[Kevrab]

I thought I'd share my little story with our experience(s) with that lovely company Spirit Air.
Now I'm a pretty easy going person especially when travelling. I go with the flow, figuring I'm on vacation and not working so it's not all bad.
We've flown Spirit Air three times now and every time just gets worse. The last time we flew back to Detroit out of Fort Lauderdale after our cruise in August. It was such a cluster that we were delayed (in August mind you) eight hours. The weather that day throughout the country was fine. Every time we asked what the hold up was we got the run around. The plane wasn't at the gate--the gate clerks had no idea where it was. Finally the pilot and co-pilot showed and were asking (in a loud tone of voice) where the plane was. Well, things started happening and all of a sudden our plane comes taxiing into the gate (I'm not making this up). I the meantime the pilot conferred with his higher ups and because of all of our inconvenience they gave everyone on the flight a $50 flight voucher good for a year.
(All the while this is going on at the Fort Lauderdale terminal the Spirit Airlines clerks kept switching gates for no apparent reason. We counted over a dozen times they changed gates on travellers. You'd see a herd of people running here, another there---I swear I was in a bad movie---but, hell, it kept us entertained the eight hours we were stuck there)
So the kicker of it is Joanne just called Spirit Air to see about redeeming our vouchers so we could take a trip to Vegas in April Well. guess what? They have no record of a voucher promise---had no idea what we were talking about. Tried talking to a supervisor he said the same thing.
One crappy airlines---just wanted to warn folks about this lovely little airlines. I'll just stick to Northwest Airlines. I've always had good luck and customer service with them.

[rudybjr]

Airline gate agents don't make gate changes. It is done by the airport authority and air traffic control. Why would they keep changing gates if they had to go along with all the changes. Don't blame the airline airport employees.

[PHXFlyer]

Originally Posted by rudybjr

Airline gate agents don't make gate changes. It is done by the airport authority and air traffic control. Why would they keep changing gates if they had to go along with all the changes. Don't blame the airline airport employees.

The airport authority only determines which gates the airline leases. They have nothing to do with assigning gates to flights and neither does ATC. Gate assignments are done by the airline's operations department (OPS) and there are many reasons for gate changes. You will also find that gate changes occur most often at an airline's hub cities.

As for Spirit, despite the numerous gate changes which really are a minor inconvenience, it is obvious from the posts here and reports elsewhere on the internet they are to be avoided at all costs.

[The_Judge]

True PHXFlyer. I worked in one of the hubs for the carrier I worked for about 2 years. One "bid" I chose to work in this area. It is indeed done by airline staff, in fact, customer service agents, at least for the airline I worked for in the city I was in at the time. Somewhat stressful at times as aircraft don't stop coming but sometimes stop going and there is nowhere to put them at times.

[Salove]

Regardless of where the responsibility falls to schedule gates and/or keep customers informed of their travel delays, cancels, changes, etc., it is still good business practice to keep people informed and not lie to them when they have spent good money for crappy service. I travel anywhere from 40 to 49 weeks a year for business and still have not experienced the poor service I received in October of 2008 from Spirit Airlines from any other carrier. As a matter of fact, I have had other airlines assist me without me being present knowing I would be missing my connection for some reason. People who are claiming "plausible deniability" really ought to be figuring out to change this customer service issue so that the complaints start getting directed to the right people and just maybe employees of airports wouldn't have to defend themselves. Being proactive makes good business practice, so maybe the workers at the airport and the airline ought to team up to keep customers happy and coming back? Just a thought. I still agree that Spiirit Airlines IS one of the worst airlines ever!!!

[thegatewayregular]

Originally Posted by Salove

Regardless of where the responsibility falls to schedule gates and/or keep customers informed of their travel delays, cancels, changes, etc., it is still good business practice to keep people informed and not lie to them when they have spent good money for crappy service. I travel anywhere from 40 to 49 weeks a year for business and still have not experienced the poor service I received in October of 2008 from Spirit Airlines from any other carrier. As a matter of fact, I have had other airlines assist me without me being present knowing I would be missing my connection for some reason. People who are claiming "plausible deniability" really ought to be figuring out to change this customer service issue so that the complaints start getting directed to the right people and just maybe employees of airports wouldn't have to defend themselves. Being proactive makes good business practice, so maybe the workers at the airport and the airline ought to team up to keep customers happy and coming back? Just a thought. I still agree that Spiirit Airlines IS one of the worst airlines ever!!!

no, spirit airlines is the WORST airline ever! Going from LIM to FLL, got to the gate..6 hour delay...same problem as the guy who posted...no plane....i dont think i have ever been so tired in my life..so we had to board a bus to go to the plane and i swear to god they just got finished spraying the plane down with liquid nitrogen because that plane was FREEZING....this is an international flight...they had no blankets, no pillows and charged you for water...i mean really...and we had this tall black transexual woman as a flight attendant who forgot to shave and all she did was play with her nails and hair they whole flight...when i got to FLL everyone missed their flight because they said they had a problem with a belt loader....well you dumb ****s i know you have more than one belt loader...and it was a sunday too....try to get into atlanta after you missed a flight.....your're just sol...i ended up driving to atlanta...ill never fly them again.....not only that i work at the ATL airport and they have NO maintainence!!! they never to routine checks and i rarely see a pilot do a walk around...not only is this airline the worst to fly but its also the most UNSAFE airline out there!!

[PHXFlyer]

Originally Posted by thegatewayregular

....this is an international flight...they had no blankets, no pillows and charged you for water...i mean really...

What were you expecting? You paid a dirt-cheap fare on an ultra low cost discount carrier. Did you really think they would provide food, beverages, pillows and blankets at the price you paid? You need a serious reality check.

Originally Posted by thegatewayregular

and we had this tall black transexual woman as a flight attendant who forgot to shave and all she did was play with her nails and hair they whole flight...

So we now know that your bigotry is not only limited to persons of color,

Originally Posted by thegatewayregular

i agree....all the ghetto women work downstairs, not upstairs...i swear..the attitude of those hoodrats downstairs pisses me off

but also transgendered and transsexual persons. Are there any other minorities you'd like bash on this forum?

Originally Posted by thegatewayregular

when i got to FLL everyone missed their flight because they said they had a problem with a belt loader....well you dumb ****s i know you have more than one belt loader...

I reported this to the "mods" but as yet nothing has been done because nothing is ever done about anything I report.

Originally Posted by thegatewayregular

...not only that i work at the ATL airport and they have NO maintainence!!! they never to routine checks and i rarely see a pilot do a walk around...not only is this airline the worst to fly but its also the most UNSAFE airline out there!!

Excuse me, but WHAT? You work @ATL? In what capacity? Do your co-workers and employers know what a narrow-minded bigot you are?

[Jetliner]

Originally Posted by thegatewayregular

not only that i work at the ATL airport and they have NO maintainence!!! they never to routine checks and i rarely see a pilot do a walk around...not only is this airline the worst to fly but its also the most UNSAFE airline out there!!

First of all, they have to have some sort of maintenance set up. In Atlanta It's probably another airline who is contracted. An airplane is not required to have a maintenance check every night. The requirement is every other night. It's called an N check. So what they would do in this case, is each night they would make sure the aircraft routed to ATL for the night is not one that will require an N check.

As to the part about walk arounds, are you seriously going to try to tell us that sit and watch every second that a Spirit aircraft is on the ground? Or is it more the case that you just don't see it every time.