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Let's Buy Spirit Air

letsbuyspiritair.com

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Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#201

Post by sodafountan »

thehappypm wrote: post #44
notepad0x90 wrote: post #24

I could easily afford any of their competitors but I always picked Spirit airlines. The pricing makes sense, pay more if you need more things. I liked Spirit because it was more akin to riding the bus, I got treated well every time by their staff and the experience was fairly consistent. Other airlines also have cramped sits, what little they did better than Spirit isn't worth the price, and the experience was incons…

Spirit seemed to enjoy making their customers hate them. everyone who liked Spirit had to explain themselves (like you did) because their reputation was awful. It was a trainwreck of a brand.

My friends used to joke that it was like flying in a tin can, or that the wheels would fall off mid-flight. The jokes were endless.

I liked Spirit, though, great cost savings, and I didn't mind the minor inconveniences that came with it.

Aside from being known for being a cheap airline, the brand itself was pretty solid... I think it had everything working to its advantage. The bright yellow exteriors of the planes, a catchy name. I think people knew exactly what Spirit was and what they offered, which is the sign of a good brand.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#202

Post by _jackdk_ »

Nican wrote: post #47

I remember reading about how the major airlines now are more of a "bank that happens to have planes," due to the loyalty programs being worth significantly more than the airline. Delta Air Lines earned $8.2 billion from American Express in 2025, surpassing ticket sales revenue. [1] I primarily use my favorite's airlines credit card because it gives me perks such as priority seating, and free checked bags. I am pretty…

> I am pretty certain that the credit card fees (that is passed on to the merchant) does not come close to the value that I gain for my credit card loyalty.

Generally it's the interchange fees that fund reward programs (charged between banks), not the merchant fee.

https://stripe.com/au/resources/more/interchange-fees-101-wh...

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#203

Post by RajT88 »

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…

My company travel tool won't even let me book Spirit without it being flagged to HR.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#205

Post by pm90 »

The real solution should be a massive intercity bullet train program that connects major transit hubs, like the interstate highway buildout. The massive infrastructure spend would kickstart the US economy and provide thousands of jobs.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#207

Post by Conan_Kudo »

missedthecue wrote: post #196
hedora wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Yes, tickets used to cost a bit more" Tickets used to cost 4-8x what they cost now, depending on route. It wasn't a couple percent extra. A lot of what made flying seem like such a glamorous activity was that everyone but the upper classes was excluded. An economy class round trip from the US to Japan in the 1970s with Pan-Am was $8,900 in 2026 dollars. About $15,000 if you flew first class.

And for comparison, today you can do an economy round-trip flight with Delta Air Lines for roughly $1.6k (SEA-HND). A Delta One flight is roughly $8.5k. That's the apples-to-apples comparison.

Deregulation also allowed international carriers to sell to us too. An ANA round-trip on economy class is a couple hundred dollars cheaper. Their business class is similarly cheaper than Delta One.

Air travel is so much cheaper than it was back then that it is affordable for most people to take one international trip a year if they really want to. Even to exotic places in Asia or Southern Europe.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#208

Post by bravoetch »

pm90 wrote: post #205

The real solution should be a massive intercity bullet train program that connects major transit hubs, like the interstate highway buildout. The massive infrastructure spend would kickstart the US economy and provide thousands of jobs.

Why do people want to generate jobs? I'd rather generate a jobless utopia where we all do art.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#209

Post by card_zero »

bigyabai wrote: post #169
jmalicki wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you educate the rest of us by explaining your reasoning?

Companies like John-Deere should be able to survive without abusing their downstream customers. Many farmers are importing tractors from China because they're cheap and not hostile to repair like JD is. Some people might call it a "smart business model" to sell interdependent services, but in the long-term it's suicide. Whether or not you solve this through regulation, that's up to you.

It would be nice if companies could commit suicide faster, instead of dragging it out over several decades.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#210

Post by striking »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #112
striking wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the amount anyone would actually pay is substantially below cost for most routes, but it's still a service that many people depend on (either directly or by the indirect economic impact of travel). It's a genuine force multiplier that is unaffordable without being subsidized; making it a utility would just shift the subsidy from credit card points programs to the government.

If airlines didn’t exist, people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years. There’s nothing magical about air travel (or any other transport mode) that makes it worthy of subsidy .

Listen, I'm the type of fella who'd gladly take the Amtrak from the East Bay to Portland, 18 hours each way, and I'm telling you even I'd do so only as a novelty. If I actually had somewhere to be, spending basically an entire day on a train would be a non-starter. And that's just on the same coast! If I had to take the Amtrak back east to see my family for the holidays I would probably just not go. My travel to the other coast (not to mention back to the country where I was born, an additional ocean's worth of distance) would only be worth the trip for like a life change or a death in the family.

I'm clearly not the only one who thinks so, judging by both Amtrak ridership statistics and the cost ineffective nature of my attempts to travel on it.

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