Budget carrier Spirit Airlines will challenge Delta Air Lines in Delta’s fortress Salt Lake City hub.
Spirit Airlines Adds Salt Lake City Flights
Later this spring, Spirit Airlines will launch new service from Salt Lake City (SLC), an airport that is dominated by Delta. In 2021, 11,181,940 flew through SLC. 6,213,734 of those were on Delta, a whopping 56%. Spirit hopes to find a niche in SLC with three initial new destinations:
- Las Vegas (LAS) – 2x daily service – begins May 26, 2022
- Los Angeles (LAX) – 1x daily service – begins May 26, 2022
- Orlando (MCO) – 1x daily service – begins May 26, 2022
With Delta’s dominance in Salt Lake City, fares tend to be higher. Spirit’s entrance to the market will be a force for good, provided the carrier clearly discloses its fee structure to potential customers.
Unlike Delta (even with basic economy fares), you pay extra for just about everything on Spirit. I applaud that business model, provided that consumers (who are used to bringing on larger carry-on items or not paying for a drink) are clear about the bargain.
While the limited service may not work for business travelers, leisure travelers may be enticed to choose Spirit over Delta if it results in substantial cost savings.
The even better news for consumers, though, is that Delta will likely respond by matching Spirit’s fares in an effort to push the carrier out (United Airlines did this to Frontier Airlines in Newark and Washington Dulles).
While Spirit’s operational reliability has improved after its summer meltdown and the carrier offers an attractive upsell to its “Big Front Seat“, if Delta matches Spirit you will be able to enjoy budget airline pricing on a full-service carrier.
Keep an eye on the fares of both Spirit and Delta.
CONCLUSION
Spirit Airlines will challenge Delta Air Lines in its own backyard, Salt Lake City. But Delta will certainly fight back. While neither carrier wins a fare war, consumers do. Look for attractive pricing between SLC and LAX, LAS, and MCO in the days ahead.
image: Tomás Del Coro
Spirit is like a Greyhound bus with wings. I think that the profile that flies Delta vs Spirit is very different but agree it might force Delta to reduce fares.
I would rather travel on Greyhound vice Spirit “airlines.” Too many uppity passengers on that carrier, especially on flights into and out of FL.
I’d bet on Delta to respond rather, shall we say vigorously, to this intrusion.
Though in fairness other “low fare” carriers like Southwest (who isn’t really low fare hence the quotes) and JetBlue have been in SLC for a while.
Salt Lake is basically the opposite of Ft. Lauderdale, and SLC residents just don’t seem like the Spirit type. These will probably be the quietest, least eventful Spirit flights in the system.
SLC is dominated by DL completely. Especially when it comes to international travel.
My prediction is that they will not respond to Spirit coming to SLC in any way beneficial to consumers. Delta would rather reduce their frequency to LAS etc. and let the bargain hunters be happy with Spirit.
I have never flown Spirit, but they started service to Puerto Vallarta where l live and a number of clients who do travel frequently have said they are 100% better the last year and in some cases better than the legacy carriers. Of course that’s all economy since they’re missing a cabin.
I agree that there has been a significant improvement in Spirit recently.
I fly them regularly from my home in Pennsylvania to the one in Florida and I always opt for the big seat. So it is not really all economy.
Latrobe airport is only ten miles from my home in Pennsylvania and Tampa airport is only seven miles from my home in Tampa. It is a two hour twenty minute nonstop flight. You can’t beat that.
Spirit also competes with Delta in other fortress Delta hubs such as Atlanta, Detroit, and Minneapolis-St Paul. I’m sure Spirit will find a niche.
I just flew Spirit from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale as I wanted to try it. I got the Big Front Seat, which was comfortable. Service was friendly and effcient, the coffee I had was good. Plane left on time and arrived early. The web site was pretty clear as to what was and what was not included in my fare. Overall I found the experience totally fine for a flight around that length. While I might not fly a transcon flight on Spirit, I’d consider them on anything up to 2.5/ 3 hours and do a full price benefit comparison vs others in the market. Also, I’d check to see if their schedule works. Overall, I was satisfied with my experience and wouldnt hesitate to book on them again.
You were able to book a Big Front Seat but do you think that your experience would have been different had the big seats been sold out and you had to sit further back in the plane with the common folk? If the big seat were not available would you have even taken this flight?
The problem with this is that Spirit is choosing to compete on already competitive routes, not routes that DL solely controls. Prices are already low between SLC and LAX, especially since JetBlue dumped LGB and moved to LAX. That route now has DL, AA, UA, B6, AS, WN, and now Spirit. I’d love to see them in one of the secondary LA airports, life was good with the B6 LGB option.
Similar route overlap exists with LAS and MCO