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Let's Buy Spirit Air

letsbuyspiritair.com

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Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#181

Post by hedora »

gtowey wrote: post #56
rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

Or they could actually charge ticket prices that cover the cost of doing business and stop treating their passengers like a it's a time-share sales pitch the whole way.

Southwest used to do this, but then somehow got a CEO that burnt it all down instead of raising ticket prices by $20-30.

Before them Alaska Air was similar, and is now similarly bad.

Having the customers actually own the airline seems like a reasonable approach. The trick is kicking all the assholes off the board, so they can’t fire leadership for treating customers decently while turning a sustainable profit.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#183

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

> Flights don't make money

Member-owned co-ops don't need to make money. Structuring an airline as a member-owned co-op is not a fundamentally-stupid idea.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#184

Post by tshaddox »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #176
gorgoiler wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more fair assessment would be: company runs a utility => they need to be a regulated utility! The core part of air travel doesn’t really feel any different to a bus or metro or train. Off the tarmac then yes it absolutely feels like a Verizon store, as does some of the in-flight service, but there’s always been this weird feeling as a traveler that every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decals…

Have you ever flown spirit or any of the other ultra low cost carriers? It very much is a different experience than flying a legacy domestic mainline carrier. I’m not alone amongst people i know who will happily fly the cheap seats on United/Delta/AA but won’t even look at a ticket from Spirit or Frontier even at a significant discount. Compare it to a flag carrier like Singapore air and it is a shockingly different…

I’ve flown Spirit and Frontier several times, and Southwest many times (I know they’re not quite in the same category, especially after their recent changes). I genuinely don’t know what you’re referring to regarding the experience being wildly different. Other than a few quirks about what they do and don’t charge for and how they board and assign seats, I feel like there’s almost no meaningful difference between these and legacy carriers like United and American. I honestly don’t even feel like the prices are consistently that different.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#185

Post by jmspring »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #176
gorgoiler wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more fair assessment would be: company runs a utility => they need to be a regulated utility! The core part of air travel doesn’t really feel any different to a bus or metro or train. Off the tarmac then yes it absolutely feels like a Verizon store, as does some of the in-flight service, but there’s always been this weird feeling as a traveler that every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decals…

Have you ever flown spirit or any of the other ultra low cost carriers? It very much is a different experience than flying a legacy domestic mainline carrier. I’m not alone amongst people i know who will happily fly the cheap seats on United/Delta/AA but won’t even look at a ticket from Spirit or Frontier even at a significant discount. Compare it to a flag carrier like Singapore air and it is a shockingly different…

You state an opinion, but not why for that opinion. I’m mostly stuck with Alaska or a small handful being a couple hours north of Seattle and driving to/dealing with SeaTac is not fun. In the caliber you said you wouldn’t travel includes aliegent.

I’ve not flown them and stick to Alaska and the local puddle jumpers to get off the island.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#186

Post by asvitkine »

AlexandrB wrote: post #143
acheron wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a good way to lose all your customers to the other airlines that charge less.

Yup, and this is exacerbated by how services like Google Flights work. There's little visibility into any kind of "quality" metric, but prices are always front and center. So why would you optimize based on anything else?

If the lowest prices cause insolvency for the company, then let your competitors go bankrupt to win in the long run?

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#187

Post by roncesvalles »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #75
rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

> "Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments." If that's the case then how RyanAir survived and is thriving?

Because it's nonsense. It's from some YouTube video that went viral a few years ago.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#188

Post by hedora »

4k0hz wrote: post #89
rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

Airlines were heavily regulated in the US and essentially operated as government contractors until 1978 [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Aeronautics_Board

As I understand it, everything about the industry was better back then too.

Case in point: Old Perry Mason shows where characters regularly drive to the airport, pay for a ticket and get on a plane. Flying was actually faster than driving back then, even when measured by time between deciding to leave and arriving at destination!

(Yes, tickets used to cost a bit more. Whatever. Figure in the price for camping in the airport for 4-5 hours, and then tell me the current system is cheaper!)

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#190

Post by [deleted] »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #176
gorgoiler wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more fair assessment would be: company runs a utility => they need to be a regulated utility! The core part of air travel doesn’t really feel any different to a bus or metro or train. Off the tarmac then yes it absolutely feels like a Verizon store, as does some of the in-flight service, but there’s always been this weird feeling as a traveler that every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decals…

Have you ever flown spirit or any of the other ultra low cost carriers? It very much is a different experience than flying a legacy domestic mainline carrier. I’m not alone amongst people i know who will happily fly the cheap seats on United/Delta/AA but won’t even look at a ticket from Spirit or Frontier even at a significant discount. Compare it to a flag carrier like Singapore air and it is a shockingly different…

[deleted]
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