I haven't worked for Spirit that long either, and granted, I don't spend a lot of time at the gates or ticket counters, but since when is our customer service so bad? From what I have seen, our agents exercise a great deal of restraint and patience in dealing with irrational, angry passengers. Every company that has ever flown a paying passenger in an airplane from point A to point B has its haters, but there are plenty of people out there who understand and appreciate the Spirit product and will continue to use us in the future.

 

It just seems today that good customer service is measured by the amount of FREE stuff you get!...although we SAY," I just want good costumer service", what we really mean is FREE stuff.
Spirit is no exemption, and just like a previous poster, the average "once every 6 months" passenger does not have a clue about the ticket "contract" that they purchase online at the lowest possible price.
READ, I say to them...

Complainers, do complain for just about anything, the problem with this is that shadows the person/s having legit problem/s.

This SAN incident it's a great example. Everyone inside the a/c smelled the fumes, if you have been in an a/c in the last 100 yrs more than a few times you'll know that THIS happens, not often, but it does, after refueling, during refueling, fumes taking in via the ground AC cart or pack inlets.
We know that, and even some seasonal flyers know that as well.

Spirit it isn't the only company flying airplanes, it happens everywhere, including in your car after refueling, your boat, whatever, NOT often, but it does. But in an airplane, after you paid an exorbitant amount of money, (under100) to fly over 900 miles, it's a great place to get something in return. "I want"

The actions taken by the crew were probably normal until they realized that the fumes weren't going away. MTX it's called, procedures are follow, flight cancels.

We complain, just because its today's culture,

-why other planes take off and we don't-
(LGA waiting for TO)

-My sister says the wx in ORD it's fine, why isn't the pilot going?-
(Wx delay into BOS)

-why don't we have more leg room?, I paid 59 bucks for this trip, + 45 for a bag-
(Guy going from FLL to ACY)

Every airline gets these ppl, spirit it's just an easy target, and we don't advertise all the hundred of thousands of happy people that go unnoticed every week. Because they'll come back.

Cheers.

 

Well said!

You can replace Spirit with Delta, UAL, USAir etc. and it is the exact same thing. I have witnessed and dealt with the exact same stuff as you mentioned at a different airline.

The fact is, it's not the airlines! It's the passengers.

 

I agree with all the above. But there is some truth to that article. We still have problems that lead to poor customer service. Customer service is not just the interaction between employees and customer but also actually delivering the product. Getting the people to their destination with their belongings, and on time. Are we doing that as well as other airlines?

Just look at this MX nightmare that we have been through this last few years. For example LAS. When we decided to increase LAS flying, our management charged in without MX people or infrastructure on the ground. Raise your hand if you had a long delay out of LAS in 2011! Before that, when they moved MX from DTW to FLL they once again got caught with their pants down when a lot of the senior MX personnel walked out on them. Ever since MOC has been a nightmare. Dispatching with the wrong MEL? Raise your hand if you filed an ASAP related to MX in the past two years! Then this seat NEF debacle. Raise you hand if you had a plane with more than 24 NEFs! You know when you need an email because it does not fit on the release. How about doing heavy checks in SJO? Hola? Rats like elac cables as it turns out. It seems management never runs out of bad ideas when it comes to MX. Too bad MX directly effects customer experience.

I have never seen this many MX delays at NK ever before. It seems they are getting it under control lately, but it is still a work in progress and the past years were horrible. Tons of delays! Combine that with the lack of frequencies and the lack of spare airplanes.

MX cancelation/delay leads to missed connections. Missed connection means missed my cruise ship in FLL, or my only flight to Bogota. Most routes we fly, we fly once a day only.

And finally, back to those seats one more time. We advertise "clean airplanes". Did we live up to that before they had this seat maintenance program? Are our planes clean? 321 anyone? Those nasty gray seats?

Yeah we have issues... and we have the crowd that wants is for free too plus they have never flown before.

Then you get an article like the Onion.

Lately it seems we have made improvements in MX. We also got spare planes. This year we will be increasing frequencies to many of the destinations. Management has announced they will try to improve customer experience. We will see I guess.

 

Add to that the rumor traveling through the ranks of line maintenance that the company plans to layoff several mechanics this summer... Why would they do such a thing with mx being such a hot issue here the last few years? Oh, it will save them a dime immediately! Forget the many dollars it will cost them in the not to distant future. This is Spirit after all.

 

Anyone know why the "new" domicile has been removed as a choice for the system bid?

 

Don't know for sure, but I'd guess it's because the last few system bids were done incorrectly.

 

All fixed!!

 

Check out this article from USA TODAY:

2012: Record year for airline bag fees

http://usat.ly/16bGare

 

Sys vacancy bid for AUG, closes on DEC31.....I got plenty of time to make up my mind, and even then, I can always count the 1 or 2 revisions to RE-do it all over again! Glad to know we got this out cold by now.