A Live And Let’s Fly reader reached out concerning an incident with Spirit Airlines. It sounded somewhat far-fetched, but I spoke to him about it and he quickly convinced me this incident really did happen at a Spirit Airlines ticket counter at Pittsburgh International Airport. He then sent me the written report below. All I can say is wow…what a clueless agent and supervisor…
Spirit Airlines Agent At Ticket Counter In Pittsburgh Refuses To Ticket Reservation, Then Agent Calls Cops On Passenger Who Complained
I recently went to the airport to purchase tickets at the Spirit Airlines counter. It was getting late but I checked the schedule and it was prior to the last departure when I approached the counter. Before I could reach the desk, an agent said “Counter’s closed.” I clarified that the last flight hadn’t left yet and pulled it up on my phone. “It pushed early, you can come back and buy tickets tomorrow morning starting at 3:30 AM.” As she said this, a radio voice came on saying that they were looking for the last luggage of the night and that the hold door hadn’t closed. I stared at her a moment, didn’t raise my voice, but was calm and asked to buy a ticket. She repeated her stance and I walked away. She remained at the counter with a passenger awaiting his wallet which was left onboard one of the planes, she wasn’t going home yet.
As I walked away about 30 feet from the counter, I thought about sharing this experience with you and took a photo of the counter which would also create a timestamp on the photo. I turned back to walk away when I was called from behind. I couldn’t tell if she was calling me, maybe she changed her mind. I came closer, she continued to call me back. Great, I can book my trip.
“You need to delete that photo, you don’t have my permission.” She said.
“Ma’am, we are in a public building. You have no expectation of privacy in public.” I replied.
“I have my badge on with sensitive information, and you need my permission. If you don’t delete it, I’m calling 911.”
I remained calm, orderly, and polite but firm.
“I’m not deleting it-” she was already on the phone with the police.
Halfway through her call, her manager, McKenzie, appeared. He asked what was going on, the desk agent said I took a photo of her without her permission.
“Sir, you can’t do that.”
“I can, we are in public, I can take a photo of anything my eye can see.”
“This is a federal building and if you don’t delete it, we will call the police. Delete it or we will call them.” He said. She clarified she was already on with the police.
“Federal buildings are by definition, public, do what you have to do.”
He asked for the phone from the agent, spoke with the police, and they ended the call. The four of us (the guy just waiting for his wallet), the agent, McKenzie, and myself stood there for ten minutes in near silence while we waited for the police to arrive. I could have deleted it, I could have just gone home but at that point, it was about more than the initial attitude.
Four police officers walked through the door, approached us – again, everything was really calm, relaxed and peaceful. One started speaking with her, McKenzie busied himself in the back office. Two others stood with me. One asked, “Do you have any identification?”
“I do, but I don’t think I’m required to give it to you,” I replied.
“We have to fill out a report, so we need your name.” I gave them my first name. Still wanting the ID, he said, “If you haven’t done anything wrong, why not give me your ID?”
“If I haven’t done anything wrong, why would you need it?” I said. At this point the second officer politely asked as well stating it makes their job easier, I politely declined and that was that.
They made small chit chat for awhile, and I gave general answers. I was being nice but I had no duty to talk to them at all.
The officer interviewing the desk agent came over to me. “We got a call of a disorderly passenger.”
“Do I look like a disorderly passenger?” I asked.
“She said you took a picture of her badge with security information on it.” I didn’t and told him as much, and then clarified, “We are in public, right?” All the officers agreed. “Then I can take any photos I like, right?” They agreed. He asked why I was taking a photo of her badge, and I stated I was 30 feet away and then pointed to the 20 or so cameras overhead. “You can check the tape if you want.”
I then said, “I’ll tell you what. I’m not deleting the picture, but I will show you the photo. If you can see her badge in the photo, I’ll not only delete it but I’ll apologize for it.” I showed him the photo. It was clear that I was telling the truth. I then even zoomed in where her badge is blocked by a computer monitor.
“Have a good night sir, you’re free to go.”
I had no intention of causing a problem. The truth is that the agent lied about the flight being gone and didn’t want to take the ten minutes to issue my ticket, even though she would be there as long with the guy waiting for his wallet. The manager, quick to defend his employee instead of ask me what was happening, assumed she was correct that you can’t take photos of their employees. This may be true on their airplanes, but that’s no longer a public building. He was misinformed.
Further, he could have just resolved the situation by ticketing me himself, but he chose not to. In fact, he never asked to even see the photo. What started out as the agent not wanting to be photographed, turned into me trying to crack their security without even seeing if I had taken a photo at all. They never saw it. And as a further aside, if the information on their badges are privileged, why do they have them out and visible to the public? If I had come in 20 minutes earlier, and noted the information on the badge while I was being ticketed, would the sensitive information be visible? If so, what if someone with bad intentions wanted to use that information? Wouldn’t that be a terrible policy for any airline to have?
This is a case of someone wanting to go home early and management that didn’t ask or care. They were very quick to call the police and as I had done nothing wrong, I was happy to quietly wait for the police to come and educate them on what is and is not permitted in public. McKenzie had asked the agent to make an “incident report” so I’m glad I had not given my name in the process. That said, they all could have done better but I was grateful that the police that showed up respected my rights and knew the law. Hopefully, now the staff does too.
A couple thoughts. The published Spirit Airlines ticket counter hours in PIT are from 3:30 am to 5:00 pm. However, this incident took place after 9:00 pm. Does that mean the passenger was at fault? No, it simply means that Spirit Airlines has not updated its ticket counter hours on its website (and why it says all published times are subject to change). Second, if the agent was just standing there and would be for a while, why not just ticket the reservation? I’m sympathetic to the passenger here, even if the police were not needlessly called.
STOP F-ING FLYING SPIRIT. When are you people going to learn. There is never anything good that can come from flying that dumpster fire of an airline. Do you people not understand the definition of insanity? How many incidents between their typical clientele and their employees do you need to realize that your money is better spent elsewhere?
The passenger is equally impolite , and not a little inconsiderate for arriving so late for the last flight .
The passenger wasn’t at the airport to fly, but to buy a ticket at the counter for a future flight, as it’s the only way to avoid Spirit’s online booking fee.
You are correct . But Why would anyone go to an airport at night to buy a ticket just as the counter was closing , and the last flight was leaving , and not wish to be on the flight ? I have only ever bought a ticket at an airport when I was departing that same night . And I have tried to always be meek and apologetic of anyone of whom I was asking for help , especially the agent , the manager and the police . Perhaps none of them understood why he simply didn’t come during regular hours ? Also Important , I hope the other passenger was successful in retrieving his lost wallet .
In my experience buying tickets at the Spirit counter, it’s easier to buy tickets at the end so the ticket agents can focus on checking in the passengers for the flight. A few times I’ve been asked to wait until everyone is checked in before purchasing a ticket because they were shortstaffed. That doesn’t mean the end of the night, but usually about an hour before departure is best all around.
Read much? Or just every couple months?
Both were impolite . The check-in agent was not very polite : she could have made a humorous comment such as , “perhaps a little late for the last flight , eh ” The passenger was not very p0lite : he could have made a humorous reply such as , “I’m an Olympic runner and I can make it to the gate” . In addition , the passenger was not very polite with the police : he could have made a humorous comment such as : “I apologize if you were called ; the phone took a photo of the lobby all by itself ; I will delete the photo , and punish the phone if you wish” . These entitled people have no sense of humor or cordiality .
Something doesn’t smell correct. You just basically copy and pasted here. I seriously doubt the passenger was calm and the gate agent who even the person writing this was already busy didn’t want to sell this person a ticket tomorrow? Yeah common sense shows the person who wrote this wasn’t fully honest here
I’m not sure I agree with that. But doesn’t Spirit do online ticketing? I mean why not just purchase direct and not deal with these people?
I believe Spirit charges a fee to buy a ticket online. The cheapest is to buy at the airport well before the date of the flight and check in online.
So I guess the commenter in question didn’t want to pay the fee? I’m not condoning the spirit response, but it is spirit afterall. It seems like all of this could have been avoided on multiple levels based on the story.
You’re just as clueless as the Spirit Airlines employees. Don’t make assumptions about things you “think” you know to be correct. The author clearly has no gain in lying about what had happened and I personally know that Spirit Airline sucks so go somewhere else with your ignorance.
Trust me, this lady is a witch! She caused my husband and I to miss a flight, and an entire day at our resort in Cancun! We could not get the bagtags to print for us, went to the counter, after waiting in line a long time. She said to get back over there and print our tickets. We tried again, I walked back to the counter to tell her it wasn’t working, and she would not allow me to say anything!!! Not one word, and said to get back to the endbof the line! We waited, again, through the long line, and again asked for assistance. One of her coworkers attempted to assist us, but then she said “pin” had already closed now, and we were too late for our flight. Her coworker asked us to please report her, because thus happens with her all the time. Her coworker’s assisted us into rebooking, flying into somewhere else, and on into Camcun the next day. When we came back, she said oh, you are the couple that missed your flight to Ft. Lauderdale earlier, I said no, we are the couple that were refused assistance on our way to Cancun for our 35th Anniversary. She said she wasn’t aware we had a connecting flight…and that sometimes things happen. Her nasty reminder changed like a flip of a switch! Thus is the 2nd time we have had issues with the same lady!! The first time she called security on us because we had a delayed flight, that was cancelled, we were taken to a hotel, taken back the next day to her telling us that somehow out flight got canceled. And there is no way today, to purchase a ticket for yesterday’s flight. Said the flight was not at even 50% capacity but noway it was going to happen. I told her we had hotel, car arrangements and tickets for a college football game that we had already paid for, and again asked to be put on the flight…then she called the authorities on my husband and I…and neither of us would ever treat anyone in a negative way. I think she remembered us, and purposely did this the second time! Bad when your coworker’s beg for people to report you!!
At some point airports are going to need to set up permanent police presence at Spirit counters and gates. They must get called so often there that the airport should start billing them extra.
With all due respect to the reader, the only people in this story who look good are (amazingly) the police, who seem to have calmly diffused this situation as best as possible while also respecting the reader’s rights.
With respect to the reader, if I understand the story right, I’m not sure showing up as they’re loading the last bags for the last flight of the night, and expecting to be able to ticket at the counter is reasonable. Check-in closes 45 minutes before departure — to me, after that point, any time is fair game to close the counter, no? And taking a picture of the ticket counter agent, while seemingly legally defensible, is nevertheless an aggressive action that is obviously meant to be used against the agent (in this case, on a blog!).
Obviously the agent and manager overreacted. Not much more needs to be said about the absurdity of getting law enforcement involved. I am somewhat sympathetic to the fact that Spirit agents probably have to put up with a lot of aggressive behavior, but at the end of the day that’s the job.
Good on the reader for standing up for his rights. And he’s probably quite right that not giving his name avoided potential consequences from Spirit, right or wrong.
The passenger wasn’t at the airport to fly, but to buy a ticket at the counter for a future flight, as it’s the only way to avoid Spirit’s online booking fee.
Why don’t people get this?
We (or most of us) do get it.
The “passenger” (not a passenger) was using “the last flight of the night hasn’t left yet” as the reason for why the agent should have to sell the ticket for a future flight. And if the ticket counter was open checking in passengers, that would be one thing. My point is that Spirit doesn’t run a 24 hour ticketing desk, and “check-in is closed on the last flight of the day so we’re done at the counter”, and with it being after 9 PM, seems a pretty reasonable basis for the Spirit agent to tell this person they’re closed and to come back another day. They have to close some time?
Agree . It is more than a little gauche to be demanding at closing time .
Oh boo hoo! Stop being so sensitive. Anyone in a public area is allowed to take a video/picture of whatever they damn please. Don’t go in public if you want privacy. Learn the damn laws before you comment. The author was making a point to educate the airline agents about what they can and can’t do. People are so quick to call the police for the dumbest things when they have more important things to worry about. As well should you.
“I had no intention of causing a problem.”
Naw, you woke up and definitely chose violence, lmao. Seriously, if this story was true, would any normal person would escalate to this extent?
I swear, I’m starting to believe people book Spirit for the explicit purpose of looking for a fight.
JetBlue will have their hand full trying to integrate that terrible company into theirs! Clean house and hire all new ground staff! Better yet contractors lol
If you book sprit, this is what you will get. Plus a great price. is it worth it? that’s a personal decision.
It’s not a great price really. It’s relatively good, after the fees.
After all of the hassle and the missing “convenience” (like being able to have actual luggage or a non-canceled flight), it might cost more. All airlines rob you, Spirit just does it more creatively.
Wow, I can’t believe how many commenters seem to defend the behavior of Spirit Airlines and their employee at the airport.
The incident exists because of Spirit’s unscrupulous business practices. They charge an unreasonably high fee for purchasing your ticket online. There is no reason for this fee whatsoever other than to mislead with their ticket pricing. Online is by far the cheapest way for Spirit to issue tickets, at the airport is the most costly way for them to do it. So they let their employees be recalcitrant and unhelpful because they really don’t want to sell tickets at the airport. Frankly the problem would be easily solved if they stopped having an extra charge for a required part of selling a ticket. Yes, they may have to bundle that into the fare, and even pay a tax on it. But you can’t sell the flight without the ticket.
The only reason it’s free to buy at the airport is because they think that it’s sufficiently inconvenient that most people won’t bother. They have to have a way to sell a ticket without a fee so that they can call the fee optional.
But when someone goes to the trouble of going to the airport, for chrissakes, just sell them the ticket, don’t pull a bait and switch and punish them.
And this nonsense of employees who don’t want to be identified and held accountable for their behavior. Who are allowed to make up rules and call the police. When you are in public, people can take photos. It’s as simple as that. The police should charge the agent who called them a fee just like they do for a false burglar alarm.
There is an insanely simple fix for this. Stop flying spirit. They will die on the vine, as they should. Instead, people still continue putting up with this egregious behavior. That’s not a defense of spirit, this is flatly putting the ball in the court it lies. Which is with the customers still insanely supporting this company.
Amen!
So is Carl the reader in question?
Nope. I’ve never flown Spirit and I’m not likely to.
I don’t like their policies and business practices.
But if a customer wants to purchase a ticket under their policies, sell them the ticket if the counter is open, and don’t invent silly rules that preclude documenting the interaction.
Galoot, why would you be apologetic. They aren’t “helping” or doing you a favor, they’re operating a business who’s sole purpose is to take your money in exchange for transportation.
Sounds like a first amendment frauditor. Exact same script.
The counter has published hours for ticketing, which you have referenced.
This person wanted to save $10 and decided to escalate by provoking reactions.
Do you think standing up for one’s first amendment rights is wrong?
Why on earth do you support allowing Spirit to flaunt its rules and abuse customers?
I fly Spirit frequently because I find incredible value in it. And I’ve never had any problem with its policies or rules. There are hours for ticketing and that’s that. Other airlines do the same. Allegiant and Breeze lock it down to only onc or two times a week for an hour or two, regardless of if they have flights or not.
I also find it perturbing that people like yourself have this foaming at the mouth hatred and don’t even have experience with flying them. You gullibly take every single story or social media about something bad and get wrapped up in it. It’s somewhat funny I guess.
Was the agent rude here? Could they have communicated better? Yes. They should have told the customer that the counter is not currently open for ticket sales and told them what time they could return (as is published on the website). Many Spirit locations will sell any time they can as a courtesy, or even have a separate counter for ticket sales (FLL, DFW, ACY, MCO come to mind). But that doesn’t mean they all will do so outside of their specified hours.
Was the customer right? No, they decided to be antagonistic and take it as far as they could to elicit reaction and response, stopping short of possibly getting tossed from the building. Good to the police for deescalating.
Airline company ID and Airport SIDA badges do not contain visible sensitive security information. What is sensitive is the chip used to open doors into the sterile area of the airport.
The employees of that airline are proving to be cut from the same cloth as the passengers.
To all the people who go the airport to buy their Spirit tickets to save up to $23, seriously? Unless you are already at the airport, surely it is not worth the trouble?
So, the Pittsburg airport ticket counter is in a “Federal Building”?
That seems kinds strange, no?
And all federal buildings are open to the public for unrestricted photography?
This is one of those situations where it’s hard to tell what either party was trying to accomplish.
If the counter agent is within her authority to close the counter, then she shouldn’t be worried about informing the customer that the counter was closed.
As for the customer, it would have saved everyone a lot of time to say “If the concern is your badge, your badge isn’t visible in any of the photos. If I show you the photos and your badge isn’t visible, will you tell the police that the problem here is resolved?”
I am sympathetic to an employee pointing out that the business is no longer doing new bookings at the counter for the evening and holding to that, if that is indeed the company’s policy or practice in that location.
While the customer may have only intended to document the time and status of the counter at the time of the service denial, it’s understandable to me why an employee might view someone taking a picture of them in such a situation as antagonistic.
The time of the last departure and the hours for ticketing are not related. The hours posted for the ticket counter are what should be referred to. The customer arrived with a false expectation. However that doesn’t excuse the rude and ignorant airline agent.
If you go to a restaurant after posted hours, there may be patrons finishing their meal and cooks in the kitchen, but they aren’t going to seat you for dinner at that point.
@ Matthew — Keep the Spirit bad press coming. The more that people think they are so awful, the lower BFS fares I can buy.
And this is why, I will likely never fly Spirit Airlines by choice.
Unfortunately, customer service in this country has completely fallen apart. Imagine this happening in SIN, NRT, and LHR etc. – not a chance
You repeated yourself in the headline. ‘Clueless’ and ‘Spirit Agent’ are synonyms.
LOL – nice one
Of all of the replies, the most sensible one has been “Don’t fly Spirit airlines”.
+1
You show up after the counter closed which is like showing up to a restaurant after they’ve closed. No one wants to serve you. Agents close a flight out after the flight has been closed by verifying those boarded with those ticketed. It’s not so easy to RE-open a computer system that’s been closed out at the end of their shift. Think about rebooting & signing in on a work computer. But for him to continue to be incessant & then taking the picture, sorry but he’s a jerk. He should have let them finish what they were doing & just come back another day.
The counter was not closed…I think that’s the part that isn’t clear. It’s not closed just because the website is out of date.
But why do you say it was not closed? Because somebody was there? It can be closed to ticket sales or doing anything other than the agent finishing up closing tasks. Wal-Mart’s service desk closes before the store does in many occasions. If you come in for a return after the desk closes, but the store is still open for shopping, do they have to assist you? No. Should they if they can? Perhaps.
There are people who go to Spirit counters to buy tickets and tie up an agent for an hour easily, wanting to shop for tickets, trying different permutations of dates/times/cities. That’s why they specify hours for it… just like many other airlines do.
Your point about Walmart makes no sense. Do you go to Walmart and see people behind the customer service desk when it’s closed.. No! So clearly there was someone behind the counter at the airport meaning it was open still. If they’re closed then no one should have been standing there.
And the same goes for SouthWest and the problems caused by their free-for-all seating policy and nasty gate agents. Spirit, Southwest, American, and Frontier all all on my no-fly list.
The title of this article should be, rather, “Clueless Spirit Airlines Passenger Causes Ruckus in PIT”.
And it is surprising that LALF is defending the passenger without hearing the other side first.
Apparently, the customer doesn’t have a clue about how aviation works. It isn’t like buying a bus ticket. Flights close 1 hour before departure. The check-in counter closes at specified hours. In order to buy future tickets you have to come back the next day. Why? Because the next day, future flights will OPEN. The hold door (not “holding” door) is the aircraft’s door, NOT the check in counter. The last flight hadn’t departed yet but the counter was already closed, as the passengers of the last flight had checked-in and were now boarding. The agent was also busy assisting another passenger with a more pressing issue than the customer’s. Again: the check-in counter was closed, not the flight. There’s a difference.
Spirit Airlines agents are actually prepared during training for aggressive customers, of which there are many. These passengers tend to shout, demand to know the agent’s name, and take pictures for reference, so they can go complain to management. The customer took a picture of the agent for LALF, but the agent must have believed they were doing so with an intent to go to management or post it on social media. An airport may be a public place, but you can’t take photos of someone without their permission – it’s abusive. The customer’s faulty logic – ” I can take a photo of anything my eye can see” – would mean that one could take photos of someone’s backside just as well as they could take photos of a skybridge. There’s a difference between a skybridge and a person.
Despite the customer’s belief they had “done nothing wrong”, they were quite insolent to the police. Police are police, and this customer was refusing to give their name and ID to the police. Sassy remarks notwithstanding, the police still had to fill out a report and they needed ID to do so. This customer, who minutes before was insisting that the agent couldn’t expect privacy in a public place, is now protecting his/her own privacy in a public place. Interesting.
The agent’s ID badge has her name and date of hire. It is possible the agent’s badge included a BCAD card, which is needed to access sensitive areas of the airport. Though the picture didn’t include the badge, she couldn’t be expected to know that, and the customer didn’t tell her otherwise.
The agent didn’t “lie about the flight being gone” – she said the counter was closed. Again, difference. And she couldn’t just open up her computer and book a flight after hours – she has a job, you know, with rules she must abide by to stay in her position. She was doing something else. Just because she’s going to hang out by the counter for a little while longer doesn’t mean she can circumvent the rules for a very full-of-themselves customer. They could have just booked online, or called Spirit Reservations. (The tax for online bookings, by the way, is how Spirit stays afloat selling $23 one-way trips to New York).
Of course, it can only be expected that Americans will have to stand up for their rights. Would the Founding Fathers have really imagined this to be the result of the Declaration of Independence? I would also like to point out, many of Spirit’s employees are minorities – African-Americans, Hispanics, etc. Could this have slightly influenced the customer’s rather confrontational behavior?
Just some food for thought from a former flight attendant.
To LALF – I do not understand how a respected publication on aviation like yourselves only sees one side of the story, publishing some reader’s late-night sissy fight as an article. Really? That’s news now? That’s not news, that’s gossip. Be professional.
@Anonymous … Very Well Said . Rational logic . Thank you for your former service as a flight attendant .
As numerous USA law enforcement auditors on the WWW have pointed out, unless a USA law enforcement agents have an articulable reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or that a crime is about to be committed law enforcement agents have no justifiable need to demand that a person engaged in simple photography or videography in a public space, which the common typical airline ticketing/luggage check counters are, show government issued identification cards or documents. The report that the law enforcement agents need to file on their attendance at an incident scene can simply include a written description of the person or an HD still/screen grab from the body cameras/helmet cameras that they wear.
Friend David … The late Bobby Fischer , world chess champion , decided to not give his name to the police , and he ended up in jail until he did so . His story is on the internet . Uncooperativeness with the police is a dumb idea . The police do not wake up in the morning with a plan to unfairly ask for a subject’s name . They wake up with the idea of doing their job , and avoid hassles . We owe it to the police to cooperate with them , to make their job a little easier . Thanks .
No, you are poorly informed. I would know, my father was a New York State law enforcement agent. His nickname was “Johnny Love” because he would not join in with other officers in misreporting how members of the community under their care came to have various injuries. His Commanding Officer tried to have my father put on ‘desk duty’ for not falling in-line with what the department was doing. What is more; I myself faced a serious accusation of criminal behavior, that if true would merit a long prison sentence. The New York State Investigator assigned to the case (Tracy Butler) asked me to visit her NYS Troop D office to ‘review’ new evidence against me. That turned in to a four hour interrogation session with all the professionalism of the Spanish Inquisition. Did you know that here in the US, law enforcement has the legal right to lie to you even if it means collecting a false confession? Ultimately I was never arrested or charged with any crime. In the end ALL Police (yes, even the ones that seem to be nice) are looking for another ‘notch in their belt’ and if it comes at the expense of your rights, so be it.
Lol, this guy showed up more than four hours after their published ticketing hours, and more than 7 hours after their published “preferred ticketing hours” (8am-2pm) and still acts entitled when they won’t sell him a ticket.
Stories not dissimilar from this are the primary reason I won’t even try Spirit. While the Big Front Seat would be acceptable to me for a shorter haul if the price were right, I walk by the Spirit counter at DFW frequently and I see the attitude described here. The GAs look unhappy. The pax look like sardines. The entire experience just looks like it’s awful. I read stories like this, half dressed FL pax aside (like last week) and brawls in MIA aside (like always), the unprofessional attitudes that are more common than not, and that I see more often than not are enough to tell me I’d rather pay a bit more. People dog AA all the time, but it is a rare moment I walk up to an AA counter and smile and use basic manners that I don’t get treated in kind.
I don’t really care about right or wrong. Good story. Well told,
What a ridiculous airline!
IF your airline requires the income that comes from charging potential customers a fee for using your ticket/reservation website, like you’re going back to the time when dial up modems and dial up Internet was a big new thing, then you’ve failed ! Close down your sad corporation and take up paper kite flying.
All this to save $20?
It’s not like he was buying a ticket at the gate, but at the ticket/check in counter. And it’s not like the agent didn’t know about the on-line fee. To me, it appears the agent was too lazzzy or didn’t want to be bothered. I understand the supervisor covering for the agent, but still, a customer is a customer!!
Also, on-line purchases save any corporation a fortune compared to having someone physically process a transaction. If cash is involved, then someone has to make a deposit at the bank or get a cash truck to come by. How greedy can you be.
I have pithy on B6 trying to reform this bunch should the merger go thru!!! Bad habits and poor mindsets are the hardest to get rid of.
The gate agent tried to use the force and violence of government against a non-violent, non-abusive, law-abiding passenger. So no, they were not equally “impolite.” Stop with that BS.
You should only fly Spirit if you expect the absolute worst — don’t check a bag, pay for the big front seat, only fly direct, show up very early, and play the fee game. And yes, it actually works out sometimes and you end up saving hundreds if you’re not concerned with punctual arrival.
Why does anyone still book on this “airline”? I haven’t used them in over twenty five years since they charged me double to check a bag. Once online when I made the reservation and again at the street when I was dropped off. They are the lowest of the low and you get what you bargained for. I am sorry to have wasted many hours trying to get it righted. That’s when I learned my lesson and untold thousands later they’re not even a consideration.
I took them direct from Houston to Guatemala this year (first time since 2019) since my friend (and my translator) chose them to go see his dad. I booked the big front seat, ordered some booze, brought only my small backpack, and enjoyed the heck out of the flight. FAs were friendly. The flight was of course hours late but I was in no hurry. To their credit, they were planning a flight across the gulf as a tropical storm was swirling so the delay was due to weather.
I saved $300. I would only fly Spirit if I didn’t need a carryon or checked bag, didnt care about being late, and didnt need to connect.