| ▲ | Spirit Airlines canceled all flights and is going out of business(cnn.com) |
| 64 points by teleforce 9 hours ago | 32 comments |
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| ▲ | bdcravens 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| I actually flew Spirit for the first time yesterday, coming home from a week in Las Vegas. There were 20+ "deadhead" flight attendants on board. I assume Spirit was rushing to get them all home. All in all, it wasn't a bad flight, the flight attendants who were working the flight seemed cheerful enough, even though I'm sure they knew they may be unemployed soon. (Presumably management gave them strict orders to not discuss the state of things) Of course they still charged me $20+ for a soda and a couple of snacks lol. |
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| ▲ | metiscus 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Spirit dying is going to mean prices go up substantially across industry. They provided a price floor above which other airlines couldnt raise prices without risking losing business to spirit. Usually the difference was pretty small, basically a market calculated fee for not wanting to deal with Spirit. But since their bankruptcies, in areas where they have pulled out, the other airlines have been seen to raise prices by something like 12-15%. I would expect similar or worse now that they're gone for good. |
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| ▲ | altairprime 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | An unsustainable price floor, apparently. Which suggests that it’s not the appropriate floor price, unless Spirit crashed for reasons unrelated to airport / plane / gate operations costs? | |
| ▲ | ramesh31 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >Spirit dying is going to mean prices go up substantially across industry. Maybe, but the economics of budget airline service are solid, so we will undoubtedly get new entrants. What wasn't solid was Spirit's outright disdain for their customers. It was completely unnacceptable how they operated, and the market has spoken as such. Even Frontier has humans you can talk to. Being stranded by one of Spirit's constant delayed flights with no recourse but an automated chatbot should have been illegal. It reached a point where your stated departure time was really no more than a vague suggestion of the time window you might be leaving around. They pushed the trend of service enshittification to its extreme conclusion and people finally had enough. | | |
| ▲ | throw-the-towel 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | For someone who's familiar with both, does that mean Spirit was America's Ryanair? | |
| ▲ | elteto 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Frontier has humans that you can talk to, for a fee. They charge $25 for going to the counter at the airport. |
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| ▲ | quesomaster9000 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| One of the best flights I've ever taken was Spirit and had 8 passengers on it, 5 of which were transferring staff/pilots. The second worst flight I've ever had the pleasure of enduring was also Spirit - the worst was Easyjet (simply because their seat dimensions are somehow smaller than the average human and generally incompatible with human physiology), and third worst was Ryanair because a mass of orange colored Brits are with near a unlimited supply of duty free gin is... amusing enough to move it up a few notches. |
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| ▲ | addaon 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > a mass of orange colored Brits are with near a unlimited supply of duty free gin I fly direct from London to Vegas occasionally. The upside is that going through immigration is trivial -- of 270 people on a flight, 265 go to the "foreign passports" line. The downside is the 15 minute wait after getting to the gate for the police to come and arrest the people who were fist fighting in the aisle. | |
| ▲ | nonameiguess 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I've flown on Spirit exactly once, thanks to an ex-wife who fit the "needlessly frugal" type talked about yesterday to a tee. Grew up in foster care and couldn't acknowledge we weren't poor. We flew into Miami during some bad weather and it's the only time ever in decades of flying I've seen the flight attendants visibly scared. If you've ever gotten speed wobbles on a skateboard, it was just like that. I'm still amazed the plane didn't fall apart in the air. They also charged for water. | | |
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| ▲ | brianwawok 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Spirit was a once and never again situation for me personally. But I’d like to think it helped drive prices in some of the competing routes. |
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| ▲ | cozzyd 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| For $9 I'll shed a tear. |
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| ▲ | ohnei 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Better check the baggage fees before you make an offer like that. | | |
| ▲ | tracerbulletx 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | They subsidized cheap prices with market segmentation. This is not the dunk everyone thinks it is. Some who needed it could fly for dirt cheap prices, subsidized by people who needed the add ons and were less price sensitive. Now they just, what? Have no option that's that cheap. Hooray I guess? | | |
| ▲ | renticulous 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | We need functioning poverty where people can still get by even if they fall below a certain threshold, they have a recourse to getup and live without being treated like animals. Around The World with Louis C.K. | Jim Norton Can't Save You EP 68 https://youtu.be/z0cypFadE3k?t=2394 In a podcast, Louis C.K. has remarked on his observations of "functioning poverty" during his travels in India, contrasting it with the homelessness and societal dysfunction he sees in New York City. | | |
| ▲ | setr 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Oh neat; I’ve been calling it the “economy of the poor” since I can’t find any proper conversation on it. This is the first time I’ve seen someone bring it up But I think the notable aspect is not that they have recourse, it’s that the economics properly scales down. Can’t afford 20 cigarettes? An Indian shop will sell you 10. Can’t afford 10? They’ll sell you 1. Can’t afford 1? They’ll sell you half a cigarette. Can’t afford clean water? They’ll sell you mildly dirty water. Can’t afford mildly dirty water? They’ll sell you dirty water. Can’t afford a modern, well built, safe car? How about one with 3 wheels? No doors? No AC? 10 MPG? The crumpling structure of a tin can? An engine with less HP than a lawnmower? In the US, there’s an arbitrary cutoff where you simply aren't allowed to be sold goods and services by anyone in normal society. It’s not about giving recourse; it’s about not actively trying to ostracize them as a separate class of humanity. You have to actively work to stop “functional poverty” from existing. In any normal setup, it’s just more of the same economy as otherwise. | |
| ▲ | timoshishi 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | His idea of functioning poverty in that video seems to involve shanty towns and more "side hustles" for the poor. His heart may be in the right place but he may be too rich for this conversation. He comes off as more than a little bit out of touch here | | |
| ▲ | renticulous 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Are you saying observation about a situation requires a privileged or non privileged position? |
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| ▲ | TitaRusell 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Dutch frugality means booking the cheapest flight to your 4 star resort. It is a badge of honour. | | |
| ▲ | nickserv 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Isn't the 4 star resort also usually in a country that has at least 50 to 1 difference in purchasing power? |
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| ▲ | jujube3 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Control-F "antitrust". Zero hits. Why no discussion of "yet another victory" for antitrust? Was 2024 really that long ago? https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s... |
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| ▲ | corvad 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I won't miss the nickel and diming that's for sure... |
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| ▲ | ChrisArchitect 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47983873 |
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| ▲ | nastrofa 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Good news for Frontier it seems |
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| ▲ | nickserv 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| If it lowers air travel then it's a good thing, since it's probably the only way the US will meaningfully invest in high speed rail. |
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| ▲ | chirau 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Quite the opposite. You reckon taking planes out of the skies will lower the cost flying? Supply and demand. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Those airplanes aren't going to be scrapped. Demand for flights hasn't reduced much. Other airlines will buy up the airplanes and put them back into service. | |
| ▲ | nickserv 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, it will likely raise prices. My point/question is whether this will reduce air travel and increase demand for rail. | | |
| ▲ | bdcravens 14 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Doubtful. People will either just eat the higher costs or simply drive. The infrastructure is lacking (relative to airports), and there's unlikely to be any support for expanding it anytime soon - passing costs on to consumers is the current US culture. |
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| ▲ | RaSoJo 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think OP meant whether this might "lower the demand" for air travel...due to the expected spike in prices |
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| ▲ | windows2020 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | All for this if the train cruises at 600mph. | | |
| ▲ | nickserv 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | For cities where the flight is an 1.5 hours or less high speed rail (300kph) is usually about the same (if not slightly faster) because it's much faster to get in and out. This works even better when the train station is closer to downtown than the airport. |
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