Category Archives: Spirit Airlines

Based on the 50+ comments on this post about Spirit Airlines reviews, people don’t like the Spirit Airlines baggage fee situation (especially the carry-on fees). Well, if you hated it before, you’re going to hate it $5 more in November. They’ll be raising most baggage fees by that amount on November 6th. The $35 for a carry-on is pretty awesome. Thought you’d like to know.

Say what you will about Spirit Airlines (and based on the comments on this post you will say quite a bit), they are certainly innovative.

Recently they have introduced a new fare display that’s better than that of any other airline out there. Check it out:

Spirit gets knocked for being customer unfriendly because of their fees, but I’ve always said that’s total nonsense, as they’re quite upfront about it. This fare display is more customer-friendly than any I’ve seen anywhere else. I love the color-coded calendar, quickly showing you how changing your date of travel can save you money (or cost you money, as the case may be). The web-dork side of me thinks that is just a brilliant piece of information architecture.

Below, they break out the base fare and the fuel, plus government taxes (you can hover over the taxes to get the individual tax breakout). No, I don’t know why the $9 Club fare has no fuel charge. Whatever. I love that they tell you the percentage of your fare that goes toward taxes.

Are their seats cramped? Definitely. Do they seem to have some customer service issues? Apparently. But are they more upfront about what your ticket really costs than any other airline out there? Absolutely. Plus, they quickly and easily show you how to save money on different days.

Really, really well done.

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Say what you will about Spirit Airlines’ Free Spirit frequent flyer program (?), but if you’re going to be flying them anyway, you should know about this promotion (which I somehow hadn’t noticed for a month) where they’ll give you 5,000 bonus Free Spirit miles every time you fly. Flights must be booked by February 24th and flown by June 20th.

The best part, of course, is that the miles will post “on or about August 1st.” Also, they’ll charge you $15 to book an award ticket between 21 and 179 days out. But you probably suspected that already.

I don’t write much about airline financial results (I’ll leave that to others…I’ll just focus on writing about the Chase Sapphire card 3 days a week…oh wait, that’s not me. sort of.) Where was I? Oh yes, airline financial results.

Spirit Airlines announced their full-year financial results, and they were impressive, earning $76 million on about $1 billion in revenue. I wanted to point out a few areas that I thought were noteworthy:

- I know people complain about Spirit incessantly. That’s fine – you are entitled to your opinion, and I certainly agree with some of the issues people have (though not all). But that’s not stopping people from flying them. Spirit increased available seat miles (roughly, a measure of capacity) by 15% and grew load factors from 82% to 85%, meaning their planes were 85% full.

- People are paying those ancillary fees. Last year they made $35 per passenger from ancillary fees; this year that increased 28% to $44.79. Given their average fare of about $81, that means ancillary fees make up 35% of their revenue per passenger. That’s unbelievable. Charging people to bring a bag on board is certainly helping with that. But people are not pushing back — their passenger base keeps growing, and they continue to pay more in ancillary fees. In fact, ancillary fees grew 28% while fares only grew about 4%. What’s that mean? They can continue to promote low fares while still growing their revenue per passenger. I know that angers lots of people; but it doesn’t anger lots and lots of others.

- They would not have been profitable without ancillary fees. Their cost per passenger was about $92, but they only earned $81 from fares — an $11 deficit. They made up the difference (and quite a bit more) with ancillary fees. Those will continue to grow, since their profitability depends on it.

- No one is immune from rising fuel prices. Their cost per available seat mile (CASM) was $5.72 without fuel and $9.91 with fuel — fuel made up 42% of their total cost per mile.

Just wanted to share — if you hated Spirit before because of all the ancillary charges, you will likely hate them more in the future.

Spirit Airlines has been railing against the Department of Transportation’s ruling that airlines must bundle fees together with airfares when displaying prices to consumers. They describe it as unfair, but really they’re just upset that they can no longer pretend they sell $17 tickets. In truth, if they wanted to break out the fees, they certainly could – they could show the total cost, then break out all of the individual fees. They choose not to..

In any case, in response to this they have introduced what they’re calling a DOTUC fee — Department of Transportation Unintended Consequences — a $2 surcharge (each way) on tickets purchased everywhere except airport ticket counters (as I’ve noted here previously, good luck finding a quiet Spirit Airlines ticket counter at which you would want to purchase a ticket).

In the end, this amounts to a $2 fare increase each way, which is fine — I don’t care if they want to raise prices — but the incredibly annoying disingenuousness of their so-called fight against these regulations has even started to annoy me, and I’m a pathetic Spirit apologist.

Oh, Spirit. You never disappoint:

Yeah, that’s right. That was on their homepage. He’s directing the plane with two menorahs.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a bigger uproar in the airline industry than when Spirit Airlines introduced carry-on baggage fees last year. If I read 1 article I must’ve read a dozen saying that people would never pay it, and that passengers would stop flying Spirit, blah blah blah. Well, since then Spirit has continued to be one of the country’s most consistently profitable airlines and, despite what pretty much every blogger type out there thinks, people continue to fly them in huge numbers.

I bring this up because news came out yesterday that Spirit earned $50 million from carry-on baggage fees in the first year since they’ve been levied. At $20-$30 each (depending on whether you’re a $9 fare club member), that means they’ve collected fees on roughly 2 million bags. As a shareholder, you’ve got to be pretty satisfied with that.

And while passengers will continue to complain, if you’ve flown Spirit in the past year, you’ve probably noticed that boarding goes very quickly, since people are more likely to check their bags and less likely to try to jam oversized bags into overhead bins.

If loads on Spirit continue to be high (85.7% in November), and passengers continue to fly them (Revenue Passenger Miles up 21% year-over-year and load factor up 4 points year-over-year), Spirit, frankly, would be crazy NOT to charge carry-on fees. And I’m starting to think that major carriers are crazy leaving this money on the table. After all, 10 years ago would you imagine that network airlines would charge people for airplane food? Ten years from now (less?) everyone will charge for carry-on fees, under the guise that it allows for faster boarding, faster turnarounds and, hence, lower fares. Elites excluded, of course.

Here’s the thing about Spirit Airlines: They push and push and push and make it just about impossible for a Spirit Airlines apologist like me to maintain my irritating pro-Spirit stance.

To wit: The airline announced today that it is increasing its “passenger usage fee” from $8.99 each way to $16.99 each way. This begs a lot of questions, several of which I will answer in a quick Q&A below:

Q: What the hell is a “passenger usage fee?”
A: Its the fee passengers pay to use the Spirit Airlines website for booking a ticket.

Q: No, seriously, what’s a passenger usage fee?
A: Unfortunately, I wasn’t kidding.

Q: I thought airlines WANTED people to use their websites to book travel.
A: They do. Spirit definitely does – after all, they’re charging you $34 to book your flight there.

Q: Can I avoid paying the $34?
A: Yes, 3 ways: First, book a 1-way ticket, that way you’ll only pay $17.

Q: Now you’re just being a jerk.
A: True. Second, you can buy your ticket at the airport. Or third, you can just fly a different airline.

Q: Wait. What was that about buying the ticket at the airport?
A: They don’t charge you if you buy the ticket at the airport.

Q: So should I just go to the airport and buy my Spirit tickets there?
A: You’re funny. Have you ever seen the line at Spirit’s check-in counter? I’ve described it in these pages as being like the American Embassy in Saigon as the war was ending. You wouldn’t actually go through that to save $34.

Q: Is it even legal to charge an additional $34 on every ticket and NOT call it out in their marketing?
A: You’re going to enjoy this: The government requires that airlines call out fees that are based on a percentage of the fare, but not fees that are a flat dollar amount.

Q: I assume you’re kidding me.
A: I’m not kidding you.

Q: I thought I read that a rule is going into affect that airlines have to disclose all mandatory fees starting early next year.
A: You did read that.

Q: So why doesn’t Spirit have to disclose this fee?
A: Because it’s not mandatory. You are free to go to the airport and buy the ticket and not pay the fee.

Q: Are you still an apologist for Spirit?
A: Yes and no. They still offer great value. A reader just wrote me to say he bought a $94 round trip ticket from Atlantic City to Ft Lauderdale, even with the $34 fee included. Unfortunately, Spirit pretty much suggests that that ticket costs $38 and pretends there are not $55 of fees on top of it. That’s the nonsense part. None of their other fees bother me – they’ve made it clear you’re paying to bring a bag on that plane. The nonsense part is pretending that an online booking fee is NOT a mandatory fee.

Q: So will you fly Spirit again?
A: I’m cheap. I’ll never say never.

Spirit Airlines announced they will begin charging $5 if you have an agent print your boarding pass at the airport beginning November 1st. The airline says it will lower all fares by $5, suggesting that those who print their boarding passes at home will actually save $5.

And because Spirit is Spirit, the headline on the press release is “Spirit Gives Consumers What They Want: Airline Lowers Fares on All Non-Stop Flights and Offers Savings for Checking In Online,” which is another way of saying they’re charging you if you don’t print your boarding pass at home. True, they will be lowering base fares, but I’m not sure how much that actually matters as Spirit has so many sales and coupons available every week.

Beginning June 26, 2012, (yes, that’s next year), they will charge you $1 to print your boarding pass at the airport.

Before you start whining about this, keep in mind that Ryanair charges 40 Pounds, or about $65, to print your boarding pass at the airport, as British singer Lily Allen recently found out.

Oh, and don’t bother whining about how you won’t fly them again: they made 12 cents a share last quarter, as people continue to swear they won’t fly them, and then do.