Trip Report: Spirit Airlines, Atlanta to New Orleans (January 2019)

Trip Report: Spirit Airlines, Atlanta to New Orleans
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I have taken many flights between Atlanta and New Orleans, and on this sector there are three options: Delta, Southwest, and Spirit.  Delta has the most frequency while Spirit has the least frequency, with Southwest in the middle.  Delta is usually the most costly, while Spirit and Southwest are the most economical (depending on the month and depending on what extras you need).  I have mainly flown Southwest given their frequency and my flexibility, but for my most recent trip I booked Spirit.  I was returning from Atlanta to New Orleans the day after New Year's and I booked the ticket somewhat last minute, and when I was looking Southwest was significantly higher in cost than Spirit.  Spirit only had one flight a day - which departed Atlanta at 3:44p and arrived into New Orleans at 4:29pm - and the base fare was $80.19.  

I say base fare because Spirit is a low-cost airline so they charge for everything, from checked-in baggage and carry-on baggage to onboard services such as drinks and food; nothing is for free.  You are only allowed one personal item for free, and this must fit underneath your seat.  A larger carry-on must be paid for - either $35 at the time of booking or $65 at the gate (which is a steep cost).  You can also check-in a bag for $30, but it is at 40lbs instead of the industry standard of 50lbs.  I was only going to be traveling with a small carryon, and I don't mind not receiving onboard service for the 1hr flight so for me the $80.19 base fare worked out so I went ahead and booked it.  It was pretty easy to book the flight through the website, either through the computer or through the mobile site; on the website you can choose the extras such as adding bags and preselecting your seat (I added none of the items).  Spirit does have a phone app which I downloaded, and it was completely useless as I could not book a flight through the app, could not add my booking to the app, and could not manage my booking through the app.  The only thing I could do on the app was check-in (more on that later) or check the status of the flight.  Spirit really needs to improve its app functions! 

Leading up to my flight, Spirit would periodically send me emails reminding me to purchase seats or prepurchase bags.  24-hours prior to my flight, I tried to check-in through the Spirit app but I was not able to complete the process.  During the check-in process, there is still a cost to preselect your seat (most airlines do not charge for seat assignments during check-in, but Spirit does) and since I did not want to pay I choose not to preselect and gambled with Spirit selecting my seat; because of this gamble, I was not able to obtain my boarding pass until I went to the airport.  This can be a pain for some passengers who wish to bypass the whole 'check-in at the airport' mess.  My flight was scheduled to depart Atlanta at 3:44pm and because Atlanta is a big airport and because I had to check-in at the airport, I arrived at the Spirit counters 2-hours prior to the scheduled departure time.  There were a lot of passengers surrounding the check-in desks and they were broken up into three lines: those who needed gate agent assistance, those who were waiting for kiosks, and those who were waiting to drop their bags off after going through the kiosks; the only line that was not long was the one for the kiosks.  Spirit generally charges you to print the boarding pass at the airport, but each time I have checked-in through the kiosks I have not had to pay this fee.  I went to the kiosks, followed the prompts, and received my boarding pass.  As a seat assignment, I was given 8F which is a window seat and a seat, which had I selected it at check-in, probably would have cost me $8-$15.  Not pre-selecting a seat is a gamble and I have seen many passengers take this gamble, and sometimes you win and get extra legroom seat as that's the only seat left on the plane, or you lose and get the last middle seat on the plane.  I was lucky in that the gamble paid off and I was given a good seat assignment, and I proceeded to the gate area.

Spirit is a low-cost airline so they charge for everything, including onboard snacks and water.  The fare that I had purchased only allowed for a complimentary personal item that fit underneath the seat in front of me, as an additional carry-on would incur a fee.  Since Spirit does not provide complimentary drinks or snacks, I prepurchased these at the airport prior to my flight.  The inbound aircraft for our flight was delayed arriving into Atlanta, and this delayed the turnaround time thus delaying our flight; and while the gate agents did inform us of the plane's arrival and turnaround time, they never mentioned a delayed departure time.  Once all passengers had deplaned, the gate agents asked passengers who needed special assistance and those in Group 1 to line up to board.  Spirit boards by groups, with those who pre-purchased carryons in Group 1 and those who have nothing are in Group 4; I was in Group 4 but the groups are generally not really enforced.  

Once onboard, the operating aircraft was an Airbus A319 in a 3-3 seat layout.  While you cannot recline the seats, they are already in a reclined position which makes the seat pitch feel greater than it actually is.  Having said that though, both the seat pitch and seat width were better on Spirit than some other full and low-cost carriers (including Southwest Airlines).  Once seated, the boarding doors closed a bit behind schedule, a manual safety demonstration was conducted and we taxied to the runway for takeoff.  After reaching cruising altitude, I was able to switch seats to row 5 as the passenger in my row was larger and needed the extra room; so myself and another passenger moved up.  The flight was relatively uneventful as its up to the individual passenger how they would like to pass the time.  The flight attendants were generally nice and helpful, and they came by with their cart as passengers could purchase drinks and/or snacks.  The lavatory on the Airbus A319 was also generally larger than some of the other planes I have flown on (again comparing it to the Boeing 737 flown by Southwest).  As the flight time was only 1hr and 06min, we quickly started our descent into New Orleans.  We were scheduled to land into New Orleans at 4:29p and we landed around 4:35p, so a little behind schedule, and we quickly taxied to the gate.

Overall, it was a pleasant flight with Spirit.  The airline has had many detractors and it has been trying to improve its image and reliability, and those improvements seemed to have been reflected on my flight.  The crew were generally pleasant and courteous, the airplane was clean, the seats were comfortable and had a good pitch and width, and generally the flight was good.  Yes the airline does require you to pay for every thing, but to be fair they do make that information very transparent to the passenger so you know what you are getting into.  If you know what you are getting into and have set your expectations accordingly, you can expect a good flight with Spirit.