[steve arum]

This is a report about our Spirit Airline flight from Washington DC-Ft. Lauderdale-Armenia, Colombia trip.

The actual Spirit airplane flights were excellent except for the commercial tackiness of charging for every little thing which many passengers (including us) I overheard felt was both unpleasant and overbearing, ruining an otherwise enjoyable flight.

What I really found tedious, almost unbearable were the 5 or 6 Spirit staff I spoke to on the phone to arrange our flights. Why? Because each time I asked a question about a possible change, especially the common ideal of traveling one day early in order to avoid missing a flight the next day because of a very short (65 minutes) layover, the next Spirit flight being four days later.

The repetitious reply I received by the Spirit phone staff was that this was not possible to break a through flight. Totally exasperated at this stonewalling , I had to resort to sending an email to the U.S. Department of Transportation where an extremely helpful and resourceful staff member offered to help me resolve this intransigent Spirit staff behavior. The DOT staff member contacted Spirit at a level that was impossible for me to reach and he informed me that if I did not hear back from them before the end of the working day, I should email him again. I did not hear from Spirit so I contacted him and he sent me a prompt reply that I would definitely be contacted.

I was and this time by a Spirit staff member who was both charming, courteous and very efficient. She very quickly and efficiently rectified everything and arranged of us pt tavel to our interim layover location and continue on the following day. No problem, at all.

So, why did it take arguing with several Spirit staff? Spirit executives really should invest a few dollars from its outrageous charges for carry-on luggage in training its extraordinary incompetent phone staff.

Further proof of this need for the training of phone staff was the impossibility I was told by several Spirit phone staff to book our luggage all the way from DC to Armenia. They insisted we would have to pick up our numerous bags in Ft Lauderdale and take them to our continuing flight in the 65 minutes between flights and then they would charge us a second time for the suitcases for the continuing flight.

Well, I was so outraged by this incredible incompetence that I persisted for almost a half hour to argue with the Spirit staff member, insisting he transfer me to a Supervisor. No, the Supervisor was busy, would I be satisfied with paying for only so many bags, how about paying for only one bag, just like a used car salesman. It was both outrageous and extremely humorous. Finally, after about 30 minutes, he actually relented and arranged for our bags to be sent all the way from DC to Armenia without additional charge, just like other airlines. Amazing!! and it took only a half hour of screaming at him firmly that I would not pay, I would not pay and I did not pay.

What a terribly bad taste this leaves in the mouths and minds of Spirit customers!!