Scott Mayerowitz runs an interview with B. Ben Baldanza, CEO of Spirit Airlines and it’s a nice complement to Cranky Flier’s interview with their marketing chief.
What comes across is an airline that unabashedly promotes its business model. Rather than apologize for carryon bag (and other) fees, they proudly say it’s about choice and letting the customer get the best deal customized to their needs. I think that’s great, and Baldanza makes a fascinating point:
But I actually think we annoy people who don’t fly us more than we annoy people who fly us.
What I think is going on isn’t so much that they annoy people that don’t fly them but rather there’s a stark difference between flying Spirit and flying other airlines, their product isn’t for everyone. They are profitable, and in a difficult industry that speaks volumes to the extent that they are meeting true customer demand and not just hoodwinking customers.
Baldanza thinks that most of the time that customers are unhappy or surprised by fees, they’re customers who buy Spirit tickets through booking sources other than the Spirit website where disclosures abound. They find the cheapest price on an Orbitz, Expedia, or Travelocity and don’t realize all of the fees they’ll face. Certainly booking services aren’t great on the whole at comparing apples-to-apples total trip cost, and some consumers may come out surprised. It’s certainly fair for Baldanza to shoot some of the blame at those booking engines.
On the other hand, consumers often face information overload and just because it’s disclosed it’s not obvious that customers ought to internalize fees and an overall understanding that “Spirit is different.” Barry Biffle acknowledges this point in his Cranky Flier interview. And Spirit’s website requires an opt out for travel insurance, the option is pre-checked, and that’s not how consumers are used to dealing with add-ons most of the time. So it’s also true that Spirit’s behaviors aren’t all “it’s the other guys’ fault, not us” that their forward face would have you believe. Still, on the whole the problem is more that Spirit is different and small and consumers don’t always understand that going in, and it’s not entirely Spirit’s fault that consumers assume that all airline experiences will be alike and so just go with cheapest price. Although Spirit certainly does benefit from that.
In the end, Spirit doesn’t annoy me, as Baldanza might expect. They very much amuse me. The thirteen year old boy in me loves their advertising. I just wouldn’t want to fly them, they aren’t for me, and I wouldn’t (and haven’t) recommend them to friends either. And I wish them continued profits, while I continue to shout from the rooftops how Spirit is different and that people need to understand that when making their booking decisions. If you take Baldanza at face value in that interview, he should be more than fine with that!
“But I actually think we annoy people who don’t fly us more than we annoy people who fly us.”
In past years I was a similar reaction to Southwest Airlines. The emotion is not annoyance. It’s fear. Fear of low-priced competition. Fear that an undesirable business model will spread, degrading the travel experience of top elite customers of legacy carriers.
Once Southwest’s cheap fuel hedges expired and they were forced to raise prices, this fear dissipated. So did the animosity. Southwest no longer presents an existential threat to legacy carriers.
Now that Southwest has raised its fares, devalued its frequent flier program, and rendered its website barely usable, former fans and detractors are agreeing with each other more and more.
really this CEO is less than truthful, just like their FF program there whole idea of the airline is tricks and traps. Even experienced travelers from the USA on Ryan Air cannot avoid the debit card scam or the exchange rate scam on Ryan Air.
I could deal with the extra fees for everything. What I couldn’t deal with was their customer service. They broke a handle on my luggage and refused to even accept a claim for repair. Told me “we don’t cover those things”. That was the first, and last- time I ever bought a ticket on their airline.
No offense, but what frequent flier really cares about Spirit Airlines and how it’s operated. Get an interview with someone from Emirates or SQ – now that would be interesting.
Ryan air is similar, it often takes them years, to pay for broken luggage or even wheelchairs…