[AirplaneGuy23]

Having flown my first flight with spirit on Dec 8th 2011 LGA-FLL, i was anxious to discover the thrill of a low fare airline. At the check in counter the employee weighed my bag that i paid $28 for (each way) and measured it to be 44 pounds, 4 pounds over the limit. To my surprise, the employee refused to allow me to check in the bag until my bag weighed an acceptable amount. I pleaded with respect to let me go but the employee was very stubborn. I gave in and removed an item from my bag, i was disturbed by the fact that i had to open my suitcase in public and argue about 4 pounds. Nevertheless, i remained calm as i was eager to get to my destination. Once i boarded the plane, a 4 month old A320 i was highly impressed with the cleanliness and inviting setting. the flight attendants seemed pleasant.

However, towards the end of the flight i realized how wrong i was. The flight attendants were a bunch amateurs. One of them was reading off the announcements like a warranty for a car. It didnt stop there, the pilot announced himself in the beginning and thats it, the only indication of direction we had was on our ticket!

Finally one of the flight attendants annouced that we were heading for landing and that we should sit upright and tray tables up etc. Unfortunatley, there was terrible turbulence as the plane descened through the clouds. The word terrible is an undertstaemnt. The plane shook violently and dropped extremely quickly. This happened for about 5 min, although it felt like an hour. The problem is that the staff on spirit have no clue how to deal with a situation like that. THE PILOT OBVIOUSLY KNEW IT WAS A CLOUDY APPROACH, A PROPER WARNING SHOULD HAVE BEEN STATED. Lets give the pilot the benefit of the doubt that he was unaware of the oncoming turbulence. That still doesn't explain how the flight crew managed this particular situation. While we were shaking and rolling through the sky, everyone was holding on for dear life. Women were crying and hugging each other as if their last seconds were approaching. During this extreme moment the chief flight attendant, a male prob in his early 60's got on the pa system and had the unprofessional balls to announce "UH, WHOEVER IS SHAKING THE PLANE, PLEASE STOP!". Even more so, the other flight attendant says out loud "IT FEELS LIKE A RODEO". All these comments are now comical but im sure you all agree how unprofessional such comments can be, especially when no prior turbulence warning was issued! Finally, during landing the pilot brakes normally and then braked extremely hard! i never experienced such a hard landing before!

Overall, i understand somethings are not in your control. If we, the passengers had prior warning about the oncoming disturbances i think everyone would have been able to deal with it with greater ease and comfort. Therefore, the lack of such a warning further proves spirit airlines to be a highly unprofessional, disappointing, and less than decent airline.

P.s its extremly annoying for us Americans to speak to Indian customer service agents! They are slow and difficult to understand. There is a limit to how cheap you can be before you lose all customers. Take a few tips from Jetblue or Southwest, 2 thriving airlines doing it right!