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Spirits Airlines lacks 'spirit' in Peru
[ Jul 17, 2007 10:45:44 ] Spirit Airlines, the United States based low cost airliner, has officially made its way into the Peruvian aviation market by offering daily non-stop service between Lima, Peru and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. For frequent travelers between these two cities, Spirit's low cost travel fare provides an attractive alternative to seemingly increasing prices offered by other airlines such as American, Delta, and Chile's LAN. Despite very attractive prices, I personally found Spirit's service to be lacking, err, spirit.
Having previously flown other low-cost carriers such as the U.S.'s Southwest Airlines, I realistically expected some types of sacrifices in the areas of comfort and service. Understand that a 'low cost carrier' is essentially a 'no frills airliner' where traditional services and comforts are eliminated in order to keep ticket prices low. Everything from the drinks, snacks and baggage (yes baggage!) is not included when you purchase your ticket with Spirit. There were no television monitors, pillows, or blankets� No problem! The problem I encountered with my experience had nothing to do with comfort but rather with customer service.
I flew on Spirit's inaugural flight from Lima's Jorge Chavez Airport to South Florida's Fort Lauderdale International Airport on June 27th. Talking with some of the passengers, I found that quite a few had purchased their tickets for the ridiculously low price of US$0.88! Unfortunately, I paid quite a bit more than that though my fare was still a great bargain compared to other carriers servicing Lima and Miami.
Once seated on the plane, the first major problem surfaced: None of the flight attendants spoke Spanish. It was a surprise since they have a Spanish website and their counter personnel at the Lima airport were bilingual. Now I understand that this is a United States based company, but when a company expands into a foreign country it is assumed that their employees will speak that country's language. I am pretty sure that flight attendants on an Indian based airliner providing service to the United States will speak English. Much of my time on the flight was spent helping those seated near me who were not able to read or communicate in English. I personally did not have a problem helping out my fellow passengers, but what would have happened had I (or any other bilingual person) not been there to assist them?
The second problem dealt with purchasing snacks and beverages. Each non-alcoholic beverage was sold at US$1.00. Not bad, but nowhere on the ticket, receipt of purchase, or preflight information given by Spirit after purchasing my ticket did it say that drinks and snacks could only be purchased by credit card. This was a problem for many who had planned on snaking on something during the 5+ hour flight into Florida. If you do some digging around on Spirit's website, you will be able to find their credit card only policy but it is not easy to find (this coming from someone whose livelihood is the internet).
After more than 5 and �½ hours we finally landed in Fort Lauderdale. A loud round of applause broke to celebrate Spirit's first official flight from Lima to Florida (though I believe it was because we were close to getting out of those uncomfortable seats). As the plane taxied into its designated gate we were informed by a flight attendant over the loudspeaker: "Ladies and gentlemen U.S. Customs authorities are apparently not ready to receive passengers from this flight at the moment. We ask you to remain seated until agents enter the plane and take down your information."
After nearly 45 minutes of waiting on the plane, 5 Spirit Airlines administrative agents (what happened to the Customs agents?) entered the plane and began taking our passports one by one to fill out passenger information sheets needed by U.S. authorities. According to the Spirit agents, U.S. Customs needed and demanded the information immediately. After finally getting off the plane and enduring another 45 minute while trying to go through Customs I talked to one of the Customs agents about the situation. The officer indicated that Spirit Airlines had failed to inform and provide U.S. Customs at the Fort Lauderdale airport with mandatory passenger information ahead of time. He further informed that airlines are required to provide passenger information before a plane leaves its departing city. And because Spirit failed to do this, all of the passengers, regardless of their nationality, had to wait to be called individually by a Customs officer in order to be processed as a U.S. Citizen or as a non-U.S. visitor.
To add to my woes I missed my connecting flight (on another airline) by more than one hour. After talking to other passengers on the flight, more than half also missed their connecting flights ââ?¬â??some with Spirit, others on different airlines. Spirit did not apologize nor did they offer to provide solutions to problems that were caused by THEIR incompetence and unprofessionalism.
Luckily for me, the people over at Delta (my connecting flight to Los Angeles) were very understanding and reserved a seat for me on the next day's flight to Los Angeles at no additional charge. I returned to the Spirit counter, and after battling with inept customer service representatives and going up the Spirit chain of command, a kind manager agreed that Spirit should foot the bill for my hotel room that night (the Hilton). Unfortunately, people like the kind manager are not common at Spirit (at least through my experience). I personally will never fly with Spirit Airlines again and I would not recommend flying on Spirit to anyone even if you come across an US$0.88 ticket.
