Spirit Airlines

[catch22]

Yes they lobby airlines for flights and try and keep OKC on the radar, but they don't hold any influence over the airline and their schedules.

Its just like the city's economic development department, they will talk to anyone about relocating their business to OKC but that doesn't mean the business is interested.

[ljbab728]

And you never hear a single comment about expensive fares or arrival/departure times?

I honestly can't remember the last time that was an issue. Is there always a schedule with the exact times that someone prefers? Of course not, but it's not a hindrance or a deterrent to traveling.

[zookeeper]

I finally decided to weigh in on this because air fares out of Oklahoma City are beyond ridiculous sometimes. Just as an aside, I'm going to San Diego next week on Spirit from DFW for $79 round trip. Yes, $79. Granted, that's just me, a seat, and a small bag. $79.

But what I'm really posting about is our trip to Washington, D.C. March 16th - March 23rd.
Here are the cold brutal facts.
Same days, everything the same.
There are 4 of us.

From OKC:



From DFW:



Total Round Trip from OKC for 4 of us
$1,248.00 via Southwest (Boeing 737)
$1,492.00 via American/Mesa via (Bombardier CRJ200 puddle jumper)

or

Total Round Trip From DFW for 4 of us:
$356.00 via Spirit (Airbus A320)
$476 via American (Boeing 737)

These are HUGE differences for a family of 4. Pretty big for a single traveler as well.
There's a real-world example for those who say it's not worth the drive to Dallas.
The four of us could go to D.C. four times with our savings from DFW.

[AP]

Thank you for this. I'm not sure anyone can argue that kind of money is worth the convenience of flying out of OKC(though I'm sure plenty will try.)

[gopokes88]

Thank you for this. I'm not sure anyone can argue that kind of money is worth the convenience of flying out of OKC(though I'm sure plenty will try.)

I can.
For starters he's leaving out bags, unless Zoo only bought one pair of clothes for everyone. Spirit charges $26/bag for carry on, $35 if Zoo isn't part of the club. That's $104-$140 each way which is $208-$280 round trip. Spirits actual fare is $564.

How much is the gas going to cost Zoo? I costs me about $40 to get to Dallas, add another $80. $646. Where you going to park? The garage at DFW is $22/day remote is $9. $154 or $63. $709.

True cost of spirit is $709 versus $1248. A savings of $499. That 8 hours of driving is worth $62/hr.

I just won't go and continue to save. I'll avoid the hassle of telling my family you guys excited? Ok let's drive 4 hours to get to the airport to fly out, we need to leave 6 hours before the flight so we should leave at 730AM to leave plenty of time cause if we miss it or have problems, Spirit customer service is notorious for saying tough sh*t. Once we board we are flying the greyhound of the skies so don't expect to have a pleasant experience. Zoo didn't post return but if the return gets in at 6PM he gets into OKC at 10pm after a long tiring fun vacation.

Some people will pay for luxury, others won't. That's why people can argue the convenience, they place a different value on different things.

[whatitis]

Wife and I are flying spirit to DC in March. It is $136.00 round trip total. We will only use a personal bag (sufficient, however pushing it for a 4 day trip). Wife's grandmother lives in Dallas so we'll leave the night before and visit and she'll drop us off at the airport. so parking is free as well. the total cost is $136. Can't beat it. looking for the same dates out of OKC is $671.00. so a savings of $535.00. we could fly to DC 5 times for that price. And the flight to DC from Dallas is non stop so yes even if it's not the best flight it's only 2 hours and 45 minutes. If you want the cheapest flight from OKC it's 5 hours and 36 minutes. basically 3 hours or the amount of time to drive to Dallas.

Gopokes you listed the price of parking at $9 a day but neglect to indicate parking would be necessary at will rogers. Not fair to assume someone is dropping you off in okc but not in Dallas. cheapest lot at Will rogers is $4 per day.

[zookeeper]

I should have made clear that for our DC trip, we are spending the extra $75 (total - not each) for the American flight I listed. That's why I listed them both, I just didn't say which we were taking. That's why I mentioned my San Diego trip - that I am taking Spirit - because it's only $79 RT! Just me, a seat and a small bag.

We are also planning on doing some things in Dallas that we wouldn't have done, but since we're going anyway, it just made sense.

The drive? We love little road trips. It's a bonding time and we find we all talk a lot more without interruptions and it's well worth the time. When I drive by myself, like the SD trip, I will be listening to an audiobook, which always makes the time "fly." (Yes, pun)

[Drake]

I can.
For starters he's leaving out bags, unless Zoo only bought one pair of clothes for everyone. Spirit charges $26/bag for carry on, $35 if Zoo isn't part of the club. That's $104-$140 each way which is $208-$280 round trip. Spirits actual fare is $564.

How much is the gas going to cost Zoo? I costs me about $40 to get to Dallas, add another $80. $646. Where you going to park? The garage at DFW is $22/day remote is $9. $154 or $63. $709.

True cost of spirit is $709 versus $1248. A savings of $499. That 8 hours of driving is worth $62/hr.

I just won't go and continue to save. I'll avoid the hassle of telling my family you guys excited? Ok let's drive 4 hours to get to the airport to fly out, we need to leave 6 hours before the flight so we should leave at 730AM to leave plenty of time cause if we miss it or have problems, Spirit customer service is notorious for saying tough sh*t. Once we board we are flying the greyhound of the skies so don't expect to have a pleasant experience. Zoo didn't post return but if the return gets in at 6PM he gets into OKC at 10pm after a long tiring fun vacation.

Some people will pay for luxury, others won't. That's why people can argue the convenience, they place a different value on different things.

While there is some truth to this, you appear to left out some things and exaggerated others.

What about the baggage fees for United or American? They are $25 for first bag etc.

$40 for gas each way to go to Dallas from OKC? What do you drive? From Edmond to DFW is 206 miles (3.5 hours per google). Most modern cars can get at least 15 mpg - even if gas bumped up to $2.00 a gallon you are looking at about $27 -$28 one way (current prices would be less than $20 one way)

Now there is more car time, but also less flying time. About half.

On your way back if your flights time well and no issues, its all good and you are right. But many times by waiting on a connecting flight back to OKC and then if there are any delays, I could be back in my car and home in pretty close to the same time.

I agree that there is a hidden cost to driving and flying out of DFW or a Spirit. But the post was kind of an exaggeration and didn't look at the costs and time of flying out of OKC

[AP]

I can.
For starters he's leaving out bags, unless Zoo only bought one pair of clothes for everyone. Spirit charges $26/bag for carry on, $35 if Zoo isn't part of the club. That's $104-$140 each way which is $208-$280 round trip. Spirits actual fare is $564.

How much is the gas going to cost Zoo? I costs me about $40 to get to Dallas, add another $80. $646. Where you going to park? The garage at DFW is $22/day remote is $9. $154 or $63. $709.

True cost of spirit is $709 versus $1248. A savings of $499. That 8 hours of driving is worth $62/hr.

I just won't go and continue to save. I'll avoid the hassle of telling my family you guys excited? Ok let's drive 4 hours to get to the airport to fly out, we need to leave 6 hours before the flight so we should leave at 730AM to leave plenty of time cause if we miss it or have problems, Spirit customer service is notorious for saying tough sh*t. Once we board we are flying the greyhound of the skies so don't expect to have a pleasant experience. Zoo didn't post return but if the return gets in at 6PM he gets into OKC at 10pm after a long tiring fun vacation.

Some people will pay for luxury, others won't. That's why people can argue the convenience, they place a different value on different things.

I fly out of OKC just as often or more often than most people posting on here, so I understand the convenience factor. I also know that many people (myself included) have posted about going to DFW for flights and were near universally derided for making that decision. My only point is on a trip like that, the drive to DFW would win a lot of times and there is nothing wrong with it.

[gopokes88]

Wife and I are flying spirit to DC in March. It is $136.00 round trip total. We will only use a personal bag (sufficient, however pushing it for a 4 day trip). Wife's grandmother lives in Dallas so we'll leave the night before and visit and she'll drop us off at the airport. so parking is free as well. the total cost is $136. Can't beat it. looking for the same dates out of OKC is $671.00. so a savings of $535.00. we could fly to DC 5 times for that price. And the flight to DC from Dallas is non stop so yes even if it's not the best flight it's only 2 hours and 45 minutes. If you want the cheapest flight from OKC it's 5 hours and 36 minutes. basically 3 hours or the amount of time to drive to Dallas.

Gopokes you listed the price of parking at $9 a day but neglect to indicate parking would be necessary at will rogers. Not fair to assume someone is dropping you off in okc but not in Dallas. cheapest lot at Will rogers is $4 per day.

Getting a free ride to the airport is pretty easy in okc, not as much in Dallas

[gopokes88]

Nm double.

[gopokes88]

I fly out of OKC just as often or more often than most people posting on here, so I understand the convenience factor. I also know that many people (myself included) have posted about going to DFW for flights and were near universally derided for making that decision. My only point is on a trip like that, the drive to DFW would win a lot of times and there is nothing wrong with it.

Do what you want bud, it's America.

You said
"I'm not sure anyone can argue that kind of money is worth the convenience of flying out of OKC(though I'm sure plenty will try.)"

And I say you are wrong. It's not cut and dry, right or wrong. It's just a matter of personal preference. If one values convenience > money then yeah, they can argue that all day. It's the same principle of do you value luxury or practicality? There's always a spilt and tons of companies make money on one side or the other.

So while Zoo is probably pretty excited he'll save $500(ish) that's great for Zoo. Others will see a long list of hassles to save said $500 and think screw it I'm just not going or will pony up extra. In economics we call this opportunity cost.

[AP]

Thanks for the lesson on opportunity cost.

[Just the facts]

At those price differences it isn't a matter of convienance - for a lot of people it is the difference between going on vacation and not going on vacation...period.

[Mike_M]

I can.
For starters he's leaving out bags, unless Zoo only bought one pair of clothes for everyone. Spirit charges $26/bag for carry on, $35 if Zoo isn't part of the club. That's $104-$140 each way which is $208-$280 round trip. Spirits actual fare is $564.

How much is the gas going to cost Zoo? I costs me about $40 to get to Dallas, add another $80. $646. Where you going to park? The garage at DFW is $22/day remote is $9. $154 or $63. $709.

True cost of spirit is $709 versus $1248. A savings of $499. That 8 hours of driving is worth $62/hr.

I just won't go and continue to save. I'll avoid the hassle of telling my family you guys excited? Ok let's drive 4 hours to get to the airport to fly out, we need to leave 6 hours before the flight so we should leave at 730AM to leave plenty of time cause if we miss it or have problems, Spirit customer service is notorious for saying tough sh*t. Once we board we are flying the greyhound of the skies so don't expect to have a pleasant experience. Zoo didn't post return but if the return gets in at 6PM he gets into OKC at 10pm after a long tiring fun vacation.

Some people will pay for luxury, others won't. That's why people can argue the convenience, they place a different value on different things.

You're really sticking with the "everyone is an idiot and doesn't know how to count" argument. I flew round trip on Spirit, with preferred seating up front (not true first class, but tons of legroom and no shared armrests) with my wife and checking in a bag for $330. Add $20 round trip (gas is 1.14 in OKC) and $50 total to park offsite for 8 days. And you get a wopping $400. Our flights were casually delayed for maybe 20 minutes, but they were direct flights so it didn't really matter to us. The flight attendants and service staff were absolutely delightful (very Southwest airlines-ish, making jokes, playing with kids, made the experience super enjoyable). We saved so much we splurged on some drinks and snacks, $5 each way. So $410.

Okay, your turn to spin that into $2000.

[catch22]

I think we can all agree that OKC needs some Low-cost competition.

Allegiant doesn't put any fare pressure on the majors, and Southwest is now just as expensive as the major US 3 carriers.

Spirit would be a good fit for OKC. I think with their new CEO and change of tactic to target smaller and medium markets that OKC hopefully will be in the Spirit network.

[jerrywall]

At those price differences it isn't a matter of convienance - for a lot of people it is the difference between going on vacation and not going on vacation...period.

Probably explains why we just drove to DC as a kid.

[bradh]

whatever happened to the good road trip? We drove from Houston to Niagra Falls, Disney World, and Colorado as a kid.

[jerrywall]

whatever happened to the good road trip? We drove from Houston to Niagra Falls, Disney World, and Colorado as a kid.

We never flew anywhere when I grew up. Our vacations were road trip nightmares. I remember one where we drove from OKC, through Colorado, Salt Lake City, Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco, LA, Albuquerque, and back to OKC (with a brief "wave" at the Grand Canyon). I always felt like I needed more rest once we got home. Plenty of time to read though!

[bradh]

We never flew anywhere when I grew up. Our vacations were road trip nightmares. I remember one where we drove from OKC, through Colorado, Salt Lake City, Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco, LA, Albuquerque, and back to OKC (with a brief "wave" at the Grand Canyon). I always felt like I needed more rest once we got home. Plenty of time to read though!

I agree, now that I'm driving on those trips they aren't as relaxing, but I loved the open road. Probably why I still enjoy them and my wife hates them.

To be fair, they're really only fun when you're going somewhere new. Once you've done several trips a hundred times it gets REAL old.

[FritterGirl]

I just went round and round with Spirit over a lost bag issue and am pretty sure I won't fly them again. A bag somehow went missing on a DIRECT flight from DFW to Las Vegas. We had to continually stay on top of their personnel to try and find out anything we could about our bags, but were never really given a satisfactory answer.

After returning home, I had to submit a lost baggage claim, more like a multi-page report, detailing each and every item in my bag, with original receipts (as if I keep all of those after the credit card has been paid off), and a notarized inventory, plus original baggage claim stickers, boarding passes, etc., etc.

I feel lucky in that I will be reimbursed about 2/3 of the total items I reported, which also included the items I had to purchase during the trip to replace those lost (this was on the third day of wearing the same clothes after we finally gave up hope of receiving them0.

If I DO ever fly them again, it will be with a carry on only. No more checking bags!

[catch22]

I just went round and round with Spirit over a lost bag issue and am pretty sure I won't fly them again. A bag somehow went missing on a DIRECT flight from DFW to Las Vegas. We had to continually stay on top of their personnel to try and find out anything we could about our bags, but were never really given a satisfactory answer.

After returning home, I had to submit a lost baggage claim, more like a multi-page report, detailing each and every item in my bag, with original receipts (as if I keep all of those after the credit card has been paid off), and a notarized inventory, plus original baggage claim stickers, boarding passes, etc., etc.

I feel lucky in that I will be reimbursed about 2/3 of the total items I reported, which also included the items I had to purchase during the trip to replace those lost (this was on the third day of wearing the same clothes after we finally gave up hope of receiving them0.

If I DO ever fly them again, it will be with a carry on only. No more checking bags!

I don't work for Spirit, but when I worked in OKC we had a mystery bag disappear on the direct OKC-SFO flight. The customer was not connecting in SFO. It was scanned as loaded in OKC...but never arrived in SFO.

5 or 6 days later I was positioning a belt loader (see below image) to a departing aircraft when I notice a bag sitting perfectly in a nook between the edge of the driver cab (not really a "cab" but a small enclosure with a seat and gear shift) and where the boom stows when the boom is completely lowered. I look at the tag and realize it is nearly a week old. Turns out the day it was loaded was very windy, and it must have blown off the side of the belt and amazingly fell into a very out of sight location. It was shear luck that I noticed it, because I set my gloves down on the edge of the beltloader and when I pulled up to the aircraft they flew into the same small nook that the bag was hiding in.

So, not defending Spirit, but weird things happen at the airport that you would never think of.

[zookeeper]

Some interesting points back and forth, but Kerry nailed it. For many, it's the difference between taking a particular vacation and not being able to do so. Period.

Another thought...Warren Buffet makes this argument all the time and it makes a lot of sense: The hoops we jump through, the time we would spend to make a thousand dollars from a few steps. Yet, to talk sense into people about the soundness of thrift and savings is lost on those same people. In my case, we'll be saving right around $1,000.00.

If I told you that if you just walk over here and do x, y, and z - I would give you $100.00
OR
Drive to Dallas, do the same, and come back - I would give you $1000.00

Would you drive to Dallas?

Someone interested in saving would do so because, like Buffet says, it's just like handing you that much money. Savings is money - it's cash in the bank.

For those that say, "no"....it's not "worth it" or talk about, "convenience," Buffet suggests that a large number of those same people would work their tails off watching the market, weigh the risks, research and more, to turn $100 into $1000. But for some reason they see "saving" that same amount of money as some different alien currency. $1000 spends the same, whether you save it in a bargain, earn it through smart thinking, or sweat for it in hard labor.

Interestingly, Mr. Buffet still lives in the same house in Omaha he lived in before he made his fortune. He talks about thrift, saving, the difference between "need" and "want." He also believes those from a privileged background have a harder time with this concept. Its simplicity is almost comical, but the truth is - I am "making" around a thousand dollars for a little work to "save" that amount of money. Others wouldn't bother saving that much, but would work hard to "make it" in a flash. Think about it.

[Drake]

Some interesting points back and forth, but Kerry nailed it. For many, it's the difference between taking a particular vacation and not being able to do so. Period.

Another thought...Warren Buffet makes this argument all the time and it makes a lot of sense: The hoops we jump through, the time we would spend to make a thousand dollars from a few steps. Yet, to talk sense into people about the soundness of thrift and savings is lost on those same people. In my case, we'll be saving right around $1,000.00.

If I told you that if you just walk over here and do x, y, and z - I would give you $100.00
OR
Drive to Dallas, do the same, and come back - I would give you $1000.00

Would you drive to Dallas?

Someone interested in saving would do so because, like Buffet says, it's just like handing you that much money. Savings is money - it's cash in the bank.

For those that say, "no"....it's not "worth it" or talk about, "convenience," Buffet suggests that a large number of those same people would work their tails off watching the market, weigh the risks, research and more, to turn $100 into $1000. But for some reason they see "saving" that same amount of money as some different alien currency. $1000 spends the same, whether you save it in a bargain, earn it through smart thinking, or sweat for it in hard labor.

Interestingly, Mr. Buffet still lives in the same house in Omaha he lived in before he made his fortune. He talks about thrift, saving, the difference between "need" and "want." He also believes those from a privileged background have a harder time with this concept. Its simplicity is almost comical, but the truth is - I am "making" around a thousand dollars for a little work to "save" that amount of money. Others wouldn't bother saving that much, but would work hard to "make it" in a flash. Think about it.

Yep. Our family of 4 went for a week to New York City and with what we saved on airline tickets by driving to Dallas paid for 2/3 of our lodging for the week

[stile99]

Others wouldn't bother saving that much, but would work hard to "make it" in a flash. Think about it.

For example, look "how hard" they are working to turn that $1000 into 'only' $400, using completely made-up numbers. They whittle it down enough, then they proudly crow about how it 'only' works out to $62/hour, and you are a worthless plebe if you think that's any kind of money.

The irony being that not a single person reading this makes $62/hour.