Is spirit the next southwest?

[ultrarunner]

Cash is king. My accountant and I mitigate as much as possible my tax liability. Same goes for the company I work for...

This is not a new concept in corporate America....

It's all about the loopholes.....


And I loose no sleep over it....

 

[cowboy55]

Here is a comparison of fees on a Spirit vs JetBlue flight from Boston to Ft Myers, FL. The ending ticket prices are very close but the fees are very different.

$248 ($329 with fees or just under $300 if bought at airport)
Passenger Facility Fee $18.00
Passenger Usage Fee $33.98 (BS fee to book online but waived if ticket bought at airport)
Segment Fee $15.20 (Why does JetBlue not pay this $3.80 tax per segment?)
September 11th Security Fee $10.00
Unintended Consequences of DOT Regulations $4.00 (WTF is this?)
Fees:
$81.18

$342 ($363 with fees)
Passenger Facility Charges of up to $9.00 each way ($18)
September 11 Security Fees of up to $5.00 each way ($10)
Fees:
$21.60 (I guess the fees were not the maximum listed above)

Spirit Charges 34$ less than Jetblue. Since Spirits fees are 60$ more and are tax free, they make more on a less expensive ticket.

 

[Mamma]

Spirit Charges 34$ less than Jetblue. Since Spirits fees are 60$ more and are tax free, they make more on a less expensive ticket.

The Passenger Usage Fee is pure genius. All gravy.

 

[hockeypilot44]

No way. Skybus's model was flawed. One of their biggest drawbacks was their lack of ability to connect through their own hub at CMH! If you had to fly from Burbank to Orlando, you'd have to buy a ticket from Burbank to Columbus, go to arrivals, pick up your bag, and then recheck in again at CMH on Skybus. Not even Ryan air does that! If you can't seamlessly connect passengers on your own airline, then you are flawed. Skybus also had other failures, like offering 10 dollar tickets for a fixed amount of seats on every plane. Might be an okay idea if you have a full boat, but if you only fill 50 seats, and 10 were sold at 10 bucks, then you'll never make money. Spirit is very dynamic, their fares change constantly, just like every other legacy/major airline.

Skybus also mislead! Many people trying to get to Seattle, landed in Bellingham, sold as "Seattle" only to find out that the cheap flight had $150 cab ride to finish the trip to Seattle. Articles ran nearly monthly in the Seattle newspaper how people were stranded in BLI with little cash to complete their trip to Seattle.

The other problem Skybus had was a lot of its destinations, it only had one flight a day. It had no spare airplanes. If a plane went down for maintenance, they would just cancel the flight. The next flight did not leave until the next day so the passenger could wait a day if there were seats available. If there were no seats available, the airline would just refund the passenger's ticket and say sorry. It was pretty comical for an airline to just back out of its agreement. The airline also bought its fuel from the local FBO at with no discounts.

 

[ultrarunner]

Ahhh...what would the world be without....

Oh, never mind....

 

[ASADFW7]

Can we avoid English lessons and poking at each other please. Let's get back on topic.