Spirit Airlines strike update: Bad news … and more bad news

When it comes to Spirit Airlines’ strike, there’s bad news — and more bad news. First, the bad news: All of the airline’s flight are canceled through Wednesday as the company tries to hammer out an agreement with its pilots union.

And the other bad news? Despite suggestions that it might refund your money if your flight’s canceled, the airline apparently wants to keep all of it. Even if you don’t fly.

In a new release this morning, the company promised grounded passengers either a refund or “future flight credits for customers for the full amount of their unflown flight purchase” plus $100 in future flight credits.

So far, I’m hearing that it’s just offering credit.

Spirit is absolutely allowed to do that. The only mention of a strike in Spirit’s contract of carriage — its legal agreement between you and the airline — is in section 4.8 under “Refusal to Transport”

Spirit may refuse to transport, or remove from any flight, any customer for the following reasons:

4.8.2. Whenever necessary or advisable by reason of weather or other conditions beyond its control (including, without limitation, acts of God, labor disturbances, strikes, civil commotions, embargoes, wars, hostilities, or disturbances) actual, threatened, or reported.

In other words, as I mentioned in a previous post, Spirit has no obligation to do anything for you. Period.

(Section 9.2, which addresses involuntary refunds, suggests the airline may owe passengers a refund for canceling the flight, but Spirit seems to be arguing that the rule doesn’t apply during a strike.)

While Spirit’s decision is completely legal, it is morally wrong. If I order a meal at a restaurant, and the kitchen staff goes on strike, I don’t have to pay for the food I never was served. Why should this be any different?

Given all that, reader Sam Wyrick wants to know what his options are. His weekend flight from New York to Myrtle Beach, S.C., was canceled at the last minute, and he had to buy a new ticket on US Airways. Total cost: $1,220.

Two different Spirit reps–one on the ground at LaGuardia, and one at a call center had stated that if Spirit canceled our flight we would be called and rebooked, on another airline if necessary. But the airline site only offered a credit.

I am going to try to recoup our actual damages. I have read their contract of carriage (which of course no one ever sees in advance) on your site, which disclaims any responsibility to reimburse the passenger for the cost of rebooking on other airlines. Any advice?

Unfortunately, his options are limited. Airlines aren’t required by law to accept passengers from carriers that have been grounded because of a strike (there use to be one, but it expired). The credits are of limited value, and will almost certainly expire in due time.

How about a credit card dispute, as some have suggested?

Not a bad idea, but if it’s been more than 60 days since the purchase, the odds of prevailing are not good. Under the Fair Credit Billing Act, you have to make a claim within two months. Many airline tickets are booked with longer lead times, which means you’re pretty much out of luck.

Here’s another common problem: Kim Bailey is scheduled to fly to Mexico on Spirit later this week for a wedding. The airline is striking until Wednesday. What to do?

I can’t wait until the 16th and take the chance on the pilots returning to work.

I have made attempts to speak with the subjects who answer the 800-number, but they are extremely limited on the information given out. I am requesting my money be returned to me so I can please make other arrangements, there are only four seats remaining on a JetBlue flight with the same time frame as the Spirit flight was on Thursday.

I have been a nervous wreck since Saturday and need to take care of this right away.

I’d be a nervous wreck, too — especially if it was my wedding.

My advice is to book that JetBlue ticket now. If you’re within the 60 days, dispute your credit card payment to Spirit and be done with it. But whatever you do, don’t believe that a resolution to this strike is imminent.

No one knows what’s going to happen next. Anyone who claims to, and doesn’t belong to Spirit management or the pilots union, is full of hot air.

Good luck out there, fliers.

Update (6/15, 10:15 a.m.): The strike continues …

As a result of its pilot union’s decision to strike, Spirit’s flights are cancelled through Thursday, June 17, 2010.

Spirit is processing future flight credits for customers for the full amount of their unflown flight purchase, and is also giving them a $100 future flight credit.

Customers who prefer a full refund instead may call 1 (800) 772-7117 for assistance.

(Photo: V idiot/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • Alan

    Spirit is the nation’s leading Horrible Airline, so good riddance. They don’t want your business, and you don’t want theirs.

  • SirWired

    You can get a refund! (Although you may have to ask for it.)

    Section 4.8 only covers the circumstances in which they may not let you on board the aircraft. (If they refused transport for reasons outside of those conditions, they would probably be liable for incidental damages.) This section does not cover refunds in any way.

    The section on “Involuntary” refunds is 9.2, and it states the following: “Customers involved in a Spirit Airlines initiated cancellation or schedule change in excess of 2 hours will have three (3) options available to them: 1) re-accommodation, 2) credit voucher, or 3) a refund.”

    Spirit may not mention this without asking, but it most certainly is an option under their passage contract.

    Spirit is NOT obligated to pay for your flight on another carrier, nor do they have to pay a dime for your expenses as a result of the strike, but they do have to offer you a full refund on request. (Even though this may not be nearly enough to cover your replacement flight.)

  • Dan

    To be fair, Spirit’s full statement on the matter does say this:

    “If you would prefer to receive a full refund instead, please call 1 (800) 772-7117 and one of our Customer Service Representatives will assist you.”

    … which, to me, means that they WILL offer full refunds; you just have to work harder to get them. If they told me I couldn’t get a full refund, I would point to this line in their statement.

  • David Young

    Come on, you booked on Spirit! You’ve been warned again and again and again about their horrible treatment of customers (on this site as well as on others.) So my comment to anyone whining about Spirit is, “You were warned. You rolled the dice for a cheap fare and crapped out. Don’t gamble if you can’t afford to lose.”

  • GESR

    Why is every one blaming Spirit and not the union? There is certainly no meeting of the minds here. If the pilots on have been working without a contract for three or four years; just how good is their union that they could not have worked things out before this mess? As for Spirit Airlines being horrible, I can not agree. I have flown on Spirit for the past ten years and have NOT had any problems with the airline; with Mother Nature and Acts of God yes, but not the airline themselves. Me personally I would like to fly safely and land safely and I done that with Spirit. Go to Spirit’s website and read the press releases, they will open your eyes. Being paid $138 an hour is not bad. Also I do not think Spirit planes would be flying if they were not up to FAA regs. So before you critize Spirit (I am not saying they are free from blame, I am saying they are only partly to blame) find out what is really going on. So people get it together and work things out pronto. Yes Spirit could have handled annoucements better about Cancellations and got the word out sooner; so if you got stuck at the airport do not go yelling at the counter agents, they are only repeating what is being told to them and they are getting information from the main office when the main office calls them.
    A message to the Pilots and their Union–what good will this strike have done if you put your bosses out of business? Think about it. Can you afford to live on unemployment insurance until you find another job? If jobs where so easy to come by and then why are you still working for Spirit? Can you live with yourselves if Spirit goes under and you have put everyone;besides yourselves; who works for the company on the unemployment line? You are not the only ones who will suffer.

  • Phil

    Spirit would prefer to give you a credit, but you can demand a refund and they will do so directly to the credit card that you billed the ticket on. They also refund any money paid for baggage. We just did that today without a problem. The $100 bonus if you take a credit is nice, but the airline may well move from strike to bankrupcy and you will lose both your credit and the bonus. Thank goodness AA flies Costa Rica-Florida and when you consider they don’t charge for 2 50# bags per passenger, their rates are not that much more.

  • AGeekyMom

    A family of four, in Detroit for our class reunion this past weekend, learned on Saturday night that their flight home to Ft. Lauderdale on Sunday was cancelled and were told that they could not get another flight until June 20th! What a crock! Instead, they rented a car to drive home. I have been forwarding them info from Elliott.org in hopes that they can recoup some of their money.
    I gave up on Spirit a few years ago after a few hellish trips. Good riddance!

  • noah

    “While Spirit’s decision is completely legal, it is morally wrong. If I order a meal at a restaurant, and the kitchen staff goes on strike, I don’t have to pay for the food I never was served.”

    False analogy! A more accurate analogy. Say you go to McDonald’s, you order and prepay for your food. Before your Happy Meal and Big Mac are ready, the McDonald’s workers start a midday strike. I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty confident that the harried McDonald’s manager would close the store for the rest of the day and not offer refunds.

  • James Bianchini

    This is horrible for all passengers involved. I recommend using the services of http://www.aerbuddy.com. They helped many passengers get a full refund since Saturday. You can also reach them at client@aerbuddy.com.

  • Jeanne in TX

    @noah

    About your analogy about McDonald’s not refunding if workers went on a midday strike – actually, I don’t think that works as a good analogy either. ;-)

    Basically what’s happening is this:
    1. You order something.
    2. The company you ordered it from can’t deliver it to you.
    3. You receive compensation of some form, due to the company’s inability to delivery their product.

    I actually ordered something from McDonald’s recently – one of their Frappe’s . They charged it to my card. Then, after they’d charged it to my card, they discovered that their Frappe machine had just broken, and they couldn’t give me my Frappe.

    What did they do? They gave me a cash refund on my purchase amount.

    Even if a McDonald’s employees’ went on strike, the manager could still offer refunds.

    Where’s the management at Spirit? Hopefully, they are offering refunds upon request, as some of the individuals here are testifying. May they continue to do so.

  • MVFlyer

    Blame notwithstanding (either the union or the airline), don’t you see why the airline doesn’t want to refund the money? The purpose of a strike is to hurt the parent company where it lives, in the pocketbook. If Spirit doesn’t refund the fares, they don’t lose money!!!! (Walk-ups and future bookings, perhaps, but previous bookings, no). And they can’t just hold the money if they don’t provide the service–this simply won’t hold up in court unless they say specifically ‘no refunds’, but even this can be shot down. Perhaps small claims court is the answer if all else fails, but if they provide a phone # to call for refunds, use this first.

  • noah

    @Jeanne in TX. Those are good points, but I still think my analogy holds. Your frappuccino analogy is more like a specific flight not going. If a specific flight doesn’t go, the airline compensates you by putting you on the next available flight, or, in the old days and in rare cases, putting you on another airline.

    I think my analogy fits better because in both cases the company can’t provide you with any product due to the strike.

    That said, your comment suggests that I might be wrong at a far more fundamental level: if all of the McD’s employees suddenly walked out, maybe the manager would refund the money for burger and fries that I was waiting for.

  • Bill

    For all of you comparing McDonald’s to Spirit Airlines, that is an unfair comparison. Love them or hate them, McDonald’s pretty much always takes care of things with the customer. I’ve certainly never had a problem with them, they always make things right.

    Compare that with Spirit Airlines, who has had a bad reputation before the strike and has an even worse one now. No one should have been booking with them, people were warned. There are many reputable airlines out there, and those are the ones people should fly. I’ve never had a problem with a reputable airline either…but make sure your expectations aren’t of line. If you miss your flight due to a mechanical problem, the airline does not owe you a house and a car.

  • Cathy

    We have the same totally situation. Daughter’s wedding in St. John. 16 people booked on Spirit. 6 have rebooked, because they are family….others waiting, some leaving this Friday. This should be against the law. What government agency is going to take care of our loss. And of course, you don’t see any of this on News Network….they Pilot’s Union screwing innocent people. Fire their asses….and hire people who work that love their job….

  • Josh

    Spirit can put whatever they want in their “contract of carriage”, and that may well limit their liability for *additional* costs of another flight, hotels, etc, but a contract like that can’t waive basic consumer rights — if they don’t/won’t/can’t deliver the product purchased (a flight to X on date Y), you have every right to a full refund, and they can’t contract that away.

    And again, this is a place your credit card company can/should/most of the time will assist — my second call (after requesting a refund from Spirit itself) would be to the card company to dispute the charge. Let the credit card company fight it out; this wouldn’t be some fuzzy “he said/she said” dispute; the facts of the purchase and non-delivered service are easy to verify.

    And to the McDonalds analogy — in both cases you are entitled to a refund. Actually collecting it in cash may be easy or hard, depending on whether the store is open/closed, in bankruptcy, whether you have the receipt or not to prove what you paid, etc, but that’s just an implementation detail. If you paid by credit card (and most fast food places take them nowadays), this would also be a disputable charge (but here, the card company might require a lot more proof)

  • carver

    @noah

    I think Jeanne’s point works well. Any number of circumstances might cause McDonalds to be unable to deliver any food. Say the electricity goes out, the health inspector closes them down, etc. In any of those situations, any customer who paid for a meal and didn’t get one would expect an immediate refund. No one would expect a voucher.

  • Rabbi Pedro

    I don’t feel sorry in the least for the stranded passengers. Spirit is an EVIL airline that has led the way for the others to follow down the rabbit hole of dubious charges, draconian “rules” aka Contracts of Carraige and driving airline wages and benefits into the world of Walmart. The customers want CHEAP – then SCREW THEM ! They know what Spirit is and they bought tickets anyway.

  • cjr

    “Go to Spirit’s website and read the press releases, they will open your eyes.”

    Why would anybody automatically accept Spirit’s side of things?

  • chris

    I feel like I am being held hostage. I have a Spirit flight booked for the 19th. I would like to book a flight with a different airline, but if Spirit decides to fly the 19th I’ll have 2 flights booked. Is the only option to refute the charges on my credit card? G.. know I don’t want a future credit to fly with Spirit.

  • Joel Wechsler

    I have to agree with @cjr given that their CEO has a hsitory of lying to the public, most recently when he said that arrangements had been made with other airlines to transport Spirit passengers in the event that Spitir could not. I also agree with @Rabbi Pedro. In this connection see Joe Brancatelli’s piece “The Sleazy Leading the Stupid.”

  • Henry

    We bought several tickets for the end of this month with Spirit, about a month ago. So far, those flights have not been cancelled, but looking at the 3-4 year dispute, chances are they will be. Looking at Spirits daily losses, once they settle refunds, that is $4.8M per day just for the lost fares, then take out some of the worker pay, leases, contracts, and of course lost baggage fees, it may be more like $6-7M per day. OK, so in 2007 they made $22M in profit, and for three years before that they lost unsaid millions each year. So far since Saturday, they probably will end up losing about $6M per day, that already is $18M, so they are darn close to losing what they showed for profit in 2007. So whoever stated they could go TU, probably they are right. So here is my question: If our flight is not cancelled, we can’t get a refund yet. What can you do? I heard some interesting ideas up above. What is going to happen is within 21 days, they will be $125M in the red further, which is what they raised in equity back in 2004 to remain private. That would take them 6 years of similar ($20M) profit just to recoup a 20 day loss, much less show positive earnings once you recoup the short term loss. If they get any bailout funding, this could go on for some time. Just to compare to United/Continental, this duo transports 144M passengers a year, or 395,000 per day, compared to Spirit’s 16,000 (which is a factor of 25). The revenues for UAL/Continental is about $29B per year, and for Spirit is about $1.3B, which again is about a factor of 23, close to our factor of 25. So, if the UAL strike lasted about 29 days, back then they probably lost some (adjusting for inflation, rates, etc) $1.7B, or about 8 % of revenue (29/365 days). But that was surrounded by years of profit both before and after, so 29 days was not a do or die for UAL (and Continental was separate at that time). My guess, unless some Bailout funds get into their hands, they cannot handle 29 days. I figure we have until the 25th when they would start to cancel our flights on the 30th. That is 10 days from now, and that would make it 14 days of strike, or about 50% of the UAL strike. I think the pain level will come within 7 days, when their losses get to $50M. If you took the ALPA requested increases, per year, for 400 pilots, that comes to an extra $125,000 per year per pilot that just flew out the door. Right now, as of today (6/15/10) they could have paid all 400 pilots an extra $45,000 per year. I know that is not real profit, that is the $6M losses per day, but that is going out the door (or will be when folks finally settle with them on their missed flights), lost forever. Of course, we all know the real trend, that is when air fair for people equals the air fare for luggage. Kidding aside, my guess is that this thing could go on longer if FL or Uncle Sam gets them some bail out funds, then we are talking months of strike, not weeks. Folks, tighten your seatbelts, tray tables up, grab your ankles firmly, and KYAGB.

  • Henry

    I forgot to mention that those entitlements would go forward, so in time, my figures of 125,000 per year and $45,000 per year don’t stand. Spirit offered $70M over 5 years, plus the bonus stuff. My figures now do show that we are at $18M loss after 3 days, which is 25% of the way to $70M. It will take 12 days total to reach $70M, so they can’t go all 12 days without already giving up their offer to the wind. Let me revise my guess to include two scenarios: Offer settles within 7 days. Alternative is that they are ready to hang it up, and they smell free federal dollars, so they will take their time on the negotiations, go TU legally, solve their profit issues once and for all. Can you imagine when the rest of the union folks start to strike? Can you say “bicycle to work”?

  • Jason

    Don’t blame the pilots. They have carried out negotiations with Spirit management for four years. And why should they be paid less and work harder than their colleagues at the competing airlines? I have not heart any reports of incidents due to a Spirit’s pilot error in the past few years. They are as professional as pilots at Delta, United, American and any other major carrier. Remember most of the pilots are former Air Force and when they start flying for commercial airline they only make 20K/year at a regional carrier. It takes years before they get into 100K range. Also, ironically the management did not disclose their compensation for the last year in the press release.

  • http://GoogleChrome David Perton

    I have reservations on Spirit on July 7th from Ft. Lauderdale to LaGuardia.If the strike continues, I have to cancel going to my grandson’s birthday. I am 71 and don’t have the available money to buy another pair of round trip tickets.
    This n o refund, even though it is Spirit’s fault is immoral and illegal. I don’t care if they have 100 disclaimers. This would be the last time I would ever fly with Spirit.

  • Henry

    I agree, don’t blame the pilots. Lets see who we can blame: We have spirit pilots, ALPA, fliers (me), gov, shareholders/investors, suppliers (fuel, terminal/airport), spirit Workers(reservation, baggage, maintenance, etc), TSA (gov), other (competiton). I probably left something out. In this list, I know the biggest cost increases came from security fees (gov), fuel, maintenance, and new regulations, plus tack on an approximate 30% increase in wages for pilots/first officers. (Oh, Aircraft have gone up too.) I know that fees jumped since 9/11, fuel jumped up, regulations jumped up and now compensation. I blame the gov, (just like new federal regulations that have just hit in April on building contractors, which people are just waking up to, which now have caused a 50% to 200% increase in the cost of home additions/improvements, where the contractor is now liable for lead poisoning if the home is older than 1975). The regulation pass down from Washington to us does is trickle down, I am sure some folks in the aviation industry can speak to regulations: the new flier’s rights, safety/inspection/mainteinance, etc. Look at the security fee/taxes for International flights, up there at $150. So from Ft. Lauderdale to Santo Domingo RT, just 2 hours, that baby is now at $380+, but actual cost of getting there and back is $150, plus your luggage and seating fee. Let’s say $230. But to use government security, that cost is 90% more. What we are paying for here is a combination of new taxes on national security, immigration, border protection, etc. Keep in mind that we are not the only ones who pay for security at airports, the whole envelope of security even in scanning your raw ingredients for Dunkin Donuts has picked up. Yes, even toilet paper is screened. What we have is another front on our current wars and threats that extends to the citizen level, and for some of us that travel 6 times a year, nationally that is another $300/capita on taxes. Businesses get slammed for this, which counts toward a fairly high percentage of travellers, many of whom can expense this to contracts, many of them government, so what happens is taxpayers end up paying for the business in the long run, even the government travellers, and there are quite a few of them on official gov business. Regulation will eat you alive.

  • Joe Farrell

    Ok – the rules states as follows, in order to get covered under the FCBCA:

    “send your letter so that it reaches the creditor within 60 days after the first bill containing the error was mailed to you.”

    An argument can easily be made that if you have the same credit card that if you do not get a full refund for a service purchased in advance that the first bill containing a billing error is the bill where you do NOT receive a credit despite demand after you did not or have a reasonable belief that you will not receive the service promised.

    You are going on a wedding / honeymoon and you choose SPIRIT? There is truly no cure for stupid . . .

  • Jim

    How does one get the $100 voucher to use??? I got NO voucher & NO assistance from SPIRIT, and had to already book another flight. There is NO info on their website about obtaining or using these $100 vouchers. Has anyone actually received one?

    As for refunds, although they say they will give refunds upon request, everyone I talked to said NO. I had to send in several complaints, still NO, then finally told them I was filing a complaint with my credit card company; only then was I refunded.

  • JOSE L. QUILES VAZQUEZ

    I HAVE TO FLIGHT ON 6/21/2010 TO TAMPA AND RETURN TO P.R. ON JUNE 30, I HAVE TO FLIGHT ON 6/24/2010 FROM TAMPA TO FORTH LAUDERDALE AND RETURN THE SAME DAY. I CAN NOT WAIT UNTIL JUNE21 TO SEE WHAT ARE GOING TO HAPPEN ON THIS SPIRIT AIRLINES STRIKE. IM GOING TO CALL AMEX TO CANCEL THIS TRANSATION AND BE ABLE TO GET ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE WITH OTHER AIRLINES.

  • Nan

    My daughter works for Spirit. NO ONE there is happy about the pilots’ strike. The employees there are suffering and they are angry at the pilots’ strike, so before you condemn the entire airline, remember this was the pilots’ idea only. Spirit employees (some making only $10/hr) are told to go home and they have children to feed. Trust me, the Spirit employees are scared and absolutely hate that this is taking place. Rampers have been told to go home, and the porters out front – for some that is their only income. My daughter thinks the pilots should be fired. Don’t blame the airline, blame the pilots.

  • Liz

    Spirit is a HORRIBLE company and I WISH and HOPE consumers are smart enough to let this company go under. It’s basic laws of business that if a company doesn’t treat its employees or customers well, provides BAD service and doesn’t EVER assume responsibility for its shortcomings, customers go somewhere else and it either redefines its mission or it dies. Period! The only good part about flying on Spirit was 1) the quality of its time on the air (thanks to the pilots) and 2) its cheaper prices (but now they’ll not only charge for a seat but also for carryons). I support these pilots 200% and its time that the company employees start following suit and learning to value themselves more so that they are not paid just $10 an hour like the post before said. WE have to hold companies to a higher moral character than Spirit has to offer. Look at what’s happening to BP. My husband was flying today and we had to buy a last minute flight that cost about six times as much. But the company EITHER issues you a refund or gives you a voucher. The only reason anyone uses them is because they’re less expensive. But NO ONE can argue that they have ANY regard or respect for customers. We’ve been delayed for 6 hours with a baby running out of bottles because they didn’t have a full flight and decided to join two flights… This company is no good, period! When the bigger players like Delta and American decide to lower their prices slightly, they’ll put Spirit Airlines out of business. Period!

  • Alina

    OK, so they are on strike. At this point I am not taking sides. All I care about is getting to Vegas this Saturday to celebrate my son’s 21st birthday. We have close to 20 people traveling from Miami to Vegas. Half of us are on Spirit. Flights are cancelled through Thursday. As of 3:00 PM today they have not updated their website as to cancellations for Friday and Saturday. Is there anyone reading this with any type of airline experience that can give a mother an “inside scoop” and tell me if it looks very probable that Spirit will cancel their flights for Friday and Saturday??? If I knew they were going to cancel, I would book other flights. If they cancel, I get my refund, if they don’t they I am out all that money. I am a teacher (which by the way, even though we haven’t received a raised in over 3 years and when we do they are talking about possibly a 2-3% raise, and we can’t strike!!)and I can’t afford to paid for new flights unless I know that I will be receiving a refund from Spirit. Any insights?? I think they will cancel for this week-end, but my husband wants to wait a little longer. The longer we wait the more chances we have that the flights we are looking at won’t be available or will go up in price. Meanwhile, the other half of our group will be getting to Vegas on Saturday and the birthday boy will be stranded in Miami. Please help with any suggestions. Thanks!

  • henry

    For Alina, Jose, and ALL

    Spirit has about $125M in liquidity, and they are out at least $6M per day on lost revenue. It has been 5 days, or about $30M in lost revenue, but their losses are not immediate as not all refunds have been processed, but are pending or imminent. And, they are cancelling about 2 days out, so really they are out $42M, or about 1/3 of the way. On June 20th they hit the 50% mark, read my analysis above. I would guess they can hang on a total of 50%, or June 20, with cancellations out to the 22nd. They already upped their baggage fee. I think Spirit knew about the strike, and that is why they were so aggressive with the new baggage fees, which Mr. Schumer rebuffed (D-NY). I am in the same boat (hey not a bad idea), with about $2500 on the line. I believe in some entrepreneurial trust, that is why I gave them a shot, it’s just that I did not pay attention to the billboards that the pilots claimed they put out to warn about a strike. They do have to play by the rules, again, back to the GOV. This is going to hurt FL, and the ALPA is in driver seat for the pilots. How about we discuss what folks can do? I like the comments above, especially about the workers, that is much needed info.

  • Brian

    Well I found out the night before we were leaving on our honeymoon that Shitit(spirit) Air Lines cancelled all flights. I was on the phone for over 6 hrs trying to find another flight and get a refund. Samentha at Shitit Air Lines said I would get my refund in a week, a full refund. Well today a supervisor said at Shitit said they forward the refund on 14 june, well she didn’t even have my card info and said the travel agency would have to do the refund and it would take 3 billing cycles( 2 MONTHS). They say they are not holding my money, whatever. They have to have payrole for the people answering the calls…………………..

  • Dan

    A refund is of little use when it cost me more than $400 to get to my desitnation once Spirit stranded me.

    I had an incident with Spirit about 6 weeks ago, when I missed my flight. Any other airline would have put me on the next flight, same day. Spirit insisted that I pay a full one way fare, even though the flight was virtually empty. The gate supervisor was of no help.

    I complainted to customer service, and was proudly told that this is how Spirit makes their money. Strict interpretation of all rules. He said that other airlines, who break the rules all the time, lose money. Spirit, by having no care for their passengers at all, makes money.

    This was so very true of the strike. No interline agreements. No help or assistance. Just a puny $100 credit. Thanks alot. They cost me over $400, and they think that a credit of $100 will make up for it?

    This strike has cost them their reputation. I suspect that their losses will be far greater than whatever was extracted from the pilot’s union.