Airline Profile: Spirit Airlines
The Facts:
| Alliance | N/A |
| Competitors | Frontier Airlines Allegiant Air Sun Country Airlines Southwest Airlines |
| Fleet Count | 136 |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Frequent Flyer Program | Free Spirit |
| Headquarters | Miramar, Florida |
| Focus Cities | Baltimore Chicago–O’Hare Dallas/Fort Worth Detroit Fort Lauderdale (largest) Las Vegas Orlando |
| Parent Company | N/A |
| Skytrax Rating | 2 (out of 5) |
| Subsidiaries | N/A |
| Travel Classes | Economy Class Big Front Seats |
| Type of Airline | Ultra-Low-Cost |
| Website | spirit.com |
6 Things You Need To Know About Spirit Airlines
1. Seating and the Onboard Cabin
As an ultra-low-cost carrier, Spirit Airlines charges for nearly everything extra, so they charge for seat selection. Usually, seats at the very back of the plane sell for the least amount of money – usually less than $10, while seats closer to the front of the plane and exit row seats sell for much more. The Big Front Seats sell for the most, which I’ll discuss later. If you don’t buy a seat before the flight, you’ll be randomly assigned a seat at check-in.
Unfortunately, it’s not like Spirit Airlines has nice economy class seats. In fact, Spirit has the worst economy class seats currently in use. They are extremely thin, very hard and uncomfortable, don’t recline (or as they say, “pre-reclined”), have tiny tray tables (about an iPhone’s length as width), have 28 inches of legroom (standard for economy is 31-32 inches), no power ports/USB ports or WiFi, and generally are the worst economy class seats on the market. So if you do fly Spirit’s economy class, don’t expect to get comfortable, especially if you are tall (in fact, I wouldn’t recommend that you fly Spirit’s economy on flights more than 3 hours because of this).
2. Big Front Seats
The best part about Spirit Airlines is their Big Front Seats. In fact, I have written about it a couple of times and have flown on it myself multiple times, so read this article if you’d like a more in-depth summary of it. At the front of every Spirit Airlines plane are 8-10 “Big Front Seats” which are essentially US first-class seats in terms of average legroom and width, although they for-the-most-part don’t recline. The Big Front Seats essentially give you as much personal space as a domestic first-class seat because they physically use the same types of seats as United or American use in domestic first class.
The best part about the big seats is that they sell for extremely cheap – depending on whether you purchase a bundle or not, they sometimes sell from as little as $15 on short flights, although sometimes can go for up to $130 or a bit more on transcontinental flights – which is most often less than for what you pay for Economy Plus on United. Add that to the low fares on Spirit, and you sometimes can get a Big Front Seat for less than the standard economy class cost on American or Delta, which is a phenomenal deal. The only downside is that there are no extra in-flight services included with the Big Front Seats, so you’ll still have to pay for your bottle of water or cookie.
3. Hidden Fees – Don’t Be Fooled
Along with many other low-cost carriers, Spirit Airlines charges for almost everything that legacy carriers include with fares – from water to seat selection to carry-on bags. When you book a Spirit Airlines flight and don’t purchase any add-ons, the only thing that’s included is a seat (you’ll be assigned one at check-in because it costs to purchase a pre-booked seat) and a personal item that can fit underneath the seat in front of you (18 x 14 x 8 inches) – think computer bag or purse.
When comparing flight prices with other legacy airlines, sometimes when you plug in all of the add-ons that you’ll need beyond the base fare, it will cost more to fly Spirit than a legacy carrier, so make sure to account for all of the add-ons you’ll need before booking a Spirit flight! Here’s a list of add-ons that you can pay for on Spirit Airlines:
- Onboard Carry-Ons: Carry-on bags are not free onboard Spirit Airlines – even if you’re traveling in a Big Front Seat. Ironically, it costs more for you to book a carry-on than to check a bag – usually $5 more expensive. For example, from Baltimore to Los Angeles, it costs $39 (unless you’re part of the $9 fare club – more on that later) to book a carry-on during booking. However, if you want to add a carry-on later on before the flight – either at check-in or after your reservation is ticketed, it would cost $49 – a whole $10 extra. Beware – if you decide to try and sneak the carry-on the plane without paying for it (you most likely won’t be successful), it costs $65 to pay for a carry-on at the gate. So if you think you might take a carry-on onboard a Spirit flight, book it at check-in. Spirit Airlines carry-on bags can be a maximum size of 22 x 18 x 10 inches.
- Checked Baggage: It actually costs less to check a bag on Spirit Airlines than to book a carry-on – usually by about $5. On that same Baltimore to Los Angeles flight, it would cost $34 for a checked bag if you add it at check-in, although it would cost $44 at booking but would cost $60 at the bag drop counter. 2nd and 3rd checked bags cost even more, at $44 and $85 if you add them at booking, respectively. However, Spirit Airlines bag drop lines often are very long at their hub airports during peak times, so plan accordingly. Spirit also has a pretty generous baggage weight allowance of 40lbs.
- Seats: Spirit Airlines charges for seat selection on all flights. Seats at the front of the cabin and in exit rows will sell for less than seats towards the back of the plane. Spirit Airlines charges from $1 to $50 for regular seats onboard. Big Front Seats generally do cost more, from $12 to $150. Sometimes, Spirit has onboard upgrades to Big Front Seats, which go from $25 to $175 if there still are empty seats available.
- Onboard Meals and Drinks: Spirit Airlines, like most low-cost carriers (and even some legacy carriers), charges more for snacks and drinks. Snacks are relatively expensive and sell from $3. Spirit also offers a couple of snack boxes that sell for $8, which is relatively expensive for how little they offer. They even charge ($3) for soft drinks and bottled water! Spirit also doesn’t sell any full meals onboard, so make sure to eat at the airport before flying Spirit on some of their long flights.
- Priority Boarding and Security: Spirit charges about $6 to purchase Shortcut Boarding which gives you Group 2 boarding – Group 1 boarding is reserved for all those who purchase carry-on bags.
- Airport Check-In: Spirit also charges $10 to check-in at the airport and to print your boarding pass which I think is crazy. However, online check-in is free.
- Flexibility: You can choose to pay for flight flexibility that allows you to change the flight or get a refund for sometimes as much as $50.
- Shortcut Security: Depending on the airport, Spirit sometimes allows you to buy shortcut security which gives you access to priority security lanes.
Overall, before actually booking your Spirit flight, do the math and calculate how much you’ll actually pay (or just go through with the booking until you actually have to pay for it) and see how much more or less you’ll end up paying rather than flying on a legacy airline that may originally cost more, but comes with more add-ons. You’ll never really only pay the exact fare on a Spirit Airlines flight, perhaps unless you’re going on a short flight for a very brief amount of time (coincidentally, the only time I’ve flown Spirit was for a weekend trip with a 1-hour flight). If you aren’t careful, you sometimes will end up paying more on Spirit!
4. Bundles – Sometimes A Good Deal
After selecting your flight on Spirit’s booking page, you’ll see a popup that displays Spirit’s “Thrills Combo.” The Thrills Combo will cost extra, but includes a free carry-on bag (which gives you Group 1 boarding), a checked bag, free seating, flight flex up to 24 hours before the flight, and 2x miles (although Spirit miles are essentially worthless). Despite the fact that Spirit does try to rip you off quite frequently, the Thrills Combo actually makes sense for many people.
Let’s take the example I used above from Baltimore to Los Angeles. A large portion of people will want a carry-on bag and a checked bag. If you don’t purchase the Thrills combo, the checked bag will cost $34 and the carry-on will cost $39. Most people do want to have the ability to book your seat at check-in, which normally costs somewhere around $20 for a regular seat. Most people (I assume) wouldn’t want to purchase their flight flex option which gives you some flexibility or shortcut boarding. On that flight, the Thrills Combo for that flight costs $68. But even if you wouldn’t ordinarily purchase flight flexibility, seat and bag selection itself costs about $93 for the flight, so the Thrills Combo would save you $25, which definitely is worth it.
In addition, the Thrills Combo allows you to select exit row seats for free and gives you discounts on Big Front Seats. However, if you are one of those people who doesn’t care where on the plane you sit and doesn’t need both a checked bag and a carry-on, the Thrills Combo probably isn’t for you as it will be cheaper just to add the add-ons that you need.
5. $9 Fare Club – For Frequent Spirit Flyers
Along with their frequent flyer program, Free Spirit (which earns you minimal miles that can’t be redeemed for much that is useful), Spirit has something called the $9 Fare Club that is similar to Frontier’s Discount Den. The basic idea of the $9 Fare Club is that you pay $59.95 the first year and $69.95 for every subsequent year and you get discounts on Spirit flights through multiple ways. Firstly, sometimes Spirit Airlines publishes cheaper base fares for $9 Fare Club members, although more often than not they don’t. Additionally, $9 Fare Club members get discounts on the Thrills Combo, which is worthwhile if you travel with a lot of baggage or want to select your seat.
If you don’t purchase the Thrills Combo, you also can save $9 (or more – up to 50%) both for if you buy a checked bag or buy a carry-on bag. Overall, you can save hundreds of dollars if you fly Spirit Airlines multiple times a year if you join the $9 Fare Club – especially if you like to buy extras such as bags, so I would recommend that you join it if you fly Spirit just two times a year – if you value seat selection and baggage.
6. Route Network & Fleet
Just a few years ago, Spirit Airlines was much smaller than they are now and used to almost only be based out of Fort Lauderdale. Spirit’s largest base still is Fort Lauderdale, although they’ve greatly expanded to become the US’ largest ultra-low-cost carrier and have a much broader route network. Like most ultra-low-cost carriers, Spirit does focus mostly on leisure traffic. That’s why their largest bases are in Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, and Orlando. Spirit also has a relatively large presence in Latin America (Colombia, southern Central America) along with much of the Caribbean.
While Spirit used to mainly only serve short-haul flights, they’ve relatively recently introduced more full transcontinental flights, such as from Philidelphia to Los Angeles. Spirit also has quite a few early-morning 2-3 hour-long red-eye flights, such as their 3 hour-long flight from Plattsburgh to Fort Lauderdale that departs at 2:50 AM, which is probably the most miserable flight on earth.
Spirit Airlines has a very modern fleet only consisting of Airbus A319s, A320s, A320neos, and A321s. Spirit prides themselves in having the youngest and most fuel-efficient fleet in the United States with an average aircraft age of only 6 years. The airline also flies aircraft in three distinct liveries. The first is their “grayscale” livery and introduced in 2002 and discontinued in 2007. The second has a stylized “S” on the tail of the plane with a blue background. Their most recent livery is the most distinctive one as it has a fully yellow fuselage with the title “Spirit” in big bold black letters. Spirit really has taken their time with repainting their planes as there still are some planes in the 2002 livery!
Spirit does manage to cram more seats onto each aircraft due to their tiny seat pitch and ultra-slimline seats. For example, while United Airlines only has 150 seats on their A320s, Spirit manages to fit 182 seats on their A320s, despite also having 8 Big Front seats!
Have you ever flown on Spirit Airlines? Share about your experience below in the comments section!
