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The reason people don't like Spirit has less to do with the airplanes and more to do with the typical Spirit passenger. Most of modern life in America is an elaborate series of choices to maximize the distance between yourself and Spirit airlines passengers. All the usual euphemisms apply: 'good school districts', 'safe suburban neighborhoods', etc

This. but also with frontier.

- People using devices without headphones

- People having loud phone calls on speakerphone with vulgar language

- People with bad body odor

- People looking to optimize their outcomes, even at the expense of others and net deleterious. (Speaking in numbers, willing to take +1 point of selfish outcome at the cost of several others' -1 leaving a net negative for the group)

> Most of modern life in America is an elaborate series of choices to maximize the distance between yourself and Spirit airlines passengers

So much this. I regret that I have but one upvote to give.

Spirit seemed to enjoy making their customers hate them. everyone who liked Spirit had to explain themselves (like you did) because their reputation was awful. It was a trainwreck of a brand.

The only bad experience I ever had on Spirit was from their garbage passengers, never had a problem with the airline itself, flew them probably 20 times. But then again anecdotal evidence is also garbage, so who knows, maybe we were just lucky. Or maybe a vocal minority made it sound worse than it was.

Or the big airlines were paying for all that disparaging marketing on the down low. I wouldnt be surprised.

I would be surprised to hear that, say, United, was paying people to post about their bad experiences with Spirit Arlines online. I'm not in marketing though so maybe that's a thing that happens.

20 years ago Southwest Airlines had a reality TV show on Discovery channel about how terrible they were, with episodes like "They ran over my wedding dress with a baggage handler truck" and "They destroyed an irreplaceable guitar of a well known musician".

I always wondered who paid for that.

the "temu" of airlines if you will

wait a minute... what if?

loved Spirit and flew with them 8 different round trips from BWI to many destinations. So cheap (clothes in bookbag) and never had an issue. They will be missed!

The reason people hated spirit was the same reason they flew spirit, it was cheap.

My friends used to joke that it was like flying in a tin can, or that the wheels would fall off mid-flight. The jokes were endless.

I liked Spirit, though, great cost savings, and I didn't mind the minor inconveniences that came with it.

Aside from being known for being a cheap airline, the brand itself was pretty solid... I think it had everything working to its advantage. The bright yellow exteriors of the planes, a catchy name. I think people knew exactly what Spirit was and what they offered, which is the sign of a good brand.

They did things differently compared to other airlines, so it does warrant an explanation. People pay for the cheapest flight, and expect things like free bag checkin. Other airlines will charge everyone more, even if you had no bags and provide free bag checkin. I've had flights where I only had a small backpack and nothing more, I don't want to the "priced in" fee assuming everyone will check a bag. Spirit gave you exactly what you paid for, which is how it should be. No marketing mind games to trick you into thinking you're getting some luxury service. Even in first class most domestic airlines provide a subpar experience, might as well be for a good value like Spirit did. International flights are different though, and the bar is much higher there due to length of flights.

As an European who's lived in the US, Spirit was actually just as "good" as Ryanair. Sure, you can hate on both of them, but they're cheap and moce you from place to place. I can endure any discomfort for 3h if it meant I could save 100 or 150 bucks flying from NYC to Miami/FLL in high season.

I had much worse experiences with Frontier and promised myself never to fly them again. On one occasion we had to wait for 2h on the plane on tarmac after landing at MacArthur airport because... the airport staff was not responding to pilots' calls. Somehow they didn't know the plane was landing. It was 1 AM or so and while it might not have been Frontier's fault, to not be able to sort it out for 2 hours was telling. Had other issues, too, this one was most ridiculous.

> With Spirit I could plan around exactly how bad my experience would be reliably

Talk about damning with faint praise

with other airlines my experience would also be bad, just unreliably. you're getting cramped sits and bad service on united and AA as well.

Agreed. I make decent money as a software engineer but I've probably flow 50+ times with Spirit. Like you said, they are predictable and reliable. What I appreciated about their staff is that they were extremely friendly but also capable of putting entitled people in their place. Oftentimes on AA and United, assholes got their way but on Spirit, they squashed it fast.

The only people surprised by Spirit were people who don't read warning labels and then you should only be surprised once. Heck, I paid 3$ for coffee on spirit but they would gladly bring refills and were proactive about almost like a restaurant. On AA and United, you usually had to go up and ask.

On top of that, you could get the big front seat (tm) which wasn't first class but pretty good about 150$ if you waited until your flight to bid. I got it a bunch and it came with free snacks and drinks and it was much cheaper than buying business

I'm gonna miss it.

> I liked Spirit because it was more akin to riding the bus

This is exactly why I would never be caught dead on Spirit. Sartre got it right, "Hell is other people." My issue with Spirit and other budget airlines as a frequent traveler was never about the planes, the staff, or the operations, it was always the other passengers. It's bad enough dealing with people in general in the circumstances we all find ourselves in stuffed into an airplane, but budget airline travelers are generally exactly the sort of folks who ride the bus, which is why nobody wants to ride the bus in the US.

I say all this as someone who enjoys public transport when I'm in Europe and has no problem flying budget airlines in Europe like KLM Cityhopper or EuroWings, because everyone across society uses public transport and budget point airlines in Europe. In the US though, public transport and budget airlines are nearly only used by people who you'd rather not be stuck near for hours at a time for fear of being attacked, coughed on, or otherwise somehow harmed even if minimally which is entirely avoidable by just not.

it is economic segregation, the only type of segregation that could work in US

I'm not paying hundreds of dollars for a glorified bus ride. I've had issues with passengers on other airlines too. There is no expectation of me as a passenger behaving a certain way, and therefore the likelihood of being mistreated by passengers or staff a like is low. As you noted, other people pay more thinking "higher class" people fly delta or whatever, and to protect that image and experience I expect mistreatment from staff and other passengers alike on those flights.

I would rather deal with someone putting up their nasty leg on the chair next to me, or listen to a movie with speaker on for the whole flight, than deal with rude flight attendants that won't respond to my needs, or dirty looks from other passengers because I'm wearing something comfortable.

Aside from what I see on social media posts though, I've never seen anything extreme like that flying on spirit in all the years.

American Airlines has actually had terrible customer ratings for some time (and I agree, they can be awful).

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/american-airlines-worst-...

Amercian is imo the worst airline out there, and the only one I refuse to fly with. At least the budget airlines are cheaper and honest for horrible service.

>I shop at walmart compared to whole foods and other "better" chains for similar reasons. "great value" as walmart's motto goes, it isn't about the price, it's about the value you get for what you pay for. Spirit was the "great value" airline.

Yeah it's not a secret that you can get by in life on the cheap if you have cheap, trashy tastes.

Be kind... When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.

name calling aside, i think you missed my argument. If you think my taste is trashy, by my argument, your taste is also trashy, you're just dumb enough to spend extra money so you feel like you're above others. That's the point of the whole "value" thing, if more money gets you more value, that's great, if not then you're saying paying more for less is less trashy? It's like a person paying for a $15 wine and a $70 wine, the quality in that range isn't all that different, you're acting like you're paying $10k to fly singapore airlines when you're just flying cramped on united just like on spirit, but you're paying more.

And you sort of made another point I had: people like you, and companies who cater to people like you come with all that haughty snobbishness that's just unpleasant and degrades the experience. Good taste has to do with appreciation of value and quality, not polishing of one's ego, or pretending you're superior to others.