bluespoon

Spirit still has a chance. They've been around for a long time and they might find some financial backing too. If you fly in the back of American or any other legacy for that matter, minus the free movies, it's Spirit level service and the environment is not that much different anyways. It's not going to be that hard to bring the people back to Spirit if the price is right. They just need to get their costs low again and have cheap seats avaiable. They might need to be a niche airline.

Rama

The big 3 figured out the way to combat ULCC's by offering the same level of seat/service for the same price. The pax in general will go with legacies for their miles as well as havig more options when the flight has issues due to wx etc. ULCC's have the advantage of point to point service, otherwise not really a difference.

Chimpy

I hate that term “get costs low”. We already make less than our peers, we already pay F/As less than our peers, we already contract our ground ops to lowest bidder, we already use the absolute worst gates at every airport because they are discounted…… Maybe it’s less about “cost” and more about reinvestment in the operation so its a pleasant experience that people don’t dread. I’ve witnessed gate agents berate pax asking simple questions, or The amount of time I waste waiting for a ramper to shuffle around at snails pace to finally show up to the gate only to spend another 5 minutes looking for a wand is exhausting. I don’t know if mgmt is truly aware how awful our “under the wing” ops is, or if they are ok with it because of the cost?

BusBoi

Most of the people I talk to in the real world like Spirit, especially younger people. They actually say the service is decent enough with no significant complaints. They also say that we're still usually significantly cheaper than the big 3. Last summer when a couple friends wanted to go to Vegas, they flew Spirit. Even with bag fees they said it was like one-third of what United was demanding (the only other airline offering nonstop on that route).

Chimpy

yeah but we’re significantly cheaper because we are selling these tickets at a loss. I know you know this but just pointing it out that this isn’t sustainable

CaseTractor

^^

Know a guy that would love to fly AA, but traveling with three kids to Jamaica it is cost prohibiting. He saves several hundred a ticket and drives weird hours to the airport to make the flight, fully knowing it probably won't be on schedule out or back.

Im curious if the business model changes, would it squeeze this guy out of the market, and he'll just fly AA anyway if there is no longer as much a cost savings. Just curious on SAVE strategy and wonder if it will really create more revenue, or alienate the costumers they have catered to in the past.

Hedley

One of the biggest problems that the ULCC's face when going up against the legacies isn't just the quality of the service, it's frequency and prior history of delays revolving around rebooking or cancellations. A cheap seat isn't that good of a deal when they only have one flight per day vs multiple flights per day on a legacy with a much larger network. I'd personally rather pay more for more reliable schedules and service. I'd also rather not deal with the flight long sales pitch for all service items, or being hassled by gate agents wanting to count, measure, and add fees for carry on bags. When offered a drink of water or a soda, I don't want to ask "How much?" There are also streaming movies and tv shows in coach that people seem to place an emphasis on, and to expect. I know that the costs of these things are baked into the higher ticket price on a legacy, but the perception is that you're buying a better product. Another issue is that legacies offer a broad range of ticket prices and level of service. Frequent flyers or people using credit card miles can upgrade into much better seats and service if they don't buy those seats outright. My opinion is that the ULCC model is dead. Airlines such as Spirit and Frontier are going to have to either quickly change their business model to offer an experience similar to the legacies (not saying that a coach seat at a legacy is luxurious) and price that service accordingly, or shrink significantly to fill the niche serving customers that only focus on ticket price.

LAXtoDEN

Way too late for the brand to be overhauled without bankruptcy. The question isn’t if but when are they going to pull the plug on their failing business and start over.

bluespoon

I think it’s too late for Spirit to compete with the Legacy’s. They’re going to have to be even better than a legacy as far as product goes if they go that route. They’re already trying the bundle prices but people still know it’s Spirit and maybe they’re still thinking about the last time they were delayed or canceled on them. But I talk to young people in my family and they’re always looking at Frontier or Spirit first before the legacy’s to try to get a cheap flight. They just need to figure out again how to make a profit selling cheap seats.

Chimpy

Ok but how?, lol. I mean how do you make a profit with cheap seats if your Labor is already costing you less than everyone else? If your Gates are already costing you less etc. I remember years ago on this very website a bunch of Legacy Guys saying how eventually the ULCC model will fail because you can't pay peanuts for labor forever and eventually Legacy airlines will figure how to offer basic economy etc and we all laughed and mentioned "song, Ted, CAL light" etc. Well......here we are. I think people have figured out how to travel with a backpack and don't want, can't qualify or don't use our credit cards. How else are we as an airline going to generate revenue?