[Meltdown Continues For 6th Consecutive Day] PSA: Friends Don’t Let Friends Fly Spirit

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Update, 8/6: Spirit’s meltdown continues today for the 6th day in a row. They have cancelled 44% and delayed another 18% of the flights that were scheduled to fly today.

Update, 8/5: Spirit’s meltdown continues today for the 5th day in a row. They have cancelled 56% and delayed another 14% of the flights that were scheduled to fly today.


I always Say, Friends Don’t Let Friends Fly Spirit (Or Frontier).

This week has been no exception.

Spirit has cancelled 60% of its flight today. Yesterday 61% of its flights were cancelled and another 19% were delayed. On Sunday and Monday some 60-70% of its flights were delayed or cancelled.

Spirit’s operations are in shambles and show no signs of recovery.

Worse yet, when you book travel on an ultra low cost carrier like Spirit, they won’t rebook you on another airline. If things go wrong on United you can get moved to American or Delta, but that’s not the case with Spirit. Passengers have been waiting all week to get to their destination, or have ponied up for pricey last minute tickets on other airlines.

Many airlines are stretched ultra-thin with staffing and flight cancellations can have a ripple affect on operations that can be hard to recover from. We’ve also seen staffing issues with Delta’s call centers that have created epic hold times of 10 hours or more.

Spirit passengers in some airports have rioted and assaulted employees, which have caused remaining employees in those airports to go into hiding.

Yes, Spirit flights will often get you to where you want to go. But when thing go bad, they go spectacularly bad.

The airline has offered an apology. Just don’t expect them to get you where you need to go.

Mind you, American has not been much better. I have horrendously bad luck when I fly American, so I generally try to avoid them. They have left me stranded overnight too many times, though I’d still fly them over Spirit as they have the ability to rebook on other airlines.

American’s operations melted down this week with 12% of their flights cancelled yesterday along with another 29% delayed. On Monday they cancelled 18% of their flights and delayed another 33% of their flights. Their short staffing has hurt their operations all year long as they ramped up flights but don’t have enough staff to operate them.

It has not been a great week for airline operations to say the least. Have you traveled this week and run into operational issues?

126 COMMENTS

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  1. JetBlue Only

    Only airline I will touch is JetBlue.

    • Jetblue?

      Out of 5 flights, 4 were delayed with one of those getting canceled. Then therbooked flight was delayed as well.
      That’s in the past month.
      A rainstorm triggered 2 of the delayed flights

      • PGF

        4.5 hour delay last week LAX to EWR

    • Joe6speed

      They delayed my mom twice last week.

    • Jet who?

      They’ve lost their touch. Starting to look like the rest of the airlines.

      • Dan

        Agreed. They’re not what they used to be. 🙁

      • Yaalili

        100%, they used to be great. They get heavy and bad delays like all the others.

        • yelped

          Definitely. I also hate their new customer unfriendly policies. I find that Delta is the most reliable (generally speaking). They flew me through a snowstorm and got there early, while everyone else was delayed for hours.

    • Jason

      JetBlue also won’t book you on another airline.

  2. JV

    Wish i could avoid American but living in Charlotte its not really something we can do for most destinations.

  3. Shnaz

    Dan, what would suggest for someone who has booked thier family on spirit for beginning of next week?

    • Dan

      Pray. And/or book a backup flight that you can cancel if needed.

      • Avrumi

        I’m worried about the same thing. Is there such a thing as refundable tickets that you can cancel and get back the money?

        • Dan

          Most mileage tickets are fully refundable until the time of departure.

          • chaim

            are domestic united tickets using united points refundable until departure?

          • Dan

            You can make free changes until departure and you can make free cancellations 30 days in advance.
            Use your own creativity 🙂

          • sharpy

            Basically change them for 30 days out and then cancel!

          • Micha

            Smart man

          • Avrumi

            Is this a temporary Covid policy or always been around?

          • Jacob

            I had a great experience with United! Was able to change my economy ticket to fly home the next day instead, without any change fee, only minor price difference. Last Thurs we flew CUN to EWR but were unable to land due to tornado. We had to land instead in Dulles, Washington but they worked hard to just get a new crew and we did not have to all deplane, do customs and board new plane in Dulles. This taught me to only fly with reputable airlines like United and Jet Blue.

      • Eli

        have the same problem.. will Spirit at least refund my ticket of it’s cancelled, or perpetually delayed?

        • Shloki

          No! That are giving credit not refunds. This I think, against FAA law? I plan to simply dispute with my credit card. They did give me two additional $50 vouchers and a $36 food voucher, which did not work

    • dan1

      also book a backup flight with another airline that could be cancelled for full refund

  4. Bill

    Wife and kids flew to Orlando today with Southwest (bdl-mco) no issues actually had a great experience

    • Work-for-ur-muny

      Were probably wearing masks, so can barely call that “great experience”…

      • Dave

        Would you classify a great experience as refusing to wear a mask, creating a Chillul Hashem, and having law enforcement escort you off the plane?

        • 1...2...3...4

          I think he meant that pre-Covid flying was a great experience.

  5. Brian G

    I have a Spirit flight coming up this week but also have a Southwest flight as a backup. Spirit is direct whereas Southwest is not so hopefully no hiccups with Spirit.

    • Brian G

      Follow up. One of my two Spirit flights were cancelled. Had to take the backup SWA flight instead. I prepared for this so not a big deal for me.

  6. Abe

    What is causing this spirit meltdown? Are they also short on staff like AA?

  7. Yy

    Flew out of Cle with delta 4 segments. No issues.

    • Dan

      That works as long as you don’t need to call Delta. Good luck otherwise.

      • a

        I called Delta a few times and I was transferred directly to the survey, how my experience was with agent

    • Logoc

      Frontier seems to be a much more reliable ULCC with similar pricing to spirit. I’ve flown with them many times including just last week with no issues.

  8. Chevron

    Flew southwest mdw to FLL last night

    Was only like 1 hour 25 min late or so but still annoying.

  9. Disappointed passenger

    JetBlue has been a disaster lately as well. They have been known to have major delays, and cancel flights. Two weeks ago, they canceled our entire flight just 4-hours before we were to take off. It left 15 of us stranded. Since some of us had different reservation numbers, they assigned different people on random flights, some connecting in different cities. Our young kids were scheduled to fly the next morning by themselves from LAX via Austin to JFK, my wife was to fly at around 1:00pm direct LAX to JFK, and me leaving at 3:00pm LAX to EWR. Some of our wedding guests were devastated that they were going to miss work and urgent meetings. 3-4 hour hold times for Customer Service with JBLU is the new norm. They should be ashamed of themselves.

    • Dan

      Isn’t it great. We bail out the airlines with tens of billions of dollars, then watch them lay everyone off anyway while their operations go haywire.

      • yelped

        Absolutely scandalous. Not sure how they got away with laying off anyone when they were paid a ton to retain them. Time to get some tweets directed at key personnel.

    • Mendy

      Agreed. We were delayed on JetBlue for 4 hours without being told anything.

    • SG

      I flew to jfk-mia end of June and spent 8 hours traveling they delayed the flight twice the second time I was already checked in… user to be my favorite airline

  10. I flew yesterday

    I flew spirit yesterday and yes my flight was delayed over 5 hours and I was relieved to have flown at all. Many passengers on my flight were rebooked from previously canceled flights. That being said the staff were extremely nice I was flying with kids and they were super accommodating (don’t think my kids kept their masks on much) and I did get a ton of vouchers (not that they are worth much). Also flying from my local airport is very convenient. So all in all I didn’t have such a bad experience while admittedly had my flight been canceled none of the pros would have helped at all.

    • Anon

      Another “benefit” of flying Spirit is that the clientele loves fighting on their flights, so you might capture some cool footage to upload to the internet.

  11. Ollie

    Can one file a complaint with the DOT for the canceled flights?

  12. Yesterday\'s delay

    my wife missed her connection on Southwest b/c her first flight was delayed. Ended up arriving close to give hours after she was scheduled to land. Southwest also doesn’t book on other airlines (but far better than Spirit or Frontier)

  13. ross

    And the price of gas is skyrocketing, or else I would say how more reliable the ol’ automobile is these days.

  14. Valentin

    I was going to a concert in October but it’s has been rescheduled for the next year. Before rescheduling, I got very good Delta tickets but I don’t want to fly (with no concert) and I don’t want the credit.

    Recently, they cancel the flight and Delta keeps on emailing me to contact them or to go to my account and cancel my flight ticket for an ecredit. They have put me o a different flight that’s just only a few minutes different from the original. Would that be enough to ask for the cash refund?

    • Anon

      File DOT complaint for a cash refund, if they won’t voluntarily refund via cash.

    • Yid

      I just got a cash refund on a delta economy basic flight which they advertise as nonrefundable. Delta changed the time of the flight twice so I just called them, as Dan mentioned this is no easy task, told them that the new time of the flight didn’t work out for my plans and requested a cash refund to the original form of payment. Good luck

  15. Avrumi

    Suggestion on booking award ticket next week from ord-phx ? Have miles with all.

  16. Avrumi

    Are $9 fare club prices available online only or in airport as well?

  17. S

    I’m not sure how the prices compare, but basic economy on a regular airline seems to be much better in comparison. You don’t deal with the additional cancellation and customer service issues, just lose a couple of benefits that you can sometimes do without anyway.

  18. Flye

    As a frequent Spirit flyer who has only had one negative experience since 2008, I hereby protest

    • Dan

      I dare you to protest by purchasing a Spirit flight for this week 😀

  19. Good

    We just flew with a family of 6 on frontier. We planned for the worst but it was so smooth bh! Although we didn’t pay extra for seats, we all say I’m the same 2 rows. We went with 4 car/booster seats, including a wheely for the booster seat and a stroller, no issues. Each of us had a backpack and no issues with it, took it on as a person’s item.

  20. Stephanie Woods

    I used to love Jetblue, but they won’t put you on another airline either. And they just canceled my flight from Miami and rebooked me to return a day early. Their schedule now has no flights at all on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between Miami and Bradley, so I now need to stay in Miami two more nights. American has cancelled my flights as well, and given me flights that turn into 22 hour marathons. I don’t think there are any good airlines any more. And American doesn’t even provide entertainment! I can’t even imagine flying on Spirit or Frontier-no matter how cheap they are!

  21. They were short one flight attendant flight was de

    Yes jet blue. They were short one flight attendant flight was delayed by an hour

  22. iahphx

    It doesn’t completely excuse things, but AA was hit on Sunday with terrible thunderstorms at DFW which — as is often the case — completely disrupted their systemwide operations. Other than de-emphasizing DFW, I’m not sure what AA could actually do to make this occasional problem better. DFW is notorious for it’s bad weather operations.
    https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2021/08/02/dfw-and-american-airlines-are-flooded-with-cancellations-and-delays-after-sundays-thunderstorms/

  23. BSW

    That’s what happens when government makes it more lucrative not to work than to work. For shame. That’s the number one reason of staffing issues in ALL industries now.

  24. Liz

    I must be one of those rare people who has NEVER had a bad experience with Spirit. And I have flown with them. Alot. My husband flew with them today and the flight was on time. He is flying back with my sons on Friday and I really hope I didn’t just jinx this, lol

  25. Savta

    Flew allegiant from ewr to Grand Rapids mich and return nice experience flying next week on jet blue to fll from hpn thanks will include them in my prayers

    • South haven visitor

      Well they canceled all flights back to new york this past Sunday with no reason given. (Allegiant)

  26. Shloki

    All airlines suck these days. Spirit always sucks so this extra sucking is well, sucky.

  27. HelpWithBooking

    Can I book United flight with points using the Chase Portal and be able to change it (For more than thirty days) and then cancel it to get my points back, if my Spirit flight works out? Or it would only work if I do it through united website?

    • Dan

      No, that’s with United miles only.

  28. Chaya

    I flew with delta Friday to lax via Atlanta Brilliant experience. Just a slight delay at Atlanta.
    I was standing online 5am at Newark for a coffee where passengers where going bonkers spirits canceled the 9pm Thursday flight it was 5am Friday morning and no updates. Apparently they where on the runway the plane turned back police came on board they told the passengers technical failure.
    Bh I had a smooth ride lax ewr red eye Monday.
    With united. Both ways flights where full they offered complimentary free carry on check in.
    B

  29. Frustrated with American Airlines

    Got messed up with American TWICE this week. First we were delayed sitting on the tarmac at EWR for 45 minutes for maintenance once we were on the plane. That caused us to miss the connection in Charlotte and had to wait about hours for the next flight available.

    And then on my return flight from this short trip, I got an email the day before that the schedule 6:30 pm flight was cancelled and they put me on a flight for the next day. I didn’t want to wait a tiger day, and had to book a last minute flight on United and paid a lot more because American cancelled for no good reason.

    Is there any way American would reimburse me for the extra cost I had to pay to book with United, since they cancelled and had no flights that day?

    • Dan

      Good luck. American lied to me even when I had video evidence showing they lied.

      United seems to be the only reliable airline these days.

  30. Aryeh

    San, My flight w Spirit was canceled last night.

    How likely is it to get a refund + some?

  31. You get what you pay for

    Spirit & Frontier took over for where Tower Air left off. They are always brainstorming, how can we make the lives of our paying customers miserable?! What can we do to make them angry?! What more can we do to treat them like dogs? They must be laughing in some smoke filled backrooms watching their gullible customers suffer.

  32. Texas Totty

    Landed twice recently with Southwest in HOU and everything was smooth until 30-45 min wait for baggage claim. and it’s a royal balagan down there. Presumably staffing issues in the airports as well.

  33. terpy

    My AA flight from Memphis to Charlotte got cancelled on Tuesday with about 16 hours notice. I was able to get a callback from them about 2 hours later, and rebooked on a flight that left 2 hours earlier than previously.

    As an added bonus, my 2nd segment got a 1st class upgrade! (Temporary platinum status from 3 month challenge)

  34. Harabi MiUto

    American put me on a next-day flight from Israel after I misssed mine in the last minute (thanks to Israeli Ministry of Health beaurocracy) for only $180. That was very nice of them. Their international call center hub was very helpful, courteous and efficient. I give credit where credit is due.

    • Dan

      You should have been reaccommodated for free with the flat tire rule.

  35. Anyone know ?

    “Flat Tire Rule” ? I guess I managed to miss that piece of Dan’s wisdom – Can you please explain ?

    • Dan

      If you show up to the airport counter within an hour or 2 after a scheduled departure on a major airline you can mention the flat tire rule and ask to be put on the next flight without charge.

      • Avrumi

        Is this specifically for a flat tire or can other excuses work?

        • Dan

          You don’t actually need a flat tire, it’s just the name of the rule.

          • Anyone know ?

            WOW !!! Who knew ?
            Dan – you are the best !
            And sometimes a person could actually get a flat tire 🙂

  36. Yosef

    I flew Frontier round-trip last week. Family of six.
    The first flight was delayed by an hour and a half, but I got text and email notifications sufficiently in advance so we were not puling our hair out at the airport.
    The return flight was delayed about forty-five minutes. There was no advance notice. But 45 minutes is not terrible.
    Both flights were otherwise fine. They allowed my kids to visit the pilots and gave them stickers. They were not overly zealous about the little ones wearing masks (though my kids generally wore them throughout the flights).

  37. too tired

    This morning Southwest canceled a 5:30 flight from Hartford to Detroit right before departure time due to a mechanical issue. My 17-year-old son and 16 of his friends returning from camp have been stranded there high and dry since then. Southwest has been completely impossible to deal with, refusing to try to book them on any other airline. Ticket refunds and a $200 voucher, and have a nice life. We may need to book a bus for them for $7000 because no other options.

    • Jo

      sooo crazy! As someone who evac’d China during early covid days. That could have happened to my kids at a church camp if covid shutdowns had happened a few other weekends. Thank goodness I was with my kids when it happened.

  38. Rikki

    We’re any flights going to lga cancelled this week?

  39. united

    just called American, wait time on hold will be over 2 hours…
    nice

  40. YGX

    Just curious where you get your stats from?

  41. Yonatane

    Hi Dan.
    I have a flight from Orlando to New Jersey this Monday bh for a wedding
    Why do you recommend I do?
    Thanks

  42. Terence

    Southwest may not be glamourous, but it WILL get you to your destination. Cancellations are a NON-issue.

    • too tired

      See my 11:12 comment. 15 Detroit boys still stuck there without resolution from SW.

  43. Joe

    I just flew American yesterday and it was great and on time !

  44. Levi

    friends tell true friends buy shares in Spirit or other LCCs so you can easily afford to avoid flying them.

  45. ad120

    I primarily fly F9 & NK.
    I never had an issue.
    I haven’t had any issues flying G4.
    Haven’t tried MX or XP.
    I don’t think it’s fair to blame NK specifically. As noted, the aren’t enough people willing to work throughout our country.
    I
    I flew AF last week, we were delayed an hour upon arrival because they didn’t have a gate available.

    • BC

      For us simple people:
      F9=Frontier Airlines,
      NK= Spirit Airlines
      G4=Allegiant Air
      MX=Breeze Airways
      XP=XTRAirways
      AF=Air France

  46. 1991

    Does delta basic cabin booked with points allow free cancellation?

  47. United is no longer what it was

    United’s CS is getting worse by the day.
    I waited on the phone for 2 and a half hours before hanging up.

  48. Yossi

    I just flew American back and forth in one day seamlessly

  49. Yoni

    @Dan- I have a flight in two weeks with 5 children flying on Spirit to Orlando. I just called Chase(reserve) and asked if I can dispute the charge proactively due to recent events(then I will book on another airline) They said sure. Does that make sense?

  50. SK

    We flew American, Spirit, and Jetblue in the last 2 weeks. American flight was cancelled, and even when rebooked, the flight was delayed an hour cuz the Captain showed up late. Spirit flight was “delayed” 15 hours (waiting for flight attendants). Jetblue was a breath of fresh air, left exactly on time.

  51. Mark

    My travel agent (a relative) once offered me a stack of free Spirit flight certificates, and I said “no thank you”. He was shocked that I wouldn’t take them, but, you know … Spirit. Even for free, it’s not worth the hassle.

  52. Ben

    Had a jfk-mco jetblue flight on Sunday, it had to land in Tampa first because there wasn’t enough fuel to circle mco to wait out the 20 minutes extra for the storm to pass. 2.5 hour diverged flight delay, wasn’t fun.

  53. Bob

    Do friends let friends buy Spirit stock? It’s up 50% in the last year, despite events of the past week. About the same performance as American, and better than United. My guess is that their profits will be higher this quarter because of higher loads, even after cash refunds to many customers. At least Spirit publishes its fares, while Southwest claims copyright infringement if search engines dare to disclose their prices.

    • Dan

      So, the same increase as every other airline stock thanks to cash transfers from taxpayers to airlines?

      • Bob

        You’re smart enough to know that markets look at future expectations, not past performance. It’s been five months since the last airline relief was enacted, and none is proposed or likely to succeed in today’s Congress.

        • Dan

          You think the airlines are done looking for pandemic handouts?
          LOL!

          COVID is just getting started.

  54. Avi

    I flew on frontier on Sunday from Philadelphia it was a mess The flight was delayed for four hours because they couldn’t put together a crew then they waited another additional 45 minutes for the last stewardess to come they were many other frontier and spirit flights in the same terminal and all were either canceled or very long delays I also had a pretty new Donna carriage which upon landing when they brought up to the gate back it was completely broken the handles no longer move with a big dent in it I reached out to them for a complaint they still haven’t responded It ruined the whole trip because we couldn’t wheel the the baby properly And we could rent a car because we arrive too late

  55. Spirit Stock

    At the moment Spirit Stock is only down 4.5% for the week. Perhaps shareholders are happy that Spirit is overbooked …

  56. Delta Fan

    Flew Delta this week round trip JFK-LAX. Very smooth, no issues and arrived early with both flights.

  57. Ben

    We went to Florida for the Yeshiva Break in January into February of this year. We were supposed to go back to Newark from Fort Lauderdale on February 2. The NY/NJ area had a snowstorm on Jan 31 – Feb 1 and a ton of flights were cancelled from Jan 31 – Feb 2. We double booked to go home on United and Spirit on Feb 2. I was shocked to find the United Flight got cancelled but the Spirit one did not. We paid only $24 each to sit in their front 2 rows of big seats. For the most part, I agree with the assessment of Spirit Airlines, but this particular time, they could not have done better.

  58. Mike

    Personally I would walk instead of flying Spirit, of Frontier. I made the spirit mistake years ago, never again.
    Terrible service and they act like they are doing you a favor by allowing you onto the plain. Hideous

  59. Ben

    A few of us from the Jersey Shore and Lakewood area do love the Atlantic City Airport, which is mostly Spirit Airlines. They fly to Florida from there. It’s such a small airport. Daily parking is a fraction of what major city airports charge. The walk from parking to the terminal is less than the amount you might walk from your car in a mall parking lot, to the stores. Maybe 3 planes take off an hour. If you are used to Newark, you board the plane, they close the gate, and maybe 30 mins later you’re in the air. In atlantic city, you are in the air 5-10 mins after they close the door. On top of that, the line for security is 10 mins on a bad day. It negates most of the pain that Spirit might inflict.

  60. Melech

    I recently had a great hack (maybe others thought of it dunno…) I was trying to reach AA and the hold time said 60 mins. So I hung up and called the Israeli number and pressed 2 for English and someone picked up right away! The thing is they weren’t the brightest bulbs in the pack… but it is worth a try sometimes.

  61. aryeh

    I was canceled on American last week. After waiting on hold 5 hours to try to get rebooked I called the Australian call center and got helped with rebooking. I’ve also had really bad luck flying American, although I would say that the service from Tel Aviv to Miami was great. Is there any compensation available for these hold times? I’ve been compensated in the past for EU flights that were canceled due to staffing shortages.

    • Dan

      Getting better it seems, though still bad.
      13% cancelled and 17% delayed today.

      • Kitzl

        Thanks Dan. I have family flying nyc to mco next week, I hope they’ll be ok.

  62. Rachel

    Jet blue delayed flight 3 1/2 hours- (not due to weather). Gave $50 travel credit. Is it worth
    it to fight for more?

  63. Bob

    More than 1,000 Southwest flights canceled today, the second day of Southwest’s meltdown. I wonder when Dan will notice. Do friends let friends fly Southwest?

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