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Spirit Offers Tickets for Pocket Change

By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com

May 5, 2007

Spirit Airlines • Spirit Offers Tickets for Pocket Change • Spirit Airlines Fiddles with Fare Structure • Spirit's Baggage Tariff Irks Travelers --- • Consumer Complaints

Trying to get into the discount spirit, an airline is lowering the ante on ticket prices.

Spirit Airlines, a discount carrier based in Fort Lauderdale, is flying in the face of endless fare increases imposed by other carriers over the last two years. But it hopes passenger response will create enough volume to compensate.

Although the airline charges passengers for food, drinks, and even checked luggage, it also offers up to 40 seats per flight at fares that are hard to believe.

Some go for a penny or a nickel, though most are in the range of $8-$10 per ticket. Since federal taxes and fees still apply, the final tab could climb to $40 or so – still a bargain in these days of fuel-related price hikes.

The fast-growing carrier added eight destinations so far this year and plans to add another dozen. It doesn’t advertise its penny-saver fares but does promote them on its website, where viewers can join its $9 fare club. Those who sign up receive e.mail bulletins announcing when and how to grab the rock-bottom tickets.

Promotions, such as a $24 Cinqo de Mayo discount available only on May 5, constantly appear on the Spirit website after germinating in the airline’s conference room.

"People talk about us," said Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza. "We get a lot of buzz. Nobody’s going to do that with a ho-hum kind of sale but pennies get people talking."

It staggers the imagination to think that the same pennies routinely rejected by highway toll machines are now welcomed by an airline.

"We take a severe cost focus on everything," Baldanza explained. "We like to say, ‘How can we do it a little bit better and a little bit cheaper?’"

Spirit flies to more than three dozen destinations, primarily along the Eastern Seaboard, in the Caribbean, and in Central and South America. By year’s end, both Los Angeles and San Francisco are expected to be on the route map as well.

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