I've flown both Spirit and American (several times) in the past and can say I have zero sympathy for anyone involved. There are reams of info detailing the utter cluster both of these airlines are, so no one should be surprised when they experience this sort of BS.

Oh Great Swami bigdeal,

If only you had bestowed upon my family your knowledge that Spirit would be canceling these flights yesterday and today two weeks ago you could have saved us simpletons from our grave mistake.

I had to fly on American from DFW to IAH yesterday. The flight changed gates 6 times in terminal C. My flight was supposed to board in 15 mins and I go to the gate (C31) and it’s a flight to Chicago instead of Houston. I check the board and my flight has changed again, this time to C21. I go to C21 and it’s a flight to Cancun. By this time, I’m getting a little frustrated. I speak to someone at one of the gates and I’m told my flight is C31 and it’s delayed for 2 hrs. This is not showing on the boards or on my American app. So, I decide to go to the admirals club and grab a drink since I’m stuck there for a while. When I get in, I see that the flight was changed to terminal A, gate 21 and it boards in 10 mins. No notice or update on the app. I rush to A21 and then it gets delayed 45 mins because they do not have gate agents. My flight ended up being 2 hours late. Oh, and they flew us all the way out to Odessa and pulled a U turn to go to Houston, something about traffic.

Today on my return trip, was delayed for a 90 mins and then when they finally board us, they tell us we will be delayed another 45 minutes due to a fuel pump issue.

I almost never fly from Dallas to Houston because crap like this seems to happen all the time. I only did it because I had 2 Teams calls that I couldn’t take from my truck as I drove to Houston.

My experience in both airports over the last 2 days is that it looked like an episode of the walking dead.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Oh Great Swami bigdeal,

If only you had bestowed upon my family your knowledge that Spirit would be canceling these flights yesterday and today two weeks ago you could have saved us simpletons from our grave mistake.

Sling sarcasm all you want but it is beyond well known that Spirit is a cut rate cattle car operation that screws over their clientele with their incompetence on a daily basis. With Spirit you get exactly what you pay for.

I got motherfucked by AAL today. Beyond pissed.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Sling sarcasm all you want but it is beyond well known that Spirit is a cut rate cattle car operation that screws over their clientele with their incompetence on a daily basis. With Spirit you get exactly what you pay for.

I paid for 3 trips from Detroit to Florida and didn't get them. Yes, paid for and expected cut rate service, but really did expect the flight to happen. You can claim clairvoyance all you want, but you had no clue half Spirit's flights would be cancelled for the last two days, so get maybe you could just get off your high horse just this one time and give folks a break.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I posted in the What’s Your Deal? section because my wife and two youngest are stuck in Detroit. My wife remarked there are a ton of police there.

They made the TV news in Detroit:
They are the three in the foreground. This marks the third time my wife and daughter have been on TV and second time for my son.

Any word on getting a new flight? Maybe something out of Flint airport? Allegiant has a Ft Myers flight out of there.

Five yrs ago I was in LAX when Spirit canceled my flight due to weather. Yeah, it was 110 deg. in Phoenix, but none of the other carriers canceled flights there. No money for hotel or meals, said maybe I could get home in 2-3 more days. I rented a car and drove. Never again. Fook Spirit. I hope they go out of business and their leadership starves.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:

Five yrs ago I was in LAX when Spirit canceled my flight . . . I hope they go out of business and their leadership starves.

I never used Spirit, but it sounds as if it's in the same category as Allegiant. I don't know if I really want the leadership to starve, but it would give me great joy to see the executive level of management doomed to travel frequently on their airline, with no more privilege than the regular customers get.

I keep telling people- the answer to the problem is tubes. Place each passenger in their own personal tube. The passengers can then be loaded like cargo, thus allowing for a larger seating err tubing capacity. You can stack 'em to the ceiling. With no interaction, there's no fricton, no problems.

Pack 'em, rack 'em, stack 'em, load 'em....TOOBZ!!

Allegiant is ok for whatever BS they pull because they have some oddball routes and hubs no one else wants to deal with. And their planes are rode hard and put away wet. But you know that going in. Spirit pretends they're a legitimate player with pro-level routes and hubs, but they're run like a high school newspaper. When my flight at LAX was canceled, the police were called to protect the counter staff.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
Any word on getting a new flight? Maybe something out of Flint airport? Allegiant has a Ft Myers flight out of there.

They are on a United flight tomorrow and will be staying with my wife's sister again tonight. Thank you for asking.

I can't explain it, but when the 5 of us and the dog do a trip, we just can't make good time. For example, the drive from Rogers City to Canton took us 6 hours and it's only a 4 hour drive. I dropped off the two youngest and my wife at her sister's in Canton while the oldest, the dog and I continued on. We stopped south of Cincinnati for the night and drove over 1,000 miles yesterday getting home at 10pm. My oldest and the dog are fantastic road trip companions. I can't wait for him to get his license so he can share the driving.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:

Five yrs ago I was in LAX when Spirit canceled my flight . . . I hope they go out of business and their leadership starves.

I never used Spirit, but it sounds as if it's in the same category as Allegiant. I don't know if I really want the leadership to starve, but it would give me great joy to see the executive level of management doomed to travel frequently on their airline, with no more privilege than the regular customers get.

Allegiant is on a whole nother level as they are also real estate developers. Look up Sunseeker Resort in Charlotte County. They are not exactly GDC (General Development Corp.), but GDC didn't have an airline.

Spirit is a shitshow at the best of times. Yes you can save money but you can also get fucked.

My youngest daughters boyfriend flew them out one summer to visit. The day of they cancelled his flight. It was a cheap rate and that is what they refunded. They didn’t put him on next flight they expected him to rebook at last minute rates. Honestly I didn’t think they could do that but they did. Shit show.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I paid for 3 trips from Detroit to Florida and didn't get them. Yes, paid for and expected cut rate service, but really did expect the flight to happen. You can claim clairvoyance all you want, but you had no clue half Spirit's flights would be cancelled for the last two days, so get maybe you could just get off your high horse just this one time and give folks a break.

I'm not claiming clairvoyance. I too have first hand experience of just how worthless Spirit Airlines really is when they hosed me and my family on a flight a couple years ago. Given the voluminous amounts of customer complaints you can find online, nothing this airline does or doesn't do should shock anyone.

I rode American from LAX on Sunday. I allowed two hours at the terminal for a short domestic flight. It wasn't close to enough. The flight was packed, terminal packed, ramp packed.

The last few days I was in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Kuwait, Incheon, etc, and they were dead. I took a commercial flight out of Incheon a few days ago, and many on the 777 had rows all to themselves.

Internationally, it's not that crowded. Domestically, it's a zoo. Internationally, people aren't traveling unless they have to. Domestically, everybody is springloaded to get out and go.

shut most of an airlines operations down for a year and then try to resurrect it, and you'll have crews that need to be retrained, aircraft that must e inspected and put back in service, and a lot of delays to do it. And that's what we've got. A few airplanes flying, all of them stuffed to the gills, and rising tempers and frustration.

I wouldn't travel at all if I didn't have to, any time, but especially not now.

Sunday Aug 1, apparently due to weather around DFW, 32 flights were diverted to OKC. It's only about 200 miles by car, usually 35 minutes by plane, so not too far away.

One of them was a 777 Emirates. That's a pretty dang big airplane. There were a couple of other jumbo sized planes diverted to OKC.

I'm told OKC was running out of ramp space to park 32 additional aircraft. OKC is a pretty nice airport but is not a huge one and rarely gets heavy jets in.
.

I refuse to fly American. My company's preferred carriers are United and Delta and I fly United. United goes anywhere in the world I need to go, and can connect with other Star Alliance carriers for local flights in other countries. Occasionally the corporate travel agent will offer a lower fare on American, but I politely remind them that American is not preferred and I'm not traveling for business on a bankrupt airline with a very poor record of late.

Can't remember ever flying spirit. Back before I started a lot of business travel a decade ago, I would just take whatever personal flights my (ex) wife booked for us. She was pretty good at using SABRE to find good fares, and then I think Travelocity.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
I'm not claiming clairvoyance. I too have first hand experience of just how worthless Spirit Airlines really is when they hosed me and my family on a flight a couple years ago. Given the voluminous amounts of customer complaints you can find online, nothing this airline does or doesn't do should shock anyone.

I'm sorry I assumed you were clairvoyant since you've flown Spirit despite the reams of info available supporting a decision otherwise. No normal person would do that unless they had insight as to which flights would be canceled when, no? Did they cancel 50% of their flights when they hosed you and yours? Seriously, somehow based on your past experience, I'm supposed to not be shocked that they cancel half their flights. I don't expect sympatthy from anyone, but I also don't expect someone to tell me that we got what we deserved. You and yours didn't deserve to get screwed, did they? Neither did mine. Bless your heart, man.

I cancelled a flight today to Columbus that is scheduled for later this month. (full refund)

Going to make the 11 hour drive instead.