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I’ve flown Spirit and Frontier several times, and Southwest many times (I know they’re not quite in the same category, especially after their recent changes). I

I’ve flown Spirit and Frontier several times, and Southwest many times (I know they’re not quite in the same category, especially after their recent changes). I genuinely don’t know what you’re referring to regarding the experience being wildly different. Other than a few quirks about what they do and don’t charge for and how they board and assign seats, I feel like there’s almost no meaningful difference between these and legacy carriers like United and American. I honestly don’t even feel like the prices are consistently that different.

SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo ago
The two main differences are more armchair lawyering required to avoid fees (legacy carrier is often not going to put your bag in the dimension bin, but the Spirits and Frontiers of the world certainly will) and having to sit through three sales pitches instead of one on the legacy airlines. I think Delta is the only legacy carrier in the States that doesn't do obnoxious sales pitches - only the food cart upsell. Ryanair will come through with their hands out minimally three times since last time I rode them (though it's been several years, is it four now?) One other difference I can think of is that carry-ons are more rarely included in the base fare in the budget airlines than the legacy airlines, though maybe that has also gone away since the changes where bags must be included in the listed price that Southwest pushed for.
- tshaddox 6mo ago
  I haven’t actively surveyed all the airlines, but I happened to notice recently that United charges for carry-ons.
- thrownthatway 6mo ago
  > having to sit through three sales pitches instead of one I’m not from the US and have never flown any of the airlines being discussed here. I’ve never heard of this, is there some YouTube videos you can point me to.
  - Symbiote 6mo ago
    I can't find videos. The cabin crew stand at the front of the plane, and either play a recording or make an announcement saying you can buy a lottery scratchcard for €2 or whatever, with some of the money going to charity. They then walk down the plane "scratchards? scratchcards?" They repeat this with a collection for charity (no scratchcard), a promoted drink, and some sort of food. I think this is mostly unique to Ryanair (in Europe), I don't remember Wizz Air, Norwegian or EasyJet doing this. Part of Ryanair's marketing is to make the experience worse than it needs to be, so you know you're saving money.
    - thrownthatway 6mo ago
      Haha what! That’s wild.
    - rob74 6mo ago
      Yes, Ryanair is the undisputed leader in finding new creative ways to take advantage of their captive audience and saving a few pennies here and there (e.g. I'm not aware of other low-cost carriers that have advertising on the overhead bins or put the safety instructions on seat-back stickers because it's marginally cheaper than using cards for that). Not to mention only flying from airports in the middle of nowhere to save airport fees. ...while other low-cost carriers try to distinguish themselves by not being quite as bad as Ryanair.
      - roryirvine 6mo ago
        They don't have to actually sell a single scratchcard for it to be worthwhile for them - the whole point is to cheapen the experience. They have an entire theory of marketing based on people believing that "if it feels cheap, it is cheap", and so they deliberately build in a bunch of annoyances (scratchcards, arbitrary baggage restrictions, checkout hoop-jumping, endless PR about removing toilets or running standing-only flights) which serve to make their service seem as cheap and nasty as possible. And it works: some people simply ignore the nasty aspects, others are willing to put up with them in order to get a bargain, and yet others actually take pride in wading through the crap - usually expressing it in "I beat the system" terms. And here we are talking about it on a barely-related thread - carrying their marketing message further!
deleted 6mo ago
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hn_throwaway_99 6mo ago
I feel like you're living in a different universe then. I will literally never fly Spirit (well, neither will anyone else) nor Frontier ever, I loath the experiences I've had on them so much. First, as someone with relatively long thighs, I literally don't fit in their sardine can seats. But more relevant to most people, while things may be OK if everything goes perfectly and nothing is delayed or cancelled, you are completely SOL with Spirit/Frontier if something goes wrong (and "something" may just be they themselves decide to cancel an undersold flight at the last minute). It's nearly impossible to get someone to talk to, I feel like the employees know how shitty their companies are so they all have an attitude like they DGAF, and it's a mad (expensive) scramble to find alternative arrangements at the last minute. I've never had as abysmal experiences as I've had on Frontier compared to any other airline.
- eru 6mo ago
  From a customers' immediate point of view, this sucks for you. But it's great they are not regulated utilities. Because either everyone would have to pay for extra legroom, even if they don't need it, or some freakishly long people would not be able to pay for the extra legroom that they need.
  - twiss 6mo ago
    Why do you think being regulated utilities would preclude having multiple classes of service? Airlines had first class before deregulation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_class_(aviation)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_class_(aviation)#History
  - vineyardmike 6mo ago
    Ah yes, because I am also forced to buy the same amount of electricity and water from my regulated utility regardless of need.
  - kelnos 6mo ago
    That's not how regulation works. Or at least not how it has to work. I don't pay a flat fee for my water, electricity, or gas usage, regardless of how much I use. I pay for the gallons, kWh, and therms I actually use. (Yes, there are other fees on those bills, but my usage actually matters.) Airline regulation doesn't have to specify standardized seat pitch, etc.
dghlsakjg 6mo ago
Besides the seats, seat pitch, entertainment, cabin classes, upcharges, boarding staff paid commission to reject carryons, advertising everywhere, the unpolished behavior of other clientele, customer service, and how they handle failure, sure it’s practically the same.
- alistairSH 6mo ago
  Failure is the one that always puts me off... At least with United, there's a good chance they can get a broken plane running again, or swap in a different airframe, within a reasonable number of hours. For example, my last flight to Puerto Rico was delayed by ~5 hours, due to a nose gear problem. They eventually swapped air frames around, giving us one that was scheduled for the late day flight, and got our air frame fixed in time for that later flight. Spirit or another super-low-cost? They don't have the extra air frames and number of flights to do that. You get to wait even longer, losing valuable vacation days (or missing work meetings).

SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo ago

The two main differences are more armchair lawyering required to avoid fees (legacy carrier is often not going to put your bag in the dimension bin, but the Spirits and Frontiers of the world certainly will) and having to sit through three sales pitches instead of one on the legacy airlines. I think Delta is the only legacy carrier in the States that doesn't do obnoxious sales pitches - only the food cart upsell. Ryanair will come through with their hands out minimally three times since last time I rode them (though it's been several years, is it four now?) One other difference I can think of is that carry-ons are more rarely included in the base fare in the budget airlines than the legacy airlines, though maybe that has also gone away since the changes where bags must be included in the listed price that Southwest pushed for.

tshaddox 6mo ago
I haven’t actively surveyed all the airlines, but I happened to notice recently that United charges for carry-ons.
thrownthatway 6mo ago
> having to sit through three sales pitches instead of one I’m not from the US and have never flown any of the airlines being discussed here. I’ve never heard of this, is there some YouTube videos you can point me to.
- Symbiote 6mo ago
  I can't find videos. The cabin crew stand at the front of the plane, and either play a recording or make an announcement saying you can buy a lottery scratchcard for €2 or whatever, with some of the money going to charity. They then walk down the plane "scratchards? scratchcards?" They repeat this with a collection for charity (no scratchcard), a promoted drink, and some sort of food. I think this is mostly unique to Ryanair (in Europe), I don't remember Wizz Air, Norwegian or EasyJet doing this. Part of Ryanair's marketing is to make the experience worse than it needs to be, so you know you're saving money.
  - thrownthatway 6mo ago
    Haha what! That’s wild.
  - rob74 6mo ago
    Yes, Ryanair is the undisputed leader in finding new creative ways to take advantage of their captive audience and saving a few pennies here and there (e.g. I'm not aware of other low-cost carriers that have advertising on the overhead bins or put the safety instructions on seat-back stickers because it's marginally cheaper than using cards for that). Not to mention only flying from airports in the middle of nowhere to save airport fees. ...while other low-cost carriers try to distinguish themselves by not being quite as bad as Ryanair.
    - roryirvine 6mo ago
      They don't have to actually sell a single scratchcard for it to be worthwhile for them - the whole point is to cheapen the experience. They have an entire theory of marketing based on people believing that "if it feels cheap, it is cheap", and so they deliberately build in a bunch of annoyances (scratchcards, arbitrary baggage restrictions, checkout hoop-jumping, endless PR about removing toilets or running standing-only flights) which serve to make their service seem as cheap and nasty as possible. And it works: some people simply ignore the nasty aspects, others are willing to put up with them in order to get a bargain, and yet others actually take pride in wading through the crap - usually expressing it in "I beat the system" terms. And here we are talking about it on a barely-related thread - carrying their marketing message further!

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

hn_throwaway_99 6mo ago

I feel like you're living in a different universe then. I will literally never fly Spirit (well, neither will anyone else) nor Frontier ever, I loath the experiences I've had on them so much. First, as someone with relatively long thighs, I literally don't fit in their sardine can seats. But more relevant to most people, while things may be OK if everything goes perfectly and nothing is delayed or cancelled, you are completely SOL with Spirit/Frontier if something goes wrong (and "something" may just be they themselves decide to cancel an undersold flight at the last minute). It's nearly impossible to get someone to talk to, I feel like the employees know how shitty their companies are so they all have an attitude like they DGAF, and it's a mad (expensive) scramble to find alternative arrangements at the last minute. I've never had as abysmal experiences as I've had on Frontier compared to any other airline.

eru 6mo ago
From a customers' immediate point of view, this sucks for you. But it's great they are not regulated utilities. Because either everyone would have to pay for extra legroom, even if they don't need it, or some freakishly long people would not be able to pay for the extra legroom that they need.
- twiss 6mo ago
  Why do you think being regulated utilities would preclude having multiple classes of service? Airlines had first class before deregulation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_class_(aviation)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_class_(aviation)#History
- vineyardmike 6mo ago
  Ah yes, because I am also forced to buy the same amount of electricity and water from my regulated utility regardless of need.
- kelnos 6mo ago
  That's not how regulation works. Or at least not how it has to work. I don't pay a flat fee for my water, electricity, or gas usage, regardless of how much I use. I pay for the gallons, kWh, and therms I actually use. (Yes, there are other fees on those bills, but my usage actually matters.) Airline regulation doesn't have to specify standardized seat pitch, etc.

dghlsakjg 6mo ago

Besides the seats, seat pitch, entertainment, cabin classes, upcharges, boarding staff paid commission to reject carryons, advertising everywhere, the unpolished behavior of other clientele, customer service, and how they handle failure, sure it’s practically the same.

alistairSH 6mo ago
Failure is the one that always puts me off... At least with United, there's a good chance they can get a broken plane running again, or swap in a different airframe, within a reasonable number of hours. For example, my last flight to Puerto Rico was delayed by ~5 hours, due to a nose gear problem. They eventually swapped air frames around, giving us one that was scheduled for the late day flight, and got our air frame fixed in time for that later flight. Spirit or another super-low-cost? They don't have the extra air frames and number of flights to do that. You get to wait even longer, losing valuable vacation days (or missing work meetings).