Ryanair and Easyjet because this is the best that they can afford on European salaries.
> Europeans with adult stable jobs fly Ryanair and Easyjet because this is the best that they can afford on European salaries.
Not really. The difference isn't even that big compared to legacy European airlines these days. Ryanair doesn't do bottom barrel (eg €5) pricing anymore and the legacy airlines also charge for extras now like checked luggage and sometimes even carry on.
I just fly Ryanair when it's convenient due to time and routes. I honestly don't care which airline I'm on. In fact I like Ryanair because I can just buy the foods and comforts I want like priority boarding instead of having to get some pompous frequent flyer card from the legacy airlines.
> Europeans with adult stable jobs fly Ryanair and Easyjet because this is the best that they can afford on European salaries.
Nonsense. It's because they're sufficiently cheaper on certain routes, and when you're taking multiple trips a year, the price difference accumulates; and also because they have very good point to point service, so if you live in a non-hub for the national airline city - a Bordeaux, Lyon, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Köln, Varna, etc, your flight options are a flight with a connection in the hub, or a direct flight with a low cost carrier to a destination.
Not really. If Ryanair is half the cost of say Lufthansa for a 2 hour flight, I'll go with Ryanair. A flight is a flight, I'd rather spend the money on a better hotel or eating out rather than a marginally better short flight.
I've never once seen people fighting or screaming on a cheap flight.
For long haul I have no problem going with better airlines (which still means European or Asian over US carriers every time...).
General statement ..but what ur saying sounds potentially racist and or xenophobic. Spirit is used by all walks of life and cultures all acting the same as the passengers on every other American airline. Chill, respectful and just getting to their destination like everyone else.
I'm upper middle class and love taking friends / partners on trips. Always used Soirut without any shame as I do not believe much of what I see on social media tho before I flew Soorut all that negative crap pushed most likely by their competition had me worried about my first flight with them. After it made me realize oh all that crap on the Internet..a lot of it is made up trash like many things u see online and in the media. Don't trash something til u tired it and with Spirit anyone expecting the same service as on u get in pricey airlines isn't using their brain to define what an ultra low cost carrier is.
Their whole angle was that they could undercut everyone by betting that enough people are willing to travel miserably if they can save a few dollars. But the bigger airlines were able to adopt this in part and Spirit is now broke.
Planet Money did an episode[1] on People Express, a low-cost airline that sprung up right after deregulation in the 80s. The history of People Express as told in that episode mirrors Spirit. Once the major carriers decided to compete, it sunk the upstart's business.
I think the harm to millions of consumers is not from higher fares or fewer seats, it's from airlines treating us like we are cattle. Spirit is uncomfortable to the point of unsafe, and their entire perception of their customers is shameful.
Good customer service counts for a lot, it's not just ticket prices, otherwise Spirit would not be having these financial issues.
Agreed have flown Spirit close to two dozen times and all those flights were smooth and inexpensive. Made me think why would I ever fly the pricier airlines when Spirit offers service to where Im going.
> it's from airlines treating us like we are cattle
And even with that, they're losing money and going bankrupt. The big 3 carriers in the US are propped up by their loyalty programmes which are surprisingly profitable; Alaska is the only other carrier doing good and expanding. Everyone else is struggling in some form.
I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted so heavily for this comment.
Instead of giving two smaller airlines a chance to work together and compete against the "Big Four", denying the JetBlue merger all but guaranteed that Spirit would have to file for bankruptcy.
The company's assets are worth more than the company itself so I wouldn't be surprised if it simply liquidates with the result being no fares (because no Spirit airlines), no seats (because no Spirit airlines), and millions of customers with less of a choice (because no Spirit airlines).
You’re getting downvoted because it’s evidence against the prominent sentiment of government good, big business bad. How could to government ever make a mistake.
The judges ruling was uneducated and poorly based, especially considering how the big four got to be so big. It was politically motivated to make the party/gov look good, but the long term results were good for nobody. I lost money betting on the merger, it makes no sense it got blocked.
It's likely a Chapter 11 reorganization, not a Chapter 7 liquidation [0]. So basically the equity holders get zeroed out and debt holders get some level of recovery in the form of new debt or combination of debt & equity.
https://archive.is/fy78P
Let’s be clear about the timeline. Jet Blue and Frontier bid for Spirit in 2022. Spirit’s board said Frontier [1]. Lower price but less risky, regulatorily. Retail, however, chose the shinier sticker price [2][3].
Khan and pals, as expected, blocked; a judge concurred [4]. Jet Blue pulled its bid [5]. Then Frontier did, too [6].
Nobody was right. But a lot of folks were wrong, some more than others. It's a black eye for direct-democratic shareholder rights: the board made the better call.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-28/don-t-...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/spirit-airlines-...
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-27/spirit...
[4] https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/us-judge-blocks-jetblu...
[5] https://news.jetblue.com/latest-news/press-release-details/2...
[6] https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/spirit-airlines-moves-...
There have been a lot of good antitrust action recently and in the past.
But this particular decision didn’t make sense from the beginning. There are 3 major airlines in the U.S. already (4 if you include Southwest). Those guys are also too big to fail.
Everyone else is competing against them in a highly uneven playing field. You need to let the remaining players act in ways that make sense. Even if they consolidate down to a 4th big player that’s not a bad thing.
That’s because of the additional peculiarities of the airline industry. There’s always investors willing to go into it for some reason. But more importantly, you are completely dependent on airplan manufacturers which is a highly monopolized backlogged industry that rewards bigger players.
> "Nobody was right. But a lot of folks were wrong, some more than others. It's a black eye for direct-democratic shareholder rights: the board made the better call."
Is there actually enough information to conclude that for sure?
Maybe there is, but based solely on the info you mention it could be the case that both options were equally likely to get blocked by the FTC, in which case choosing the option which offered a higher price was the better choice even though it didn't work out. Or maybe it was only 0.1% more likely to be blocked, while being significantly more than 0.1% higher price meaning a better EV even though both options had a chance of failing and a chance of succeeding.
I feel like you may well be right, but equally may well be doing the equivalent of looking at someone who put a roulette bet on black and lost and concluding based on that single spin that the person who bet on red was more intelligent.
> Nobody was right. But a lot of folks were wrong, some more than others. It's a black eye for direct-democratic shareholder rights: the board made the better call.
Echoes my opinion on Elon Musk's Twitter takeover: we would be better off if the SEC had not done its job and ensured the promised purchase went through.
[flagged]
Article title: Spirit Airlines Moves Toward Bankruptcy Filing After Frontier Drops Merger Bid (filing for!=moves toward)
Thank you for pointing this out. Article titles should not mislead readers.
In English, "filing for bankruptcy" can be read in two ways: the one is the literal interpretation of filling out the forms. But the other is simply stating the inevitable destiny and which is worth highlighting since it has many implications (for employees, airports, debt holders, shareholders, etc.).
So I don't think the article title is intended to mislead.
Not sure which English you are referencing, but "Filing for bankruptcy" only means the legal/literal definition, at least in my 40+ years in the PNW. "Declare Bankruptcy" tends to be used more colloquially...
Regardless of the intent, it is a misleading rewording of the original article title.
As - I think - a reasonably experienced English speaker, I strongly disagree. "Filing for bankruptcy" is not a phrase used to mean "going bankrupt soon, but not yet officially". It's always used literally.
"Filing" is distinct from "Filling". In this context "filing" means lodging the papers with the court, and that typically has an immediate automatic legal effect (the Automatic Stay).
I would argue these are still distinct meanings: one has speculative implications the other has tangible results. Announcing a marital engagement may be important, but the marriage is not formal until the marriage certificate is filed. In the context of news, its important to get right.
That’s just plain not true.
It's interesting how major airlines competing with them has made things worse for everyone. I have many times seen passengers ignorant about what "basic economy" means (or at least feigning ignorance) and it leads to passengers trying to negotiate seat swapping on their own, or gate agents getting involved when it's a young child getting separated. All of it leads to boarding delays, which leads to delays pushing back, which leads to sequencing delays for takeoff.
> interesting how major airlines competing with them has made things worse for everyone
It's been great for the poor and middle class. Tickets are cheap, before taxes and regulatory charges. Go to Europe and you see what competition can truly bring: <$50 tickets.
A lot of those flights in Europe are pretty short. You can get pretty cheap flights from Boston to Washington, DC, or from Houston to Denver, too. (Texas is about the size of France, so Houston to Denver would be roughly equivalent to Paris to mid-Europe)
anecdotally, that's not what i recently experienced. I used to envy cheap cross-Europe flights, but somehow nowadays I can fly from SF direct to Paris for $250 or Cancun direct for $150 (cheaper than roundtrip Uber to SFO)... local Europe travel didn't feel that much cheaper all of a sudden.
Which airline is that cheap from SF to Paris? Sounds interesting. I'm in Europe myself
French Bee nonstop $265 one way, SAS with one stop $219 for next couple of weeks i checked
Thanks! I'll look into those. That's really great prices.
Here's where you can go direct from Barcelona with a carry on for $100 max: https://www.google.com/travel/explore?tfs=CBwQAxoQKABqDAgDEg...
And the same for San Francisco: https://www.google.com/travel/explore?tfs=CBwQAxoQKABqDAgDEg...
Based on these I think airfare in the US looks better, especially considering the longer distances. Barcelona-London is the same price as San Francisco-Denver but 75% as far for example.
Major problem with your survey there: Google travel doesn't appear to cover Ryanair or easyJet, or most of the other major European budget airlines. Select London Stansted, say (from which there are uncountable <100eur flights) and you only get one (because Stansted is mostly budget airline focused).
Your data is, more or less "if you ignore the budget airlines, there are few cheap flights from Barcelona", which is true, but not particularly useful. Dublin<>Barcelona, say, tends to be 25eur each way when there's not much demand, including taxes and charges (though you'll pay extra if you want to take _bags_).
If you had just clicked on any of the destinations in the link, you would see that it shows Ryanair and easyJet as options.
Huh. Weird. It's showing them as options if you click in (sometimes cheaper than the headline option) but if they're the only option under the price point it doesn't seem to show them (set it to Stansted to see).
EDIT: Ah, I found the problem (I suspect this is a bug in Google's flight thing). They had carry-on bags set to 1. If you set it to 0 it shows flights (mostly Ryanair) to almost everywhere in Europe. It may be getting tripped up by Ryanair's wonky treatment of carry-on bags (you can add 'priority boarding', which gets you a carry-on, as an extra fairly cheaply, but if you want it as a headline feature it comes bundled with a bunch of other stuff).
Even with this option off, though, it's still not showing easyJet.
Barcelona is one of the most visited cities in the world for tourism. SF, not so much.
Competition, low taxation (kerosene isn't taxed), and completely ignoring all externalities. (Not that the US is very different in those)
Why not count taxes and regulatory charges ?
> or at least feigning ignorance
"Basic economy" as a category is only about ten years old, and most people don't fly much.
I am also not sure if it is uniform across airlines?
My last holiday I was under the wrong assumption that I was allowed to check in luggage. It cost me 60 euro at the airport desk for a single bag. Won't make that mistake again.
Don't think it's even that. All they had to do was match or get close to Spirts fares until they drove them out of business. The major carriers don't need to collude, it's part of their playbook and apparent when they go after a route or market. AA, Delta, and United could afford to lose money on routes longer than Spirit could. It's a shame if Spirit doesn't make it.
Disagree. Airfare has been one of the most deflationary parts of the economy this century because of budget airlines. I paid $3(plus taxes) to fly from utah to arizona because of sprit. If you fly with any regularity the rules are easy to follow, especially solo.
How many here flew on spirit knowing what to except via an Ultra Low Carrier yet had a bad experience cause they expected more (one I.e. ..expected same experience as on southwest where bags are free)and or as well what were your experiences.
Mine were all great (enjoyed dozens of flights with them)..clothes & travel stuff in a book bag or sometimes in a vacuum seal bag then in book bag and stuff book bag under the seat. Saved hundreds and flew a lot more!
I've flown on almost all of the major airlines in the US and Spirit was always pleasantly better than expected compared to the horrible experiences I've had on other airlines. I don't see why people are bashing on Spirit. Flying in the US is uniformly terrible and there is no "luxury" option (unless you consider getting free peanuts or crackers with your $500 ticket a luxury).
>Flying in the US is uniformly terrible
No, it isn't. It's uniformly terrible when you choose the cheapest option which coincidentally is the driving force behind air travel reducing extra comforts.
It very much is, compared to other countries. In Europe and other places they might feed you two full meals in economy the time it takes SFO to NY. Here, you get puke-inducing "pretzels" and half a plastic cup of water.
In that regard, Spirit was refreshingly honest because they didn't even pretend to care.
There is no intra-Europe flight as long as SF is to NY. There is no narrow body flight that serves two full meals in economy in Europe. There are practically no wide-body intra-Europe flights, certainly none that serve any meals. Most flights in Europe are super short and nearly all of them are on narrow body planes that don't have the capacity to serve meals for everyone.
> There is no intra-Europe flight as long as SF is to N [...] There are practically no wide-body intra-Europe flights, certainly none that serve any meals
That depends on how you define "Europe".
Europe-the-continent, Athens to Reykjavik is roughly the same distance as NY to SF.
If you define Europe as "Any territory belonging to a European country", then the longest domestic flight is between Paris and Saint-Denis, Réunion. It's about 9000 Km, which is twice the distance between NY and SF.
Tenerife is quite a popular destination, and is also relatively far from the mainland.
Why would anyone want an in-flight meal? Seems to me that's the first thing to cut costs. The human body can survive not eating for 10 hours.
speaking for myself, i fly every other week, sometimes i don't care for food, other times i could be hungover or hungry flying into or out of a full workday and meetings. Realizing that a nice hot meal or two are sometimes pretty amazing when flying e.g. Turkish, I personally would love the ex-Virgin America approach (RIP another legend) where I could punch a button on the screen and they would bring a meal on demand if/when i need it, without having to stay awake waiting for the stupid cart or bothering other people too much. But, here we have United that offers nothing.
I'm in Europe and I always liked flying on Ryanair. They're not bad if you just pay for what you want. You have a lot of food choices where 'premium' airlines give you a sandwich you might not like. You can buy priority boarding without having to accumulate frequent flying points. And they're still cheaper than the pompous airlines when you pay for the addons.
If you try to get the things without paying, eg bringing too much baggage, that's when they fleece you. But just follow the rules and it's fine.
It’s not the airline, it’s the other passengers.
By that metric, Delta is the worst. American and Southwest are much better.
Curious how many times have you flown Spirit?
I've flown Frontier a few times and the most recent time they were delayed by like 5 hours (maintenance issue, no replacement plane) and once they finally started boarding, they plucked out like 40 people whose bags were "too big" and had to pay $100 at the gate so they can board with them. You have to have extreme contempt for your customers to waste even more time after you already wasted 1000+ human hours just on this flight alone, let alone all the subsequent flights that day that will be impacted because your operations rely on every plane being on time. No apology at any point either.
Spirit is no different. They hate you and they make sure you know it.
I can vouch for Spirit. I've Never had any issue on Spirit and flew 20 different flights out of one of their hubs in Baltimore. Spirit no doubt has those crazy long layover flight u can choose which I've never booked. Heck no, just book their non stop flights.
I can't vouch for frontier I've never flown with them ..not yet at least.
> Spirit was always pleasantly better than expected compared to the horrible experiences I've had on other airlines
How were your reclining seats? And how long were your flights?
Your standards are in the basement if you think Spirit is a classy ride. Horrible experience.
Take Off A Human, Land As A Spirit. RIP. Thanks for all the laughs, Spirit.
I still have a soft spot in my heart for their "Many Islands, Low Fares" (M.I.L.F.) campaign.
https://www.npr.org/2013/09/03/218625844/spirit-airlines-see...
Are there any insights why? low cost carriers are successful in SEA and Europe. Why can't Spirit pull it off in the USA?
There are a lot of theories for why the low-cost carriers are suddenly failing since 2020 in the US, but in my opinion the big one was inflation - of costs, of disposable income, and of expectations.
Pilot salaries and fuel costs both skyrocketed since 2020, and at the same time the US got significantly richer and people got more of a taste for luxury. Expensive, premium things have never been doing so well in the US. All of a sudden, you have a double whammy of low-cost carriers being forced to raise prices and get less competitive, while consumers are more inclined to pay for luxury.
Not to mention - American LCCs were never in that great of a position, structurally, vs the European LCCs. Ryanair thrives on quick turnarounds, cheap airports, cheap pilots, short flights and high population density. The US has none of those. The EU's population density is 112 people/km2 vs 36 in the US, even cheap US pilots are very expensive, turnarounds are slower, and there are few budget airports where the people live. The Port Authority is spending 25 billion dollars on revamping the three NYC area airports. Meanwhile Europe is full of cheap semirural airports like Frankfurt-Hahn, where the most recent renovation cost in the single digit millions. Where do you think you can land a 737 for cheaper?
> he EU's population density is 112 people/km2 vs 36 in the US
Arguments that try to compare population density are invariably wrong. Especially so with flights that go to population centers.
I would be curious to know exactly _why_ you think my argument is wrong, especially when I have proposed a decent mechanism relating to population density: cheap semirural airports and short flights. Frankfurt-Hahn or Paris Beauvais or Girona or Weeze have millions of people living right next door and are dirt cheap (multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than US airports.) Meanwhile, there are far more small rural airports in the US than in Europe, by approximately a factor of three [0] [1], but not enough people live by them to make regular flights efficient. For a great example of this, look at the Essential Air Service and how many taxpayer dollars the US spends to serve the many rural communities that would otherwise have no flights at all.
[0] https://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/airports_with_paved...
[1] https://www.indexmundi.com/european_union/airports_with_pave...
Ryanair doesn't really fly to those anymore though. They just fly to the low cost terminals at the major airports now. Here in Barcelona they just go to El Prat, not Girona.
Hmm... no? They still fly plenty out of all of those airports. Beauvais has 33 Ryanair departures on the board, Hahn has 8, Weeze has 15, and I see eight Ryanair flights for the day on the Girona departures board right now, in the off-season when most flights there don't operate. Less than El Prat, sure, but way more than you could ever imagine Spirit doing from a comparable area in the US, which is my point.
The concept is that it is fundamentally wrong to smear the population of NY across the total area of the US. You make a point to back an argument - the argument might be correct but your point is not.
> Frankfurt-Hahn or Paris Beauvais
Note that they are close to dense population areas Frankfurt and Paris. Not part of average density areas.
I am just saying I have seen the pattern occur repeatedly where "population density" is used to attempt to prop an argument: density is averaging and is often meaningless.
Hmm. So you don't disagree that cheap semirural airports with a population base and short flights are important parts of the model, but you don't think they are related to population density? I don't see how those could be unrelated.
Perhaps a simpler way to convince you of the importance of population density to today's LCC model: Take a look at a map of where Ryanair flies. Under the 58th parallel, on the entire European continent, there is only one place over 250km from a Ryanair airport! Look at all the tiny airports, Limoges or Valladolid or Brive or Osijek or anywhere really. Ryanair flies to 250 airports and they do it with hundreds of 737s operating like clockwork, one short flight to another, not a tiny regional plane to be seen. Meanwhile, Delta flies to a similar number of airports in the US (in the 200s) but the majority of those are with small regional jets which are way less cost-effective than 737s; if you're an LCC, that means that you can forget about flying there. Obviously Delta is flying all those regional jets not for fun, but because they can't fill a 737, because the local population is not large enough to support one. I don't see how population density is not a core part of the issue here.
I think transport in the US might be a factor, though. While Frankfurt-Hahn and Beauvais are particularly extreme examples (they're further from the notional place than most budget airports) you can still get to the the relevant city relatively cheaply (if not particularly _quickly_, in the case of those two; about two hours). In many parts of the US, I suspect you'd really have no option but to hire a car, which instantly wipes out any price advantage of the budget airline.
I think a better measure would be an average of averages of adjacent populations.
Define a node as a population center (say NYC) and then edges as cities (Boston, Philly, DC, Pittsburgh) with the weight being the population of the respective city. Average the populations for each mode and then average those averages.
The idea of this number is it would represent the average population of points of interest.
AIUI low-cost flights work best in an area where there's a lot of sizable city pairs about 1h-3h away from each other. Europe has more such pairs than the US, as indicated by the much higher population density.
> consumers are more inclined to pay for luxury.
Are they? Genuinely curious. With inflation rates we’ve seen lately it’s been my impression that the opposite is the case.
I imagine most non-corporate, non-loyalty fliers use flight search engines where they can easily compare prices. If Spirit has the worst reputation, which I think is a given, consumers have to weigh the price difference between Spirit and a 'regular' carrier against that bad reputation.
That begs the question, how much cheaper is a Spirit flight compared to other carriers for a given itinerary? In my experience, it's maybe $50-$150, compared to a trip that might cost $500-$2000 overall. It's not like fliers are choosing between Spirit and first class on Delta. They're deciding whether or not to spend an extra ~$100 to be slightly less miserable on a trip that may be one of their largest single expenses of the year, and maybe their only trip of the year.
Exactly. In America today people have very little vacation time, a lot of money, and a taste for luxury. With the recent increases in salaries and fuel costs, the delta between the LCCs and the legacy carriers has dropped. You're a consumer in America taking your single yearly vacation. Are you going to save $40 on your several-thousand-dollar trip to fly Spirit? Apparently not. Meanwhile in Europe you're flying shorter distances more frequently, you don't care as much about Easyjet vs Lufthansa, and 40 euros is a lot more money.
On the other hand, when I fly to Vegas, typically Spirit and Frontier are less than $100 round trip. Southwest is $250-$275, and the traditional airlines are over $300. And it’s for the same no-meal, shitty legroom, unpleasant experience. So what am I paying 3X for? A brand name?
>And it’s <garbage>. So what am I paying 3X for? A brand name?
I feel like this is true for the entry and value priced offerings in a ton of industries.
Sounds like the extra cost is paying to support a sustainable business model.
The low cost airlines in Europe are very sustainable though. They're doing great and even the old airlines are following their models now, like charging for luggage.
Also, Europeans have a lot more time off. When you're making a long weekend trip, catching a Ryanair flight and suffering through it (it's not super comfortable, but you get what you pay for) is not a big deal because the flight is short, it probably gets you close to your destination which was maybe picked because of this, and it doesn't matter that much because this might be one of your multiple trips that year.
> single yearly vacation
This is genuinely sad and unhealthy.
“I spend $100 more for the same flight” is not really much of a flex, but whatever floats people’s boats!
It's not the same flight. I avoid American, United and the discount carriers because they have the smallest seats. Spirit is also one of the only airlines without power outlets. Personally, I don't care if it's a 1-2 hour flight. I'd be happy to stand. But on a 4+ hour flight, a hundred bucks isn't so bad for bigger seats, a power outlet and maybe even a TV and free WiFi depending on the carrier.
Caring about seat size makes sense, but power outlets - for $30 you can get a good quality battery that will charge a mobile phone multiple times from its capacity, for $100 you can get one that'll fully recharge a laptop once or twice. So unless the price difference for flying is tiny, it's really not worth paying more because a plane has power outlets when you can pay less to get a device that's not only just as good for the one trip but that you can then use on future trips without paying more (except for the tiny cost of electricity to recharge it before the flight).
I thought I didn't care, but I chose Delta instead of Southwest on a flight and not having to think about it at all (did I charge my laptop? my phone? my headphones? it's okay, I have a portable battery, wait, is it charged? did I remember it? can everyone else get up, I left my battery in the carry-on?) makes flying less stressful. Plus, it's one less thing to carry around for a week. Same goes for assigned seats, it's one less worry while being shoved into a tin can and flung into the sky.
Fair enough - I elaborated here [1] on why it's by far the better option for me, but I completely accept that different people have different priorities and different weightings to the pros/cons, so whatever works best for you is great too.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42129966
Yes, there are novel solutions to many problems, but an outlet is the most reliable and lowest effort solution. And nearly every plane has them these days, so why overthink it.
For me personally, taking into account whether or not a plane had power outlets is the overthinking option.
I've been on planes / trains / coaches that are expected to have them, but who had faulty outlets at my seat for that particular journey and I wasn't able to use them. So I just have a small battery pack (little bit bigger than a pack of cards), and a big one for laptop recharging, and I take one or both (plus my slightly bigger than a lipstick one that's light and fits easily in pretty much every clothing pocket I own) depending on the trip I'm going on, meaning no added complexity as it's just like remembering to take my laptop's power cable, and I no longer have to spend any time thinking about whether the transport will or won't have a power source for me.
I appreciate what works for me won't be the preferred solution for everyone, but for me it definitely leads to less overthinking per trip not more. (And personally I don't notice the added weight of these batteries in my bag; and I would want them for travelling even if I could be guaranteed every flight & train had working power outlets, as I've had times when they were useful to have when visiting a client's offices, or when staying in a hotel with a dodgy outlet, or when going hiking an nowhere near power outlets - so in my case it wasn't even an additional cost caused by not trusting planes to provide a good power supply.)
Unfortunately, the more useless the signal the more effective it is, and the degree of signaling in recent years has only increased. This reminds me of an excellent article from almost twenty years ago: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aggressive-ostentation/
The thing is, comfort is sticky (as I well know sadly, second class is hard to bear for me).
Low-cost companies targeted people with low disposable income at the cost of comfort.
People who used to have low disposable income have now not enough to travel by plane (or at all), and people who had enough to use standard companies have still enough to use them.
A very interesting fact is that median income grew in the US (less than average, but close enough). The standard deviation (from memory, if this isn't the translation of 'écart-type' I'm sorry) grew also, which indicate that the recent economic 'boom' the US experienced since the end of covid took more than 50% of us citizen with it, but clearly not a huge majority. Germany experienced a very similar thing since 2012. To my knowledge, in Germany it was most likely caused by a transfer from progressive taxation to a fixed one, reducing purchasing powers of people with low disposable income. In the US it seems it's a direct income issue.
In the US? Absolutely. Look at Apple's market share post-pandemic, the growth of organic food, luxury spending, cars, anything really. There has been an overwhelming shift to luxury. Google the 2020 vs 2023 Prius. Hell, even McDonalds is trying to move upscale!
Is the market for those products growing to include more people or are people who consume those things getting richer and consuming them more?
BNPL a la Affirm/Klarna popped off during COVID
Exactly, yet they're all whining about inflation and how they don't get paid enough. Bunch of entitled brats.
The low cost carriers I've flown in Western Europe and Asia were way better than the the regular US carriers (United, Delta, Southwest, etc.) They had much better seating, planes, restrooms, policies, etc.
By contrast the US has the worst airlines out of anywhere I fly. Even the regular non budget ones are bad. Frontier and Spirit are the only airlines on my "never ever again" list, no matter how much cheaper they are. I've never felt as dehumanized, like cattle to the slaughter, as when flying on them...
> low cost carriers I've flown in Western Europe and Asia were way better than the the regular US carriers (United, Delta, Southwest, etc.) They had much better seating, planes, restrooms, policies, etc
Examples? I’ve done every mode of transport in Europe. The planes are your buses.
The only domestic flight I've been on in the US was United, and it was possibly the worst flight I've ever been on, though my judgement may be coloured by how late it was. Beyond that, though, I'm not sure I've ever been on a plane that felt as much like it was... falling apart (I'm sure it was structurally safe, but some of the ceiling panels were out of place, a number of seats were broken, etc). It wouldn't fly (see what I did there?) with Ryanair.
Legroom and general plane modernity/comfort were the big ones for me, as well as check-in and luggage drop-off procedures. The European and Asian airlines do the basics really well, and I never felt uncomfortable in them. I remember loving my experience with Norwegian Air, for example, which beats ANY US airline I've ever flown on (United, Delta, Southwest, American). Only Alaska came close, but only during covid (when there was a lot of empty space). Otherwise, in normal times, the US airlines have incredibly cramped legroom, really old planes that you often can't stand up in, have minimal overhead space, etc. This is especially true in regional/rural routes, but even the urban hub to hub ones are not great in my experience.
The US airlines are generally tolerable, but they just feel... bad. Like they don't really care about their customers at all and are just trying to milk you for every last cent and would really prefer that you simply not be a customer if you're not satisfied, so that somebody else can take your place, rather than trying to make you comfortable. Everything is cramped and dirty and in a rush and poorly run all the time. By contrast, the processes in Europe and Asia are so streamlined and the staff were much nicer.
However, Frontier and Spirit were especially atrocious. I've never known anyone who was willing to fly them more than once. "Never again" is a common refrain I hear whenever I discuss them with other travelers, or even just walk past one of their lines in the airport. Ugh.
> I’ve done every mode of transport in Europe. The planes are your buses.
Sorry, what do you mean by that? Not sure what "planes are your buses" means?
Over here, some of our airlines are about as bad as our (terrible) Greyhound buses. Some are even worse than that. I never had that kind of experience abroad.
For international flights, US airlines are better than the horrible domestic flights, but it's still really pathetic when you compare any US airline to any Asian airline. Even the staff on Asian airlines are far better; American staff generally have attitude problems.
That was not my experience flying in China. The staff was bad, the plane was bad and the facilities were retched.
I’ve not done it more than a handful of times so don’t want to say it’s universal but Chinese airlines do not compare favorably to American ones in my limited experience.
Chinese international flights, or domestic? I'm talking about international flights here.
International, though admittedly it was regional.
Well, Americans have attitude problems (which I say as an American)...
I've never had any problems with American flight attendants, though. Or even the planes. I mostly just want to get there, I bring a book or a programming project, and all I need is a seat. Low expectations, I guess.
Yeah, this is it. Frontier is great if you're flying from something like Las Vegas to Phoenix by yourself and have nothing to carry besides a water bottle and a protein bar in your pocket. Anything else the experience gets wildly unreasonable.
>The low cost carriers I've flown in Western Europe and Asia were way better than the the regular US carriers (United, Delta, Southwest, etc.) They had much better seating, planes, restrooms, policies, etc.
Which carriers exactly? None of these things are true. Most ULCC have thin plastic seats that don't recline, no IFE, no Wi-Fi, paid food and drinks (good luck getting even a cup of water), charging for selecting seats even at check in, same restrooms (they don't choose the restrooms), policies that include steep fees if you have to interact with any staff, draconian adherence to sizes of bags that will clearly fit just fine but they need to make extra money somehow, super thin fleet that is all but guaranteed to leave you stranded if there is IRROPS, flying out of airports with limited amenities located far from civilization, websites and apps that barely work, the list goes on and on.
There are only two benefits: they are cheap and if shit goes wrong, EU261 will compensate you. That's it.
After spending an 11 hour flight recently with the person in front resting gently on my knees for about 9 hours, I'm all for non-reclining seats; Ryanair is into something there.
True and most flights in Europe are so full you can't reasonably recline anyway.
However the new extra thin seats of ryanair do really feel hard after an hour or two. I don't mind the lack of recline but they need more padding IMO.
I've never had this issue as a 6'3" person that's in the 99.9th percentile for miles flown across 30+ different airlines. You must be a giant. For giants, they have economy seats with extra legroom, premium economy, and business class.
I saw a video stating that they couldn't compete once the main carriers introduced "basic economy" and the like, which brought their prices significantly closer to Spirit.
I came across a video a few weeks ago [1] citing gate usage being monopolized by the largest 4 carriers being responsible for low cost carriers not being able to compete.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_zWxdeq8F4
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Pu3CXatsA
TL;DR: several factors.
- Fuel prices are up (for everyone)
- Spirit having so many flights out of Florida has hurt them (climate change with heavy storms more common, and ATC staffing particularly bad in Florida, so operations has been harder)
- Leisure travelers have been willing to spend more for luxury travel in the past couple years and Spirit doesn't have a real offering to that market segment
I don't really buy that last one: successful LCCs (Ryanair, AirAsia, etc) know their niche and their audience, and don't even try to compete outside it. Luxury travel has fatter margins but also demands way more overhead in everything (cabin crew, catering, cleaning, etc), so it's not compatible with the rest of the LCC business model, which relies on fast turnaround times and minimal services.
I think luxury is the wrong word. I have a hierarchy of US airlines in my head that guides my domestic airfare purchase decisions and Spirit is at the bottom. American and United are near the bottom too. I never fly first class or business class, so I'm always looking for the least miserable coach ticket. For me, that's Delta, JetBlue and Alaska. I imagine a lot of fliers think the same way and though their own rankings may vary, Spirit is at the top of nobody's list.
And what's the difference is cost anyway? Maybe $40.
@eskibars was specifically talking about luxury. And yes, there are people who will fork out $10000 or $50000 for a 10-hour flight where they get their own little multi-room apartment complete with a shower and free flow champagne.
Those people have precisely zero bearing on Spirit airlines and it's ability to stay in business.
Lets not forget that Airlines make a ton of their revenue from co-branded credit cards. [1]
Spirit has a credit card from Bank of America [2], but it's terrible outside of the introductory bonus miles offer, which for an airline card gives you a lot of miles for a low intro-spend. Other than that, you get priority boarding and that's about it. No real other perks. I got it, and was probably flying on Spirit more in a few months than any other time in my life because I was traveling last minute to see my late father while in hospice and Spirit was far and away the cheapest flights for next-day flights.
As for status, you have to basically fly weekly roundtrips to get any perks (free bags, etc.) [3]
On top of all that, most business travelers won't take Spirit, and it's often not an option in Concur/Biz travel middleware because companies know the hidden fees so it's often not worth listing for budgeting against known airlines.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/airlines-b...
[2] https://www.bankofamerica.com/credit-cards/products/spirit-a...
[3] https://www.spirit.com/free-spirit
Spirit was pulling it off reasonably well until Covid.
I never did manage to fly them. Their website just returns " You don't have permission to access "http://www.spirit.com/" on this server." Preventing customers from buying tickets isn't a good way to run a business.
Consider yourself lucky. The rest of the experience is worse than that.
Hyatt and their associates do this for me even on Hyatt's own WiFi. I guess Firefox and Chromium are banned user agents if your an Android or Linux user...
what a sad day for affordable travel in this country! my favorite trashy airline, so many memories. But then again, if it became Jet Blue, then it would also cease to be Spirit, right?
I would have bet on JetBlue moving closer to Spirit quality than Spirit moving closer to Jetblue quality.
My favorite airline... flew 20 flights with them and all were the same experience as pricier United, Delta, etc (seats were a bit thinner but no biggie for me). As well I saved hundreds of dollars using Spirit by putting all my travel stuff/clothes in a book bag and sliding it under the seat. Which once it landed I was off the plane and out of the airport ASAP.
Ive always thought that the pricier airlines have spent huge amounts of money on social media marketing to give Spirit a very bad rap using Tiktok, Reels, etc to create negative content about them. If half of such is true (ive seen the CEO of Spirit say something to that extent) their marketing dollars were unfortunately well spent!
The US is very status-oriented and in recent years that has only increased. While I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a negative marketing campaign against the budget airlines, there are many millions of Americans that will trash the budget option to boost themselves by association. I think this was another headwind for the US LCCs that Ryanair and friends didn't have to deal with. In Europe, if you're an adult with a stable job and you fly Ryanair or Easyjet you typically won't feel you have to explain or defend yourself, but your average American counterpart likely will. No temporarily-embarrassed millionaire would be caught dead on a LCC without a good excuse.
The implied status comes from not subjecting oneself to the kind of people that have to fly Spirit. You're paying for dignity and not having to deal with screaming fighting people that will end up on viral videos.
Europeans with adult stable jobs fly Ryanair and Easyjet because this is the best that they can afford on European salaries.
> Europeans with adult stable jobs fly Ryanair and Easyjet because this is the best that they can afford on European salaries.
Not really. The difference isn't even that big compared to legacy European airlines these days. Ryanair doesn't do bottom barrel (eg €5) pricing anymore and the legacy airlines also charge for extras now like checked luggage and sometimes even carry on.
I just fly Ryanair when it's convenient due to time and routes. I honestly don't care which airline I'm on. In fact I like Ryanair because I can just buy the foods and comforts I want like priority boarding instead of having to get some pompous frequent flyer card from the legacy airlines.
> Europeans with adult stable jobs fly Ryanair and Easyjet because this is the best that they can afford on European salaries.
Nonsense. It's because they're sufficiently cheaper on certain routes, and when you're taking multiple trips a year, the price difference accumulates; and also because they have very good point to point service, so if you live in a non-hub for the national airline city - a Bordeaux, Lyon, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Köln, Varna, etc, your flight options are a flight with a connection in the hub, or a direct flight with a low cost carrier to a destination.
Have you ever flew Spirit or just believe the viral videos that can easily edited not telling the whole story to completely made up?
Not really. If Ryanair is half the cost of say Lufthansa for a 2 hour flight, I'll go with Ryanair. A flight is a flight, I'd rather spend the money on a better hotel or eating out rather than a marginally better short flight.
I've never once seen people fighting or screaming on a cheap flight.
For long haul I have no problem going with better airlines (which still means European or Asian over US carriers every time...).
General statement ..but what ur saying sounds potentially racist and or xenophobic. Spirit is used by all walks of life and cultures all acting the same as the passengers on every other American airline. Chill, respectful and just getting to their destination like everyone else.
I'm upper middle class and love taking friends / partners on trips. Always used Soirut without any shame as I do not believe much of what I see on social media tho before I flew Soorut all that negative crap pushed most likely by their competition had me worried about my first flight with them. After it made me realize oh all that crap on the Internet..a lot of it is made up trash like many things u see online and in the media. Don't trash something til u tired it and with Spirit anyone expecting the same service as on u get in pricey airlines isn't using their brain to define what an ultra low cost carrier is.
Please elaborate on what you found racist or xenophobic in my comment.
Their whole angle was that they could undercut everyone by betting that enough people are willing to travel miserably if they can save a few dollars. But the bigger airlines were able to adopt this in part and Spirit is now broke.
But at least they made air travel more terrible.
Planet Money did an episode[1] on People Express, a low-cost airline that sprung up right after deregulation in the 80s. The history of People Express as told in that episode mirrors Spirit. Once the major carriers decided to compete, it sunk the upstart's business.
[1] https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197960905
Will be interesting to see if them declaring bankruptcy ends up being better than the blocked Jetblue deal.
In legal filings, the Justice Department claimed that the merger would result in "higher fares, fewer seats, and harm millions of consumers"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Airlines#2022_to_2024_a...
Harm millions of consumers sounds like what Spirit has been doing alright with their service
I think the harm to millions of consumers is not from higher fares or fewer seats, it's from airlines treating us like we are cattle. Spirit is uncomfortable to the point of unsafe, and their entire perception of their customers is shameful.
Good customer service counts for a lot, it's not just ticket prices, otherwise Spirit would not be having these financial issues.
Spirit has nice planes and good service compared to Frontier.
Agreed have flown Spirit close to two dozen times and all those flights were smooth and inexpensive. Made me think why would I ever fly the pricier airlines when Spirit offers service to where Im going.
Frontier has roughly the same fleet Spirit does.
> it's from airlines treating us like we are cattle
And even with that, they're losing money and going bankrupt. The big 3 carriers in the US are propped up by their loyalty programmes which are surprisingly profitable; Alaska is the only other carrier doing good and expanding. Everyone else is struggling in some form.
And now the result is no fares, no seats, and millions of customers with less of a choice.
I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted so heavily for this comment.
Instead of giving two smaller airlines a chance to work together and compete against the "Big Four", denying the JetBlue merger all but guaranteed that Spirit would have to file for bankruptcy.
The company's assets are worth more than the company itself so I wouldn't be surprised if it simply liquidates with the result being no fares (because no Spirit airlines), no seats (because no Spirit airlines), and millions of customers with less of a choice (because no Spirit airlines).
You’re getting downvoted because it’s evidence against the prominent sentiment of government good, big business bad. How could to government ever make a mistake.
The judges ruling was uneducated and poorly based, especially considering how the big four got to be so big. It was politically motivated to make the party/gov look good, but the long term results were good for nobody. I lost money betting on the merger, it makes no sense it got blocked.
I mean, presumably the shareholders will be wiped out, but the actual airline will probably continue existing in some form.
If Spirit goes bankrupt can't Frontier just buy their stuff at auction prices?
It's likely a Chapter 11 reorganization, not a Chapter 7 liquidation [0]. So basically the equity holders get zeroed out and debt holders get some level of recovery in the form of new debt or combination of debt & equity.
[0] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/differences-between...
should've done it a couple months ago so they could have rented space to Spirit Halloween
I mean, an airline hostile to it's customers enough to add an "Unintended Consequences of DOT Regulations Fee" is bound to turn away customers.
A smart carrier will name airport expenses as "cute fee" https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/travel-news/what-...