Spirit Airlines may be a low-cost leader, but its customer service leaves many passengers fuming.
In the past, the airline has been openly indifferent (if not downright hostile) to the notion of providing good customer service. Nope, the focus is cheap transport from point A to point B and if you want good customer service pay more to fly someone else.
But as legacies have matched Spirit Airlines pricing on many routes and the airline has endured growing pains with pilot shortages, Spirit has realized that customer service does count for something. Perhaps the bloody brawl earlier this month after a flight cancellation was the tipping point, but Spirit is changing its tone. Here’s an email I just received from CEO Bob Fornaro:
Customer Service Commitment from Spirit CEO
Dear MATTHEW,
A little over a year ago, I became the CEO of Spirit Airlines. At the time, we were very good at providing the lowest possible fares, and that hasn’t changed – our total price is more than 30% lower than other airlines on average. But, while low prices are important, one thing was missing – a commitment to delivering great service.
Over the past year, we invested heavily to improve your customer experience. We increased staffing and our focus on service training. We built a new state-of-the-art hangar and opened new training centers to keep our crew and equipment in tip-top shape. And we brought on 16 new aircraft, adding to the youngest and most fuel-efficient fleet in the country.
These improvements produced great results – our on-time performance increased by nearly 15%, and customer satisfaction increased by 50%. I am proud to say that we were named the Most Improved Airline in the Airline Quality Rating this year.
A couple of weeks ago, we suffered service disruptions and had to cancel approximately 15% of our flights over the course of a few days. We regret the inconvenience this caused and have been hard at work to ensure this does not happen again. We are committed, as always, to providing our valued customers with safe, reliable and on-time flights to their travel destinations.
Moving forward, you will see some exciting improvements at Spirit. While our on-time performance has improved, we will continue to get even better. Additionally, we will be launching a mobile app by the end of summer as well as a refreshed website and new kiosks at the airport by year-end. These are just a few things that we are doing to provide a better customer experience for you.
Today’s Spirit is performing better than last year’s Spirit, and next year’s Spirit will be even better. I look forward to meeting you on a Spirit flight soon!
Thank You,
Bob Fornaro
President and CEO, Spirit Airlines
Show Don’t Tell
Spirit Airlines must still hammer out a labor agreement with its pilots. It obtained a temporary restraining order to break an unofficial pilot strike, but the two sides remain far apart. A lucrative pilot contract will wreck Spirit’s business model, but so will continued cancellations.
Happy employees make for a happy company and good customer service. Spirit is in the unenviable position of trying to keep costs low while keeping passengers and employees happy. I wish them the best of luck.
Top image: JT Occhialini / Wikimedia Commons
Also remember that Frontier has been growing at a good clip, and plays off as being the more friendly ULCC, with their bundled offerings, as well as their playful embrace of the animals on the tails.
Talk is cheap. Whiskey costs money.
To the sick pilot who screwed up my birthday weekend in Las Vegas thanks. I hope you feel better today Asshole.
I hope Spirit dies a slow and painful death.
Love the tips Matthew
I just changed a departure date with spirit today and got what I first thought was good service. The phone representative assured me that my paid bag would be moved over to the changed flight. WRONG! I called back after that didn’t happen and the new representative got nasty and told me that is never allowed and I would have to pay for the same bag again. I told her the CEO wanted better customer service and told her what happened. I told her she needed to get a supervisor to pull my previous phone call. So she says she has “launched” an investigation and I will get a call in 24-48 hours. Let’s see what happens….
Flight attendant was mad when we ordered a drink and said he would get it when “HE” was ready to. Waited almost 40 minutes and was told not to think about ordering another drink. The three people who were in my row were perplexed to be told this as I have flown numerous flights with other carriers happy to be of service and JOSUE just didn’t want to accommodate anyone. I have never experienced this and will never fly with them again. Even if the Air Fair is double.. Good Luck Spirit !!! Keep Treating your customers like this!!!
By the way the flight was delayed 3 hours and my returning flight was cancelled not to mention that!!!!
Maybe you can help me get in contact with the CEO who claims to be making Spirit better. Here is my story.
Spirit Airlines stranded 300+ people in the BWI airport after numerous delays and gave no accommodations for hotels.
Flight 935 BWI to New Orleans was scheduled to leave at 520 on June 16 2017. We arrived at the airport at 33o thinking our flight was on time. We received no notifications that there was any type of issues with the flight. Once we got to the gate, there was no attendant at the gate counter, the flight board stated that it was delayed. The pilot and co pilot showed up not knowing that it was delayed. Several times I tried talking to an employee to find out what was happening with the flight and I was told that she was not going to assist me. That she was done with assisting people and she would not answer any questions. Several times the managers that finally showed up promised us that they would get this flight out that they would not have a timed out crew. They lied to every single passenger that was supposed to board that plane. They wasted our time, and our money.After sitting in the BWI airport from 330pm to 1130pm our flight was cancelled and all the passengers were notified via email. Once the Spirit employees realized that we all knew, they left. The one remaining manager told us we all had to leave and that they were not going to accommodate the 300+ people that did not live in Maryland. They left all these people stranded with no where to go. They ruined birthdays, weddings, vacations, fathers day. When we all went to the ticket counter to get our refunds, we all asked for a manager to come so that we could speak with them. After waiting 2 hours, NO manager showed up. They were all scared of us. I recorded the whole thing from the time we received the cancelled flight information. I was in a public place and I have every right to record. I was told several times by the remaining manager that I was recording her illegally.
This company screws over their passengers and does nothing for us. They take our money and dont get us to our destinations. They are a bunch of crooks and I will NOT back down until this company gets what they deserve. They are horrible to customers and to VETERANS.
They wasted all of our time. And provided NOTHING.
The public needs to hear this and I am making sure they do. I contact the local news agency here in Baltimore and got them to air my story.
http://www.wbaltv.com/article/travelers-for-canceled-flight-say-spirit-airlines-left-them-in-dark/10044590
Thank you Bob for your meaningless words describing Spirits new and improved customer service!
I was one of your passengers scheduled for a non-stop flight from LAX to DTW on May 9, 17. I followed the status of the flight starting Sunday night and on the morning of May 9th my flight had been canceled.
I panicked as a result, I was going to nieces College Graduation and had to get there.
I purchased a round trip ticket on another airline.
Your company sent me an e-mail offering me a lousy $50.00 voucher on s future flight. My voucher is due to expire on 7/6/17 and I have been on the phone attempting to get the voucher extended, but no such luck.
I’m being told due to safety and Policies and Procedures my request is denied.
Let me remind you, my inability to fly with you had nothing to do with me. I didn’t miss the flight Spirit cancelled it. I can understand your Policies and Procedures enforcement if it were my fault.
I personally think your $50.00 voucher is a slap in the face for what I went through to get to Detroit after Your Service Failure !
I’ve not had great experiences with Spirit and had not flown your airline, I was asked by a family member to give it one more shot and you cancelled my flight.
And you claiming low cost as a differentiator, after purchasing a seat and paying for luggage, there is no difference in fares, you happen to have a non-stop opportunity from LAX to DTW.
I just want my lousy $50.00 voucher for a future flight extended if I choose to take advantage of it !
My name is Tonia Greenlee myself an my husband a four children flew out 7 25 2017 it was a good flight we took two checked bags going an my husband took a free bag on an so did all my children so thats 5 bags free going to Las Vegas my kids are 8 ,11,13 ,18 forst time flyers s0 we stay on our trip until 7 31 2017 on our return was the worst we were about to board the plane the lady said we could not take our carry on bags for free we had to go pay for them she 65 dollors a bag remind you we brung the same bags free comeing. Shes telling us this the time of boarding so im going out of my mind i didnt have any time to go pay for no bags. Remind you all my kids clothes an shoes are in these. Bags the ladies at spirit were not any help me an my husband were looseing are mind so we had to leave our luggage an so by us looseing our luggage my husband car keys are in the luggage so we get to the airport in Cleveland car park without keys to get back to Toledo an we were without money so i had to call my father to use his credit card for a lyft driver which cost him 177.95 an for the incovence of Spirt airelines my son coach have to pay for our luggage to get ship back here just because the inconvenience of spirit airline an my car is still at the 2 birds an a shuttle because we have to get a smart key made for his car we only had one key to the car this Airline need to be sham of themselves for what they took my famly through if anyone have any questions contact me at Tonia_Greenlee44@yahoo.com
I am being told that there are no refunds being made due to the effects of Hurricane Irma. That is pure nonsense! How incredibly rude! Husband and I purchased one way flights first thru Frontier to Orlando on Sept 9th and a return flight with Spirit from Orlando to Pittsburgh for Sept 15th! We work very hard, long hours for our money and with financial hardships along the way, we deserve better treatment!! We will never fly Spirit ever again and we will pass on our great dissatisfaction to all we meet. Frontier gave us a full refund! Here you are bragging what great customer service you have LOL. Try again!
Horrible services and unbelievably high baggage prices $125 for a 40 lb bag plus a small carry on. My first time flying with this airline and DEFINITELY my last. Have already told all of my friends about staying away from this airline. A total rip-off. Stay away, or you’ll be sorry. Consider yourself forewarned.
Since there is no way to contact anyone from Spirit and they provide little customer service I will post my email to Mr. Fornaro here. Maybe someone from Spirit can read it and care.
Hi Mr. Fornaro, I made a reservation on Spirit along with asking for a car, confirmation #WDIN3T. I found out I would not need the car and tried for over 3 hours this morning to talk to someone to cancel the car and in the end, I would have to cancel my entire reservation get charged $100 and start over just to cancel a $20 car reservation. The policy I can understand but to take over 3 hours to finally get to someone to get that answer and address my concern is ridiculous. Customer service appears to be a myth within your company, I will be surprised if I get a response from this email but please feel free to call or write, my information is below. Extremely disappointed.
Mike,
Did you ever get any response from Spirit on your issue? We have a situation where a few people were going to Haiti for a MISSION TRIP, that had to be cancelled on July 17th due to the Civil Unrest in that country and a travel advisory being issued. Spirit wouldn’t refund the tickets, though our GOVERNMENT has told all citizens NOT to travel to Haiti at this time. They simply offered a voucher that expires in 60 days. We don’t have additional plans at this time and definitely am not going to schedule a trip to one of the select locations that they fly simply to use this voucher in 60 days. This situation again was the result of unrest in a foreign country and our own governments advice. Yet, you can’t get in contact with anyone of importance at Spirit to echo your sentiments.
I’m a senior citizen who uses an umbrella stroller to push my bags around airports and in hotels. On my last flight from Atlantic City, an attendant at the gate told me to pay $65. or put my stroller by the trash can. I didn’t have the money so my vacation was essentially ruined because of back pains every day.
@SpiritAirlines THE SERVICE REPS AT LAS VEGAS AIRPORT FOR BAGGAGE CLAIM TOOK THE PHONE OFF LINE, THEY ARE NOT ANSWERING THE PHONE. I HAVE CALL THIS NUMBER 702-261-7875 50 TIMES AND NO ONE IS ANSWERING…
I see 2 years ago the CEO of Spirit Airlines promised better customer service. Here it is 2 years later and they still have no customer service and their total service still sucks. Because of my totally negative experience with them I am starting a totally negative AD campaign against the company and I am hoping to find as many people to help as possible. If anybody would like to help in the negative AD Campaign against Spirit Airlines please feel free to contact me and lets totally smear them negative to keep people off the airplanes spiritairliinesucks@
gmail.com