Spirit's Customer Service Policy Starts at the Top

[gatorbird]

Well, here it is from the horse's mouth on where we stand on customer service. Talk about one wrong stroke of the mouse!

http://www.alexrudloff.com/2007/08/20/ben-baldanza-from-spirit-encourages-awful-customer-service/

The question is: Will Ben be ousted for this? Will it (hopefully) make it to the media? Does Indigo even care, or is this their shared view, as well?

Oh yeah, all you have to do is google "ben baldanza email"...it's the first hit. Beautiful, huh?

gator

 

[Beetle007]

They arrived 3 hours late and missed the entire concert?

Did you notice the airfare THEY wanted reimbursed for their roundtrip. They used the word WE so Im assuming this airfare is for two people?

Flight and Taxes: $73.60

Concert Tickets: $204.95

Hotel: $81.29

 

[Mike man]

Their compensation was more than fair...like one of the bloggers wrote...they booked a flight 1.5 hours before a concert in ATL expecting to just blow in to ATL in the early evening. So bottom line is...

PAX=still jackas$es, and now they are pissed because they bought 2 MCO-ATL-MCO tickets 1.5 hours before a concert in ATL for $75 and were offered 2 X $100 vouchers...WTF

 

[Beetle007]

I still can't believe she got airfare for that price. That blog should be more of an advertisement for our cheap fares and "good" customer service.

They bought TWO roundtrip tickets for the TOTAL price of $73.60 and were offered $200 in travel vouchers because they were "almost" 3 hours late.

Taxes and fees for two roundtrip ticket from MCO to ATL is $41.60. This means that their tickets were only $16 each.

 

[zkmayo]

It makes for absolutely horrible press, but the CEO comment about 'they'll be back if we're cheaper' is absolutely true.

Time and again we see people book flights for 1 hour before a wedding or a meeting into JFK/ORD/name your congested city. Its ignorance/stupidity/arrogance for 'I paid $39 I expect service damnit mentality'. Mgmt only needs to look in the mirror for someone to blame for most of the ridiculous prices that are out there.

BTW, it's very telling that theyre concert tickets cost 4 times what their airfare cost.

 

[IronCityBlue]

For years pilot pay scales have been used to subsidize passenger's fuel bills. Now they are being used to subsidize 100% perfection bases travel insurance. Screw that.

 

[cruxx@9]

Unfortunately I hate to see our upper level management say things like this, and I do see how some of our passengers have legit problems that Spirit doesn't care about. I see the passengers get shafted time and time again...and not all fares are that low. Many people are paying close to the same fares as NW and other airlines.

The worst thing I've seen so far in my time here at Spirit was the other day. I was picking up a plane in LAS and the last pax off was a man and wife. The man was an ampute and in the straight back in the jetway. Spirit forgot to put his special wheelchair on in FLL and this man was stuck there, indignified while Spirit just kept fumbling around. That was horrible. But knowing our Ramp personel in FLL it was not unbelievable.

That aside, I can't help but share some of Ben's frustration. We do carry some nice pax, but many are ignorant trash that treat the FA's like ******************** and expect to get treated like kings and queens wearing wife beaters and spandex. Many of them did not pay very much for a ticket and assume they can say and do whatever they want on the plane as if it was their personal Lear Jet. So with that mentality, I have a hard time respecting that class of people on the plane. They say they will never fly Spirit again, but they will fly whoever is cheaper and if it is Spirit they will whip out the Plastic in a heartbeat. I have no sympathy for them.

 

[Draginass]

A few years ago, I operated a flight from JFK to MIA in the dead of winter. Huge snowstorm. Late about 6-7 hours and we were lucky. LOTS of people on that airplane that missed their cruise ship departure.

Anybody dumb enough to book a flight in the winter out of JFK and absolutely positively have to be in place a couple hours after scheduled arrival time deserves what they get. Ignorance can be fixed. Stupid is forever.

 

[ex-nutjeter]

Yes I can agree with most of the replys, some people are just too stupid when they book flights that close to scheduled events, but, flying on the airlines as a paying passenger myself to get to work and home, I will say that customer service for just about all US airlines SUCKS!!! Sprit and SouthWest are on the bottom of the LCC list for Customer service as far as I am concerned, When you have to get nickle and dimed for everything from extra bags and such then that is bad, and I get charged even when I travel in uniform on these, JetBlue is on top, free TV, as many drinks and snaks as you want, etc.. I mostly fly on Delta, am a Platinum Member, and even soo, I think that Delta has crappy customer service, even when I fly in First, Customer service is crappy there as well. By Far the foreign carriers still have the best customer service, and I will say that I have flown Virgin many times and they have super great customer service and if Virgin America is anything like his other Virgin Products, then most US airlines better look out.