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Let's Buy Spirit Air

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211–220 of 628 posts

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not op but I also agree with the framing assuming you add “and they provide a vital service” to both. If a vital service is being used to extract profits it should be regulated so that equal access to the vital service can be provided. If a vital service is being provided but cannot make money it should be regulated so that it can be sustained since it is vital. Now what is vital? Is Spirit vital? That’s the hard to…

1. "We want to have this, but we don't want to pay for it!" 2. "We won't pay for this, but we still want to have it!" These are of course both fair points. Why should we "pay for" things, what's that all about? We should just naturally have the natural things that we naturally want, supplied by pixies.

I think they're both actually "We want to have this, but we don't want to pay too much for it just so a CEO can make 10,000x their workers and potentially ALSO still lose money."

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#212
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.

Check out the etymology of “utopia”

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

The two main differences are more armchair lawyering required to avoid fees (legacy carrier is often not going to put your bag in the dimension bin, but the Spirits and Frontiers of the world certainly will) and having to sit through three sales pitches instead of one on the legacy airlines. I think Delta is the only legacy carrier in the States that doesn't do obnoxious sales pitches - only the food cart upsell. Ryanair will come through with their hands out minimally three times since last time I rode them (though it's been several years, is it four now?)

One other difference I can think of is that carry-ons are more rarely included in the base fare in the budget airlines than the legacy airlines, though maybe that has also gone away since the changes where bags must be included in the listed price that Southwest pushed for.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#215
We can barely make an mmo with a bunch of kickstarters who threw in 50 bucks 5 years ago complaining about “the excessive money they laid out” squeaky wheeling the games to death, this is going to be even worse.

Great idea in theory but…

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who really doesn't care what kind of service I get on a plane? I don't drink alcohol, so I don't care about that. I bring my own water bottle, so I'm good on that. The little bags of pretzels are nice, but if they stood at the front and launched them out of a t-shirt cannon, I'd be good with that. As long as the required crew of flight attendants doesn't assault me, I've never really got off a plane…

When your flights are delayed/resechduled there is a world of difference. "Get in line" vs "you are already rebooked". (my Air Canada experince.)

> "Get in line" vs "you are already rebooked". (my Air Canada experince.)

Which of the two was the Air Canada experience?

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#218

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.…

Ryanair moves the most passengers of any airline in the world and doesn't have any cobranded credit cards or loyalty program.

Ryanair is 3rd by passengers and 7th by passenger miles, according to this wiki page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_airlines_in_the_world

Obviously their model is different to the big American carriers. Perhaps there’s something about the homogeneity of the US domestic market compared to the EU market that favors loyalty based airlines versus budget airlines.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#219
post #89

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

Yeah and it was an absurdly expensive activity limited to rich people

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#220
post #188
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It would be prohibitively expensive for poor people to fly. I understand why you wouldn’t care about that, but some people are poor and still need to fly if you can believe it.
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