How does it work when airlines get so backed up.

[dolittle]

So sad for all these people caught up in this Spirit  Airline mess . This happens with bad whether and some man made foul -ups. How do they get back to normal,  you have so many people backed up and most of the flights are already sold out .Do the people waiting get on first or the one's who have the ticket for that flight. I have never understood how this works . B.T.W. Spirit is big where I live and does not have a good reputation ,we have never flown with them and pay a little more for A.A. It is worth it. 

[klfrodo]

If your Monday flight was cancelled, the passengers ticketed for the Tuesday flight will fly on Tuesday.

Those whos flights were cancelled, will be given seats only if seats are available.

[CruiserBruce]

Spirit could put people on other airlines, depending on availability. Spirit could also deadhead flights in to relieve serious backlogs, but Spirit seems to have little resources available to do this.

[FlyerTalker]

2 hours ago, klfrodo said:

If your Monday flight was cancelled, the passengers ticketed for the Tuesday flight will fly on Tuesday.

Those whos flights were cancelled, will be given seats only if seats are available.

 

Those with tickets on later flights will not get bumped to accommodate those who were cancelled.  If you are a "victim" of irops, you go into a queue, being put onto available seats AFTER the booked passengers are taken care of.

 

There is a misconception that airlines will give passengers who are cancelled priority on later flights.  They will get priority over other folks who wish to fly standby, but they will not take the seats of ticketed passengers and bump them.

[FlyerTalker]

2 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Spirit could put people on other airlines, depending on availability. Spirit could also deadhead flights in to relieve serious backlogs, but Spirit seems to have little resources available to do this.

 

Spirit does not have any interline agreements, so if they were to put passengers on other carriers, it would be by purchasing tickets at last-minute walk-up full price.  And NK won't do that.  Period.

 

They also do not have excess aircraft and crew to do wholesale replacement flights.

 

But hey....those tickets were cheap.

[CruiserBruce]

1 hour ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Spirit does not have any interline agreements, so if they were to put passengers on other carriers, it would be by purchasing tickets at last-minute walk-up full price.  And NK won't do that.  Period.

 

They also do not have excess aircraft and crew to do wholesale replacement flights.

 

But hey....those tickets were cheap.

I think at this point, Spirit is getting crushed in all senses. Yes, they might have to pay full boat to get on other airlines...but maybe they can swing a deal at the least minute...wishful thinking, probably, but they need to be seen to be doing SOMETHING.

[FlyerTalker]

43 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

I think at this point, Spirit is getting crushed in all senses. Yes, they might have to pay full boat to get on other airlines...but maybe they can swing a deal at the least minute...wishful thinking, probably, but they need to be seen to be doing SOMETHING.

 

The same people who say "I'll never fly XYZ" are often the first to go back to XYZ if the fares are cheaper.

 

I would wager that most all of those folks chose Spirit because of price.  And will chose their future airline purchases also on the basis of price.

 

Spirit will put out some fluff press releases and wait to ride out the storm.  And in a few months, the general public will have forgotten and they will be back as the Greyhound of the skies.

[navybankerteacher]

22 hours ago, dolittle said:

… B.T.W. Spirit is big where I live and does not have a good reputation ,we have never flown with them and pay a little more for A.A. It is worth it. 

There is a reason why Spirit is inexpensive - and why they do not have a good reputation.  And it is the same reason.
 

NEWS FLASH:  They are a bare-bones outfit with minimal support staff and minimal equipment.  As soon as anything goes wrong the ripples just keep widening - they have few people running things and no back-up equipment to roll out —-  so it takes a long time to recover from a few cancellations.

 

You save your money, you take your risk.  I’d guess that most of the time Spirit will get you to where you want to go about when they say they will.  But they seem to fail in that respect enough for me to not want to gamble on them just to save $25-$50.

Edited August 8, 2021 by navybankerteacher

[rkacruiser]

Cavet emptor applies to anything that one may purchase.  But, surely applies to Spirit Airlines as well as any budget carrier.  

[Host Mike]

My adult son bought a ticket from EWR to DEN for his new job.  To save a few bucks he booked Spirit.  Hey, what does Dad know?

I should add on flight day, after he paid all the fees he would have paid the same had he took a United non stop.  But again, he knew.

So, he flew to ATL where he knew he had a 7-hour layover.  This was on the Sunday when all this started.  One hour before his flight to DEN, it was cancelled.  Then the agent announced they all needed to go to the main ticket counter and turned off the lights and left.

No hotel just told he would get on next available Spirit flight (there never was one) and told he would get some kind of refund, but he needed to call Spirit the next day to even see how much.

The kid being broke, all of a sudden Dad became pretty smart.  Problem was I was in Prague CZ.

So, I sit there and book, buy a ticket on Delta set to leave 4 hours from then.  Told him to get his luggage from Spirit and head to Delta Kiosk and don’t look back.

As it ends up, two of his three bags were overweight, But the two Delta agents adopted him and literally helped repack everything to make it all right.

End of story – he got to Denver.  Additional end, I will trust the legacy carriers even when they have IROPS or hiccups along the way.

Morale of the story – Listen to your parents even if you think 24 is too old to do so.

[BoozinCroozin]

This is our concern as well. We are booked on AA to fly down for our flights. If they are delayed, we are just going to drive and fight with the airlines and insurance for the funds. Delays turn to cancelations and there is no recovery time then. A delay could be 6-12 hours before they officially cancel. At that point we would not be able to make the drive. Our flight is at 6PM the night before. It is a 9 hour drive. We can make it to Jacksonville FL by midnight, sleep for 4-5 hours and finish the last ~3 hours to Port Canaveral early in the morning. 

 

I do not trust the air industry and would definitely not be risking a cruise dependent on them. They are all having issues.

[rkacruiser]

13 hours ago, Host Mike said:

Morale of the story – Listen to your parents even if you think 24 is too old to do so.

 

I had a Nephew who was in his 30's before he "discovered" the wisdom of his elders.  The "condition" is called, I decided, "prolonged adolescence".  

[klfrodo]

16 hours ago, BoozinCroozin said:

This is our concern as well. We are booked on AA to fly down for our flights. If they are delayed, we are just going to drive and fight with the airlines and insurance for the funds. Delays turn to cancelations and there is no recovery time then. A delay could be 6-12 hours before they officially cancel. At that point we would not be able to make the drive. Our flight is at 6PM the night before. It is a 9 hour drive. We can make it to Jacksonville FL by midnight, sleep for 4-5 hours and finish the last ~3 hours to Port Canaveral early in the morning. 

 

I do not trust the air industry and would definitely not be risking a cruise dependent on them. They are all having issues.

Okay,,, at least you have considered a backup plan.

 

please note that the Trip Delay portion of trip insurance has a minimum time limit for the delay. Some as little as 4 hours. Others as high as 24 hours. Know what the limit is on your policy.

Also, when renting the car as a backup, ensure that you notify the Travel insurance company before hand. They may not reimburse without prior approval.

[6rugrats]

But AA is not the same as Spirit.  They have interline agreements with other airlines, and will pay to place you on another airline's flights.  Spirit will not.

[FlyerTalker]

3 hours ago, 6rugrats said:

But AA is not the same as Spirit.  They have interline agreements with other airlines, and will pay to place you on another airline's flights.  Spirit will not.

 

This year, I had an AA flight that was delayed several hours due to inoperative lavs.  Then AA switched us to a different aircraft, which turned out to have a bad tire.  Then, after the crew timed out, they cancelled the flight.  AA then rebooked us on DL, as it was the next option with seats.

 

With Spirit, I would probably have still been sitting in the airport days later.

 

For years, Baskin-Robbins had this John Ruskin quote on their walls:

 

"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey."

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2021 by FlyerTalker

[iancal]

We would be extremely reluctant to book a Spirit flight.

 

We would never book one that involved a stopover/change of planes.

 

The only way we would consider booking Spirit to get to a cruise departure point is if we were going out a few days in advance or there were no available seats on a mainline airline.

 

You only get what you pay for...if you are fortunate.

 

Sometimes the intangibles are the most important consideration of a buy.

Edited August 11, 2021 by iancal

[rkacruiser]

On 8/11/2021 at 4:01 PM, iancal said:

You only get what you pay for...if you are fortunate.

 

I will never book a budget airline.  If I cannot afford the proper price for a flight with the service that I expect, then, I ought not be making such a reservation.  

[iancal]

We book certain LC airlines in SE Asia, Australia, and Europe.   Just depends where we are going and how much time we have.   I think that we have had more flights with Jetstar, Air Asia, and Scoot than we have had on NA carriers.    

 

It is sometimes hard to pass up the pricing.   $190. for Scoot (Singapore Airlines) flight from Krabi, Thailand to Gold Coast Australia via Singapore.  10 hour flight.

 

  Or our regular  $300AUD o/w on Jestar Australia (Qantas) Sydney-Honolulu (sometimes  a code share with Qantas).  Or $45. AUD sale price on our Brisbane-Hobart, Tasmania last trip.

 

Depends on the airline and our schedule.  We have found a significant difference between NA LC airlines and those in other geographies.

 

The likes of Spirit or Frontier....no thanks we also pass.

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by iancal

[SelectSys]

17 hours ago, iancal said:

Depends on the airline and our schedule.  We have found a significant difference between NA LC airlines and those in other geographies.

I think it also depends on what you mean by Low Cost carrier as their is quite a bit of differentiation in the market.  For example, is JetBlue considered a LC carrier anymore?  Same with Southwest?

 

Spirit and Frontier advertise themselves, I think as Ultra Low Cost Carriers.  Again, this is a different product.  From wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-cost_carrier

 

Ultra low-cost carrier

A secondary term "ultra low-cost carrier" (ULCC) has been used to differentiate some low-cost airlines whose model deviates further from that of a standard low-cost carrier, with ultra low-cost carriers having minimal inclusions in the fare and a greater number of add-on fees.[18] Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air have been most commonly referred to as Ultra Low-Cost carriers,[19] with Frontier Airlines repositioning as ultra low-cost in 2015.[20] Following the appointment of former Allegiant Air COO Jude Bricker as their new CEO, Sun Country Airlines began transitioning to an ultra low-cost carrier model in 2017.[21][22] In Canada, Swoop is an ultra low-cost carrier operated by WestJet.[23]

 

I found the mention of Swoop interesting as WestJet started/is considered a low cost carrier from my recollection. 

 

Finally, I totally agree with you that the decision is location and schedule dependent.  For me, Volaris offers far superior reach than any other airline flying in Mexico and they are an ULCC airline.  I would pick Volaris over AeroMexico almost every time as Volaris offers far more non-stops and service frequency from my "home airport" of Tijuana.

[iancal]

Yes.  Last time my spouse required a last minute O/W direct to Toronto she choose Swoop.  Why?  AC and Westjet were and incredible $429.   Swoop was $209.  Depart and arrive same time.

 

Westjet has not been a low cost airline for years.  They are typically the same price as A/C.

 

We will fly to Athens  with a return from either London or Paris.   For the past several years the Transat ticket has been $300 plus less than the A/C ticket and we prefer Transat.

Edited August 13, 2021 by iancal

[FredT]

The people I feel for are those novice travlers who look at Travelocity (Or any of the other on line booking sites)...  They see a cheap fare and they don't know any better.....   

[FlyerTalker]

I remember a great line:

 

People buy an airline ticket as if it was an indistinguishable commodity - until it isn't. 

[Cienfuegos]

Relying on an interline agreement to get you a seat on Delta, etc when another major  cancels has some risk. One is the 85%+ full flights won't have seats for you after the first class, medallion, full fare, etc folks have been seated.

 

My wife and I spent two days (!!) in Baltimore when SouthWest cancelled our Sunday night flight to South Florida. We were flying on points, so we were so far back in the line it was ridiculous.

 

On the other hand, we ate well and visited several museums in a city we would not have considered visiting.  On our own dimes, of course.

[NMTraveller]

6 hours ago, Cienfuegos said:

Relying on an interline agreement to get you a seat on Delta, etc when another major  cancels has some risk. One is the 85%+ full flights won't have seats for you after the first class, medallion, full fare, etc folks have been seated.

 

My wife and I spent two days (!!) in Baltimore when SouthWest cancelled our Sunday night flight to South Florida. We were flying on points, so we were so far back in the line it was ridiculous.

 

On the other hand, we ate well and visited several museums in a city we would not have considered visiting.  On our own dimes, of course.

We ended up driving back during our multiday Southwest cancellation and we are AList...

 

All new flights I am booking on other airlines and I already rebooked my cruise flights (time sensitive).

 

Southwest can be OK if you have plenty of time...

[NMTraveller]

On 8/13/2021 at 11:13 AM, SelectSys said:

I think it also depends on what you mean by Low Cost carrier as their is quite a bit of differentiation in the market.  For example, is JetBlue considered a LC carrier anymore?  Same with Southwest?

 

I would say Southwest is a low cost carrier when you look at reserved seating, first class service, etc.  This is from a reduced service perspective.   However in some cases Southwest is just as expensive as Delta in terms of price.

Edited August 26, 2021 by NMTraveller