Took about 15 to 20 flights in 2023 and the best experience was Spirit (majority were Spirit out of their hubs); pack things in bookbag, put bookbag under seat, get off plane quickly and saved 1,000s cumulatively.
United was the worst due to someone smelling up the plane & they didnt clean the bathroom .. made everyone gag.
Everyone hates on Spirit but if you're a frequent traveler who flies lite and likes to travel a lot/ not spend a lot they rock . If you are expecting same level of svc as more expensive airlines then you should spend that extra money.
I like Ryanair for similar reasons. "Premium" airlines give you a bit more leg room, but that extra space is filled up with pouch and useless magazines.
Budget airlines are in some way better organized and streamlined. For example they do not allow dogs on board, like at all :-)
Sure yet Spirit's planes are newer and smaller then that huge old United plane (Boeing... Spirit uses Airbus) where the bathroom sat in the middle of the plane. THe stenched was not cleaned up and being in the middle of the plane affected way more people then bathroom in the back of the plane affecting only a few of the rows in the back.
Seriously, spirit is like taking a bus. Either you have no experience or a bad one. It’s just to get somewhere cheap. Seats are bad, nickel and dime for everything, customer service is as barebones as it gets.
Spirit is a school Chromebook. It works, don’t ask much from it.
I on the other hand had the best experiences flying 10-12h flights with both delta and United.
United has served me the best foods out of us airlines (butter chicken, perfect food to let it sit in a warm tray, NOT PASTA everyone else. If someone from the food dept of flights reads this, stop it with the disgusting pasta on flights).
And delta has always been very easy for me, flight attendants are pleasant and any time I’ve been delayed they have automatically found me a flight without me having to actually call them out. The app is nice, WiFi works, seats are good. The main con is that their hub is Atlanta and that airport is a rats nest.
That's cool you have the money to fly frequently on more expensive airlines. Im only sharing my experiences flying Spirit out of their hubs and they have been no different then flying on the more expensive airliners outside of seats could use more cushion on Spirit but no biggie at all on five to six hour flights with them.
As noted in my comment you want your flight experience to be of a higher grade then continue to enjoy to fly the more expensive airlines. Sounds like you can afford doing so and frequently so. Myself i like being cheap in terms of getting from point A to point B .. have more money to spend on hotel room and or overall more trips in a year. I'm not rich and extremely happy to fly with other middle class people and frequently so!
Your comment implied other airlines are worse because of two anecdotes. You simply like spirit because it’s cheaper, and that’s ok. It has nothing to do with me not wanting to mix up with “other middle class people”. Somehow you assume I’m not middle class because I stated that Spirit is very basic.
Also I just happens to be looking at flights and the difference between Sprit and American is minimal. Add a carryon to Spirit and it might be over the American flight.
I thought to myself "ah, a decent airline then, not as bad as others in this comment section describe it", and only at your next sentence did I remember that in the US, public transit seems to suffer from really bad reputation (probably due to serious underfunding). You really need to get this sorted out, life's so much better with good public transport :)
(It's far from perfect in my country, and I'm often annoyed by it, but it seems to be nonexistent or only used by the truely desperate in many US cities, at least in the public perception)
You must be thinking of long distance buses, not the inner city transit. The one in my city is IMO the best in the US, yet I want more of my flights (unless I’m flying for one hour, which I don’t think should be the standard by which an airline is evaluated)
I was stuck overnight in Atlanta last week (before all of this) because they couldn't find a pilot. They had everyone sitting at the gate until 2am, when they finally gave up and rescheduled the flight for the next day.
Hey this happened to me last week (before all of this) in JFK for the same reason. People even came to the gate while we were on the plane and said the pilot just landed 3 gates away, but he never came to our plane lol.
They even ran out of hotel vouchers and were making people go 90 minutes away at 1 AM when the flight was scheduled (and took of at) 6.
3 hours of travel time, plus 20 minutes for hotel check-in, plus 15 minutes for checkout, plus 15 minutes for waiting for the shuttle x 2, plus 10 minutes of walking to the bus stop, and that's 4:15 before you even hit the pillow.
That would put you at 5:15 AM, 45 minutes before the plane departs. Delta recommends you be at the airport at least 2 hours before the plane departs. So by their own recommendations, there is no way this could work, even assuming you didn't even head up to the room.
They recommend 2 hours so you are not late due to unforeseen issues at security. But a 5:15 (which is the time most airports actually open) there are only a handful of flights and as such, TSA is lightening fast. So that 2 hour recommendation really drops to about 45 minutes
Source: lots of 5:45 flights with the airport security opening at 5:15
I’m on a delta flight right now that was delayed because they couldn’t locate one of the flight attendants. Thankfully it was resolved but they are definitely still struggling to sort this all out.
Airlines sure seem to like their fragile ancient shitty software.
Other sectors roll like that too eg bank but they at least make it work somehow. Airlines seem to regularly deviate from the happy path.
The entire sector needs a tech overhaul. And better integration too. Stuff like ATC asking how many people and fuel you’ve got in emergencies…why isn’t that info streamed live?
If the software industry could reliably overhaul these things without being far over budget and making them demonstrably worse for all involved maybe there’d be more takers.
