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Welcome

Friends,

I had a fine flight on Spirit Airlines today, though I was equally happy to fly another carrier home.

So, I decided to write about the experience in tonight’s post. Serious question: have you recently flown Spirit? And if so, what did you think?

720 words on my end here—let’s get going.

Links

Travel today has me off the #wires, so no links in this evening’s email!

Story

My first flight as a Purser at United (which was our fancy name for the flight attendant who works first class and makes announcements) was a dinnertime departure from Newark to Houston. The original crew had timed out, and I picked up the trip super last minute.

I remember feeling slightly conflicted on how to announce Newark.

The New Jersey stalwarts at United (namely the legacy Continental crowd) were pretty forthright that we were flying to New Jersey. I always felt that our passengers, save for a very small few, were going to or through Newark to reach New York City—so we should recognize as much by saying “New York’s Newark Liberty International Airport”.

I promise this all made sense in my mind.

Anyways, this morning I flew from DFW to Newark on Spirit—and I was going to New York. The crew kept saying Newark: the struggle is real.

The good news is my misgivings did not really matter.

What does matter (for the purpose of this column) was my experience flying Spirit—and whether I’d advise you consider them for future trips.

First, I flew Spirit because I had a flight credit that was due to expire this fall. The airline’s current cash position does not inspire tremendous confidence, so I was glad to make use of said credit sooner than later.

Check-in was easy via their app, but I was surprised to see they also had a well branded priority check-in lane for passengers in their premium cabin (which they call ‘Big Front Seats’). I booked a ‘Big Front Seat’ because it was thirty dollars more for the three hour flight and so I’d be crazy not to? Right?

Boarding was delightfully low-key — largely thanks to their being 100 people on our A321, which normally seats twice as many. Onboard, my seat was clean, comfortable and the cabin crew genuinely kind.

We arrived twenty minutes early, which was stellar. Overall, it was probably a best case scenario type of flight for any airline (light load factor, clean airplane, and early arrival).

But would I choose to fly Spirit again? In the best way—no.

Spirit is totally sound from an air travel standpoint: safe and (in my case today) timely. But their product lacks any inspiration whatsoever—and their onboard service is at best bland. I felt like I spent three hours sitting in a comfortable chair at a Walgreens.

Put a little more precisely, their brand and experience attempted to tell me I was smart for flying on their austere yellow airplanes, but mostly made me feel cheap. I think this is the problem at Spirit—people do not like being told that they are cheap, especially when it is guised in a recognizably false message.

The airline is currently losing hundreds of millions of dollars a month, so they have a problem that is bigger than my opinion. But outside of an all-out rebrand, I wonder if it is too late to save the carrier?

For the sake of the people who work there, I hope I am wrong.

Big Picture: I enjoyed my flight on Spirit today, but would not actively choose their product in the future—except for maybe a very short flight. And even then, I’d still want to fly another carrier on the way home.

Happy flying.

Remember, this life you are living has meaning. Thank you for reading. I am grateful you are here and would love to hear from you. If you'd like to write me a note, simply reply to this email. Otherwise I'll see you in the next one.

Be well today. -Tommy

P.S. If I can ever help you plan your next travel adventure (slash help make your points go farther), I’d be delighted. You can schedule time together here.