Flight attendant never showed up; flight doesn't take off
 

This was a new one for me: Spirit Airlines started boarding passengers this morning for the 6:40am flight from LGA-FLL. After a few minutes, gate crew made passengers get off the plane. Reason? A flight attendant didn't show up for work; they couldn't locate another one at LGA; and they had to find someone to come into work. Takeoff was delayed for hours.

Keep in mind passengers probably woke up at 4 or 5AM to make this early flight.

Even for a low-cost carrier, I thought this was unbelievably sloppy. I ended up going home instead of waiting hours in a crowded terminal.

Im not sticking up for the airline or the flight attendant, but The flight attendant may of had to have so many hours of rest if she/he came in late the night before, or may have had to have a day off if he/she worked 6 straight already. but what gets me is that they even started boarding the plane. i know with my airline ALL flight attendants MUST be onboard before we start boarding. i saw on the spirit website it only took off 1 hour and 40mins late or so...not too bad for having to find an extra flight attendant at the last minute.....did they do anything for you?

You're right that 1hr 40mins doesn't seem as bad as it could have been. I think what compounded everything - and made me flee - was
1. The fact that I'd been up since 5am
2. The gate crew seemed disorganized and confused, which got some passengers visibly upset
3. Spirit's turf at LaGuardia is cramped and poorly maintained.
4. I'm out $60 for round-trip cab fare to/from LGA.

The airline did credit the value of the ticket toward another trip.
Anyway, thank you for responding to my post.

I think you are being a little too harsh on this. I'm not going to say that it's not an inconvenience, but it's very possible that the flight attendant got sick that morning. Also, unless the airline has a crew base there, they will not have another crew member just sitting around waiting to fly. They would have had to either have another come from the hotel (another overnighting crew) or have another fly in.

Well OK. So had everyone else more or less.

Can't really comment one way or the other.

Most of LaGuardia is cramped, and ALL of it is poorly maintained. It's kind of a dumpy airport.

YOU made the decision to bail out, not the airline.

If the airplane let 1:40 late, and knowing that they would have probably started re-boarding 30-40 minutes before that, that would mean about an hour or so from the time they had everyone get off the plane, which sounds like you didn't really give the situation much of a chance. I know it's frustrating, but at the same time a little patents might help.

I would push them for a refund. Even though the flight was only delayed 105 minutes, your assessment that it might have been longer wasn't unreasonable given the circumstances. Of course if you plan to travel on Spirit again and are happy with the credit so be it. I hope they didn't deduct the cancellation penalty.

Or the flight attendant may have become ill after already checking in at the airport. If it was the flu or even flu-like symptoms I know I would rather wait for a replacement. Being confined in an airtight metal tube for any lenghth of time exposed to a sick crew member is not an ideal situation!