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Doubtful. Too far down the pike. What Amazon is great at is turning its own infrastructure needs into revenue instead of a cost- Marketplaces (White labeling i

• reaperducer 9y ago
  > What Amazon is great at is turning its own infrastructure needs into revenue instead of a cost Let's hope that it decides to offset the cost of all those planes hauling its boxes around the country by selling tickets to paying passengers. It could be Spirit Airlines, but without the terrible customer service, terrible conditions, and nickel-and-diming of its customers. All we want is a safe, reliable, solid, FAIRLY PRICED airline ticket. Do you hear me, Jeff? Hello? Is this thing on?
  • tjr225 9y ago
    Anecdotally, I have never had an issue flying spirit and have done so on many occasions. They have a couple cheap direct flights from KC - Detroit/Chicago (family is right in between) and seasonally Portland - Detroit that are mega cheap
    • reaperducer 9y ago
      I had a Spirit flight to Charlotte that never took off. I ended up having to cancel my trip entirely. And the interwebs are full of Spirit horror stories. Also, conventional wisdom is to not fly Spirit if you're of average height or above.
      • tjr225 9y ago
        I'm 6'1" and I've been uncomfortable on every flight I've ever been on as an adult that was coach...not really special to Spirit.
        • Retric 9y ago
          I'm 6'2" and have never had a problem flying coach. It's mostly a question of leg length which can very quite a bit.
          • tyingq 9y ago
            Have you flown Spirit? I know tall people that literally do not fit. Their knees are either in the aisle or in their seat neighbor's space. Their seat pitch is truly awful.
        • dpeck 9y ago
          6'3" here and trust me Spirit is different than others. Knee to lower back/butt length didn't allow me to fully sit into the seat without wedging myself into it. It was not a pleasant experience but I was just a couple years out of college and heading to Miami for a football game so for $75 I dealt with it, but I've never flown on them again and were very happy that we had gotten a rental car to share driving back to Atlanta.
          • dpeck 9y ago
            That said, they provide a great value and I have an aunt that used them extensively to be with me grandparents while their health was failing, so apart from being a terrible experience for tall people I’ve very glad they exist.
      • throwaway7686 9y ago
        This made me look up flight maps. I have always hoped Spirit would start flying out of Charlotte. They have never operated here and still do not. Your experience may have been with Allegiant or Frontier (or flying to another city).
  • stcredzero 9y ago
    Let's hope that it decides to offset the cost of all those planes hauling its boxes around the country by selling tickets to paying passengers. I don't know how accurate this is, but a private jet pilot I was sitting next to on a flight told me that excess passenger airline baggage space was already being used to ship packages. If that's true, then baggage fees make a lot of sense. Passengers would be competing with Amazon and other companies for that space.
    • reaperducer 9y ago
      You are correct. It was government contracts to haul mail that turned flying airplanes into an industry back in the early days. Passenger service was added later. Cargo remains more profitable than people even today. That's why you can still ship packages via passenger bus. Or at least you could the past time I did it in the early 2000's via Greyhound Package Express. I'm not saying it Amazon Airlines should look like United, with a couple of hundred people up top and all the cargo down below. But maybe add 50 or 60 seats in a space in front. One of the problems with cargo is that it's so ephemeral. A plane on a particular route can be full of packages at Christmas, and then half empty the rest of the year. This is exactly the sort of problem that Amazon seems good at solving. Maybe make the passenger compartment modular. Add more seat modules when cargo loads are low. Add more cargo pods when demand is high. If anyone can make it work, it's Amazon.
      • mseebach 9y ago
        But why? Passenger transport is already well catered for and extremely low margin. Also, passengers are annoying and generally not cardboard wrapped. They require seats and toilets and cabin attendants and pretzels and infant flotation devices. Cardboard boxes also don't videotape you when you offload them last minute to make room for something more valuable. And that's before accounting for scheduling. Freight flights are often late nights, because cardboard boxes don't have eyes that can go red.
        • doorbumper 9y ago
          I'm not saying Amazon will switch to passenger transport, but you can imagine that their strategy would be to dominate the market by subsidizing ticket prices, then once they have the proper penetration, to raise ticket prices and be the first airline to increase margins in some time.