Spirit Airline Woes

Alex Rudloff, one of the brains behind Gadling’s blogging engine, recently tried to fly to Las Vegas from Orlando via Spirit Airlines when he ran into a few problems. First, his flight was canceled. “That’s sucks,” he wrote on his blog, “but hey, that’s the reality of the god awful air industry here in the States.”

To make matters worse, Spirit Airlines made the rescheduling process a nightmare. “The 800# then hangs up on me. I call back, hitting 0 to talk to an operator, same message, hangs up on me. I try all the appropriate sounding options on their voice mail, and get hung up on every single time. Thanks, Spirit Air! What went from a somewhat understandable situation (relativity is a bitch), now has me pissy. Finally, I try “book new flight” to speak to a spirit airlines sales agent. Sure enough, that one (the option where they take the money) works fine”

Finally, he’s able to speak with a representative who puts him on another flight that arrives 5 hours later. “There’s no upgrades or anything like that, no option for a partner airline or a transfer, no real attempt at anything. Here’s the kicker. They make you pay extra to bring a bag. They refused to even refund this $5 each way fee, not even for one of ways.”

How frustrating. Anyone else have any Spirit Air horror stories?