Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
27.07.2023 - 18:50 / smartertravel.com / Tim Winship
Could Spirit, the airline everybody loves to hate, become a bit less hateful? If the company’s new CEO has his way, it will do just that.
This week, in his first public appearance since replacing former Spirit chief Ben Baldanza, Robert Fornaro outlined his priorities for the airline that has significantly lagged its peers in both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency, even as it racked up outsized profits.
I plan to improve upon the already very strong base of fundamentals that Spirit possesses with a focus on continuing to improve operational reliability and customer service, and maintaining our financial discipline to drive value for all of Spirit’s stakeholders.
For Spirit, any focus on reliability and customer service would represent a sea change.
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Spirit increased capacity by 30 percent in 2015, far more than any other large U.S. carrier. But the airline is facing increasing price competition, as legacy carriers like American and Delta introduce so-called bare fares to match Spirit’s low prices in some markets. Although Fornaro sees capacity growing by a modest 15 percent during 2016, the intensifying competition will make it increasingly difficult to keep load factors and profit margins at healthy levels.
In that context, Fornaro’s new emphasis on improved customer service and on-time flying makes perfect sense. Both are achievable at little or no extra cost, an important consideration for successfully operating an ultra-low-cost operation. And revenue-wise, there’s only upside.
Former CEO Baldanza was as famous for his disdain for flyers as he was for the airline’s crass marketing, resolute in his belief that cheap fares trumped such niceties as comfortable seats and friendly agents. On the other hand, Fornaro, who was CEO at AirTran before it was acquired by Southwest, seems to recognize that no-frills service needn’t mean snarky service.
While there are no plans to replace those cramped 28-inch pitch seats or throttle back on the airline’s incessant nickel-and-diming, enhancing service and reliability could only help boost sales. As Fornaro put it, “I think if we can provide low fares with a positive reputation, it will be good for business.”
Good for customers, too.
Reader Reality Check
Are you a Spirit customer? Might you be, if service improved?
More from SmarterTravel: Unlimited Flying from $1,500 – Is It for You? Travel Groups Call for Fed Review of Airline Competition Congressman Introduces Bill to Halt the Coach-Class Seat SqueezeAfter 20 years working in the travel industry, and 15 years writing about it, Tim Winship knows a thing or two about travel. Follow him on Twitter @twinship.
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Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
With no sign of relief in sight, the TSA’s inability to effectively and efficiently manage airport security screening promises to remain this summer’s biggest bad-news travel story.
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Beginning on June 1, Spirit will become the third airline to pull out of the Cuba market altogether, joining Frontier and Silver Airways. Two other airlines, American and JetBlue, have cut capacity on their Cuba flights, either by reducing frequency or downgrading to smaller planes.
When Muslim Advocates and the NAACP issue a joint letter accusing the U.S. airline industry of racism, it’s big news. And when the NAACP, the “nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization,” follows that up with an advisory specifically questioning the racial policies of the nation’s largest airline, American, it’s nothing less than a media firestorm. Indeed, all the major news media covered the story exhaustively. And “American Airlines” has been a trending Twitter topic for several days.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
There’s a storm brewing in the rarefied air occupied by the priciest of the travel-rewards cards.
Today, two storied travel brands that are destined for the scrap heap announced a marketing partnership that only serves to make their imminent demise that much sadder.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.