Complaint Review: Spirit Airlines -

 I know you didn’t suggest I show up 4 hours ahead of time but as I previously said, 2 hours was not enough time. Ppl in line ahead of us were waiting in the line for over 2 hours and missed their flight.

My point is where do we drawn the line? Most would say 2 hours is reasonable but even that amount of time was not enough for Spirit. I realize now that all airlines have the same or similar cancellation policy.

My point is that the policy is unfair. In addition, not notifying us that the second leg would be cancelled without us re-confirming that leg is deceiving. Very few ppl read T&C and they know that. They don’t have to notify you of flight delays and other issues but almost all airlines usually do as a courtesy.

As soon as that type of courtesy costs them money, they concienently put the onus on the customer. I’m all for a company making money but not from deceptive or borderline deceptive practices. Don’t tell me it’s in their T&Cs. It doesn’t make it right.

The reason for comparing spirit and their terminal to the other airline was to illiterate my point of preparedness. It was busy in the other terminal but that airline had enough employees to handle their flow of customers.

It doesn’t matter how busy they were and I’m not speculating on how they would have handled the spirit situation. I’m only saying that a good airline was prepared to handle the rush and spirit wasn’t.

Just a few comments to bring a bit of perspective here.

Of course I could have come 4 hours ahead of time but is that reasonable? Maybe because I left out a lot of detail you couldn’t get a flavor for how bad it was there.

- And I didn't suggest coming 4 hours early, I suggested 2 and perhaps a bit earlier.

This was not normal. In contrast, I immediately got another flight (different terminal) and that airline and terminal had a lot of people as you could imagine but not as many as spirit but they handled it better. The other airline had enough staff to handle everyone so lines moved quickly.

- Not really wanting to get into some ratio of employees vs passengers, but to rephrase what you stated. They had enough employees to handle the smaller

crowd at their counters. There is no way to know how they would have handled the number of people the Spirit counter had.

Maybe in the 90’s or early 2000’s but certain processes have made check in and security so efficient that ists no longer necessary to arrive super early.

- This depends. I fly out of several airports on a semi-regular basis. If I am not checking any bags, check-in online and can go right to security, you are right I often don't need to be there until an hour before without an issue. But if I go on a holdiay period or need to visit the check-in counter to either check-in or check some bags you can be sure I am still there at least 2 hours before.  Even if I do self-service bag drop I am still giving myself extra time.

I would rather have to wait around an extra 30 minutes than get to the gate 10 minutes late and watch my flight take off without me.

When we arrived at Boston and spoke to the ticket agent, we complained about how bad spirit is and he said he hears it a lot every day.

- Yes, and you will see that Spirit is always at or near the bottom of Customer Satisfaction surveys.

Do you think that is normal? I don’t.

- For Spirit...probably.

You can’t have a ridiculous policy designed to make you more money at the expense of your customer and hide behind that like it’s law. There is no other reason why you would cancel a return flight without active notification other than a ploy to squeeze more money out of your customers.

Actually you can. If you read the terms of the ticket(Contract of Carriage) of ANY airline, you will see that they have a provision that gives them the right to cancel any and all remaining legs of a reservation if you miss ANY leg. The wording may not be exact but the meaning is there.  

There are many factors but a primary one is because of something all airlines discourage which is basically known as "Hidden City Ticketing". I won't go into

it here but do some quick searching and you will find quite a bit about it.

Just as an update and I will try to update the original post but they finally broke down and gave me a credit. So all the stonewalling that I got from 4 different employees was all BS.

- Actually I am glad you got the credit, unfortunately it sometimes takes persistance to get this to happen.

Again, I am not saying you don't have a valid complaint against them.  I am just saying that thinking that other airlines wouldn't do the exact same thing is being a bit naive as well.

 Although I generally agree with your response you are simply missing my point. I’m not saying I am free from blame. Of course I could have come 4 hours ahead of time but is that reasonable? Maybe because I left out a lot of detail you couldn’t get a flavor for how bad it was there.

Many ppl missed their flights. Several ppl that made it to the ticket counter were yelling bc they missed their flight which caused even more delays. At one point a spirit employee (obviously just arrived bc someone called for backup) saw this mass of humanity and had a look of shock and panic.

This was not normal. In contrast, I immediately got another flight (different terminal) and that airline and terminal had a lot of people as you could imagine but not as many as spirit but they handled it better. The other airline had enough staff to handle everyone so lines moved quickly.

It was simply a matter of being prepared for the amount of ppl flying. Are you going to tell me it was a surprise to them? That they should only have a handful of ppl at the ticket counter? I understand that I maybe should have been there 2 hours ahead of time but my point is that 2 hour wait times are not the norm anymore.

Maybe in the 90’s or early 2000’s but certain processes have made check in and security so efficient that ists no longer necessary to arrive super early. The airline still totes that party line bc it’s in their best interest. The more ppl they can bump off a flight the better.

Otherwise how would you explain the practice of over booking flights? It’s a sign of a bad airline. Plain and simple. If you can’t see it you’re just refusing to see it or naive. When we arrived at Boston and spoke to the ticket agent, we complained about how bad spirit is and he said he hears it a lot every day.

Do you think that is normal? I don’t. With regard to their policies, you can’t have a ridiculous policy designed to make you more money at the expense of your customer and hide behind that like it’s law. There is no other reason why you would cancel a return flight without active notification other than a ploy to squeeze more money out of your customers.

Just as an update and I will try to update the original post but they finally broke down and gave me a credit. So all the stonewalling that I got from 4 different employees was all BS. They could do something for me but they decided that it was more important to stick to the letter of the law than use their brain and realize that maybe technically they were correct but in reality their major mistake created a s****.>

I’m glad someone realized that at least. Now I have to sly spirit one more time to use the credit...

Airlines, especially discount airlines like Spirit don't give you any breaks.  I personally won't fly Spirit or other discount airlines and freely pay a bit more for better, and quite frankly in many cases after you add in all of the fees airlines like this charge the difference is often not a significant amount.  But the fact is that you failed to arrive in time, and the same thing would have happened regardless of the airline you took.

Directly from the Spirit Web site(took about 30 seconds to find this page)

Please be prepared and give yourself plenty of time for your upcoming trip. We recommend arriving at least two hours prior to your scheduled departure for domestic flights and at least three hours prior to a departure for an international flight.

Also, the TSA screening requirements have recently changed and require that guests checking bags at the ticket counter or Bag Drop will need to do so at least 45 minutes before scheduled departure ( 60 minutes for international and U.S.V.I. flights).

Spirit may cancel a reservation or seat assignment for any guest without a boarding pass at least 45 minutes prior to a scheduled departure (60 minutes for international and U.S.V.I. flights). Please be available for boarding at the gate at least 15 minutes prior to your scheduled domestic departure and 30 minutes prior to your international departure or you may lose your reservation. In the event of a delay, we recommend that guests remain in the gate area for updates and possible early departures.

So you did not arrive before the recomended time to be able to check-in, in fact since this was a holiday period I would probably have arrived even earlier than 2 hours before.  As a result you were denied boarding due to that.  At which time they do not owe you any compensation and have the right per the terms to cancel all remaining legs of your trip.

Oh and if you say "Well I always fly xyz airline and never have to wait to check-in and always only show up an hour before"..well that's great. But it doesn't change the fact that you failed to arrive on time with THIS airline because of what "you" felt was okay. Don't expect 5-Star service on a 1-Star Budget airline.