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Comment by paul7986 | Hacker News Reader

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!

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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.

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...).

Have you ever flew Spirit or just believe the viral videos that can easily edited not telling the whole story to completely made up?

> 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.

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.

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