Friday nights are now one of the most exciting times of the week. Each Friday, Diio by Cirium loads that week’s schedule changes, and I get to see how the airlines are feeling about the near future. (Please, hold your criticism of my social life. Yours is probably just as … Read the post
Category: Spirit
Spirit has been an airline on a mission. After years of forcing travelers to suffer through a poor operation and customer service indifference, the airline turned itself around. Under now-former CEO Bob Fornaro, Spirit became a top performer operationally and it improved customer service and amenities. Recently, however, it took … Read the post
Now I’m back with the second part of my discussion with current Spirit CEO Bob Fornaro and his successor Ted Christie. In the first part, we focused on the network, but here we spoke about the operation. When I first talked to Bob last year about it, things were … Read the post
Yesterday I wrote about the denied boarding trends at Alaska, American, Delta, and United. Today, I’m going to start with Southwest and work my way through the rest of the branded airlines that report their numbers.
If you’re comparing to yesterday, remember that these … Read the post
This week’s featured link:
ROBERT PRICE: Struggling airport, growing city: What’s up with that? – Bakersfield.com
This kind of of conversation has been had throughout smaller cities around the US. Why can’t we get more service? It’s never the population number that matters. A city with 100,000 consultants who travel … Read the post
3 Links I Love: Spirit Goes Back to the Caribbean, Cathay Pacific Shuns a Trend, Flying Air Greeland
This week’s featured link:
Going Global in Orlando! Spirit Airlines Announces Major International Expansion – Spirit Airlines
Years ago, Spirit poured its efforts into building a Latin/Caribbean network primarily (but not exclusively) focused on Ft Lauderdale. Then for awhile, it really shifted to the domestic network, leaving international growth as … Read the post
A couple of years ago, it was easy to come up with a laundry list of reasons why you would never want to fly Spirit Airlines. No frills, a poorly-run operation, you name it. Slowly, however, the airline has been chipping away at all of those possible complaints. You may … Read the post
Welcome back to the second half of my interview with Spirit President and CEO Bob Fornaro. (If you missed the first half, here it is.) When we left off, Bob was talking about how the big guys are trying to be everything to everyone, and how that’s not an … Read the post
Spirit’s current President, Bob Fornaro, has seen a lot in this industry. After stints at TWA and Northwest, he spent much of the 1990s at USAir. At the end of the decade, he joined AirTran as President and ran that airline until Southwest bought it a dozen years later. Apparently … Read the post
If you’ve never had the chance to fly Spirit’s Big Front Seat, you might be surprised to hear that it’s probably one of the best values in flying today. It’s also an incredibly unique product which exists nowhere else I know. This model, a true no-frills premium cabin (yes I … Read the post
3 Links I Love: Spirit’s Pilots Get Slapped in Court, Bad Small City Subsidies, Baltia’s At It Again
This week’s featured link:
Amid Cancelations & Delays, Court Orders Spirit Airlines Pilots To Halt Alleged Work Slowdown – Consumerist
I thought Consumerist did a nice job of covering the bubbing labor problems over at Spirit. It sounds like the pilots have been slowing down the airline as part of … Read the post
If you’ve flown Spirit lately, you may have noticed something surprising: the airline is running a better operation than it has in years. It looks like it’s living up to the promise its new CEO made a year ago to actually run a better airline.