I haven’t been watching financial news about Spirit, so I’ll take your word on this. This makes me happy. Maybe American airlines (like American Airlines) will realize there are some depths to which travelers won’t sink to save a buck and the airlines will stop debasing the travel experience to squeeze a few more nickels from us.
The collective customer base has proven time and again that the only thing they care about is price.
Yes, there are some fatcats and folks on expense accounts willing to pay more to get more. But by and large price is the only thing people shop on. As long as that’s true, the race to the bottom on service quality will keep running because that’s about the only place left they can scrimp on costs to further lower the price.
My understanding is that because of the ultra low cost product they offer, Spirit’s customers are the most price sensitive of travelers. Those are the type of people who will just cut travel out of their budget completely when they get squeezed by high inflation, which is why Spirit is hurting in particular. The legacy airlines at least have some fatcats and people on expense accounts willing to pay for business class or at least some small upgrades, to keep the business afloat.
Speaking as a mildly obese cat who just shopped for airline tickets: there are about 8 levels of ticket you can buy, from cheapest to first class. There’s basic, main, main plus, flexible main, extra comfort, flexible extra comfort, business, first, and probably some i missed. Someone is buying most of those levels of ticket.
Yes, there’s a significant market for “the cheapest”. And Ryan Air is extremely popular. But that’s not the whole market.
that … and I also assume there is little business-travel going through Spirit … and businesses are not as price-sensitive as joe doe…
50 bucks more for tickets will not be an issuef for a business, if you fly somewhere to close a multi-millión dollar deal …
My employer was stingy, any only paid for the cheapest fare (and usually wasn’t flying me to make huge deals, but just to get my mandatory continuing professional education.) They definitely avoided extra expenses running to $50/ employee. They didn’t make me fly Spirit.
Same. And while they require me to take the “cheapest usable fare”, they don’t require me to book Basic Economy when flying on a legacy carrier. Basic Economy being the legacies’ way of courting the types of travelers who would otherwise fly Spirit.
Not a specific company. But I suspect lots of microbreweries won’t be around in ten years.
AIUIA, the carnage in the booze biz is well underway but still accelerating. Lots less drinking going on. Beer, wine, spirits, all of it.
I know a bit more about boutique wineries than I do about microbreweries. But the small wineries are sucking wind. The hunger for oddball brand $50+ bottles of California wine just isn’t there any more.
I think the whole “liquor” industry (from microbrews/wineries up to giants like Diageo) pretty much overplayed their (price) hands - being a “nice-to-have” industry, not a “need-to-have” (let’s sidestep alcoholism for a moment 
).
One can cut down pretty easily on 10/15/20 dollar cocktails w/out much sacrifice … especially in an ecosystem (bars/restaurants/clubs) where EVERYTHING is ridiculously overpriced.
For a lot of younger people (luckily) paying rent still comes first. And that might be a good example of cross-elasticities (ever higher rent reduces discrecionary recreational food-and-bev. spending).
Just a gut feeling, no hard claim/cite.
I have worked for companies that required a detailed explanation for why you didn’t choose the lowest fare, and you risked either not getting fully reimbursed or getting a stinky note from some senior executive. And their window of what was a reasonable cheaper alternatives might mean you have to get to the airport at 3:30am and get to your destination four hours before you need to. Or arrive home after midnight because the 9:45pm return flight is $150 cheaper than the 6pm one.
Neither of these companies are still in business. They were focused on the wrong things. Or they were already in such desperate financial shape they were trying to squeeze every penny.
I have status with a couple of airlines, so I can buy the main classic cabin fare and reliably get upgraded to comfort plus or first class.
how would you answer:
“what was the cheapest fare from LA to Capetown feb 21st-22nd and back march 4th/5th”"??? … with dynamic pricing and all?
… and how many hours of a Mgr/Sr.Mgr sitting on some airport waiting for connecting flights is OK (2/4/6/8)? → e.g. direct flights tend to be more expensive than 2 stopovers…
Where I work we are officially required to use the lowest fare, but we can request a waiver if the lowest fare requires something like an overly circuitous routing, overly long layover, unnecessary connections, etc., and it’s pretty much always granted. Technically the policy is to take the lowest “usable” fare, so that gives us enough wiggle room to claim those flights are “unusable”. We’re also allowed to set our required arrival/departure windows as we see fit, so flights that arrive or depart at odd hours will also fall outside the category of “usable”. And as mentioned before we’re also not required to book Basic Economy fares, management has essentially decided that those fares are always considered unusable.
There is a platform (Concur) on which you must book. You put in the date and time of the meeting you’re traveling for and you get a list of flight choices sorted by price. Choose the lowest one or get ready to be charged for the difference. This was 10+ years ago, but even my current employer uses Concur and has “compliant” and “non-compliant” designations for flight choices. Choose a non-compliant option and your manager gets an email. Which in almost all cases they will just delete.
I mean if you book a $900 flight on a route that normally goes for $250-$400, you might get a question. But if you say, “the only cheaper options meant I needed to leave the meeting early or stay overnight” you’re going to be okay.
Oh wow! I was allowed to pick a flight if there wasn’t a cheaper one in a 2 hour window. No way did i ever get to the airport at 3:30am for work. I think i would have found a better job…
I gotta work through the evening, then leave home at midnight to get to the TSA lines with their fun delays, so I can arrive at stoopit o’clock, and check into the motel a scant few hours before the Very Important Meeting started …
Um sleeping occurs when?
Yeah, no, that’s a two-week notice right then & there.
Gimme a box so I can pack my desk & I’ll be gone before the door can hit what the Good Lord split.
This is my shocked face.
/s
And it’s looking like Spirit may not have much time left…
Not a specific company, but an entire industry. “Radio” as we have known and loved it since the 1920s. As a former Broadcaster, I’m sad to see this. Three of the major license holders, iHeart, Cumulus and Audacy, have declared bankruptcy, not once but multiple times. And across the country, many of these mega-broadcasters are shedding stations by either selling them to religious broadcasters or shutting them off entirely, pulling the plug, and not just AM stations, but marginal FM stations too, something I never thought I would see.
I could cite hubris and mismanagement as reasons, but that would only be part of the story. Old angry white geezers may still be tuned into AM radio to get their daily fill of hate talk, but younger people, in their 30s and under, simply don’t listen to the radio any more. They get their favorite music via streaming on their phones, in the car and at home. When I was a young Top 40 DJ, a radio station was a license to print money. Sales people didn’t beat the streets. They just picked up the ringing phone and asked “How many spots do you want?”
And according to research, about 30 percent of American households do not have a single radio. Not a one! And that research was from 2022! It’s gotta be lower now.
Radio, we once loved you, but you’re on your way to the graveyard.