www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Prolijo,
It would appear that some have problems not only with religious stereotypes but also have prejudice against anyone who exceeds their idea of the ideal size (perhaps a Napoleonic complex.) Sadly, while it is difficult, we are probably better off just ignoring or writing off such ignorance and bias.

I'm not sure how this turned into a Christian debate? What did they do to dictate in any way the increase in random fee's?

Here is the email I received from Spirit outlining their plans.




To our valued customers,

We have all seen how carry-on baggage has gotten out of control. Longer security lines and boarding process, injuries due to overcrowded overhead bins, delayed flights and passenger frustration has become commonplace.

At Spirit, we are always looking for new ways to save you money and improve the customer experience. We recently announced our latest innovation, which is designed to relieve the carry-on crisis, saving you time and money.

Our solution to the carry-on crisis:

1. Lowered fares
2. Lower checked bag fees
3. Give everyone a free personal item allowance
4. Allow customers to carry on an additional bag for a fee and give them
priority boarding so they have time and space to stow their extra bag

Everyone Wins!

1. We expect total prices to be lower
2. Security lines will move faster
3. The boarding process will be smoother
4. Deplaning will be faster
5. Passenger and employee safety is improved with less over-stuffed bins

What to expect for travel after August 1st:

1. We have introduced PENNY PLUS™ fares available to our $9 Fare Club members** that are 1¢ each way plus fuel, taxes and fees*. If you are not already a member, click here to join.
2. We have lowered checked bag fees for $9 Fare Club members. A family of four checking four bags round-trip will save $80. Double the cost of being a $9 Fare Club member. Another reason to join now. Click here to join.
3. You can bring a FREE personal item onboard, such as a purse, briefcase, backpack or laptop computer. Other exceptions are: assistive devices, medicine, umbrella, outer garments (coats, hats, wraps), camera, car seat/stroller, infant diaper bag, reading material for the flight, or food for immediate consumption.
4. If you choose to bring an extra carry-on bag, you may do so for $20 if purchased online as a $9 Fare Club member or $30 online, at the airport ticket counter or kiosk for non-members. If you choose to wait until the gate to pay, the fee will be $45 which is not preferred since it will slow the boarding process.
5. Shorter, faster security and boarding lines. Less frustration while boarding and deplaning. Fewer delays.
6. Happier customers that pay less!

See you onboard soon! We’ll keep working to improve your experience and lower your fare.

Ben Baldanza
President and Chief Executive Officer
Spirit Airlines

I think it is a ploy to get people to join their $9 club.

Dean

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my first wingman sent me this, how true

" most of the girls down here, lie as a self defense mechanism and to not have to face the truth, thinking most men couldn't accept them knowing the whole truth. Simpler, they may just want men to think they are as perfect as they want to appear to them, trying to hide what they consider to be the ugly truth about themselves. And I may be reading more into it than is there, but I do believe they consider the basis of the lies to be justified."

Not Spirit Air but... I was recently on a Delta flight to New York and the plane had brand new overhead bins that were smaller than usual. The flight crew was checking most roller bags at the gate because they would no longer fit. Has anyone else notice this? This will definitely cause more people to check bags for a fee. Another way for an airline to make more money without announcing new fees...

In case anyone wants to rant at good ol' Ben: Ben.Baldanza@SpiritAir.com.

Or you can post love letters to him on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ben-baldanza/2/985/247 (you need a Linkedin account).

BTW, I believe Mr. Baldanza is Cuban-American.

mh

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mh

At the end of the day, de-regulation has been very good. In 1974 my airline ticket from Indianapolis to New Orleans (under the regation banner) was just a bit over $300. Today, 36 years later, you can fly the same route cheaper. Who know what it would be with simple COA & inflation??

I'm not a Southwest fan; I was platinum with Delta until they just pushed me too far; now I'm platinum with Continental, spending a little more than $73000 on them last year (actually, my clients foot the bill....). At the end of the day I/you/we will fly the airline we're happiest with. And that's bottom-line happiest, including service, ticket costs & nickle-and-dime costs & aggravation.

But I suspect many will leave Spirit, as they should. Last week I considered them a vialble alternative, now I consider them a low-class Southwest, which is not a good comparison.

Just mho....

/dddick

This is the letter I wrote to Sr Baldanza in response to his email:

Dear Mr Baldanza,

I fly your airline at least twice a month roundtrip. The carry on bag situation is not out of control. Yes people have been compelled to try to fit their luggage into a cary on bag to avoid the ever increasing checked baggage fees that your airline instigated in the industry a few years back. So it is true that there are more and larger carry-on bags being brought on board, but this is a situation that you created and orchestrated. By instituting your new fee you are essentially forcing to travelers pay for their luggage one way or another, and essentially contradicting your business model of giving your customers "choice" when it comes to the services they want. NO ONE is going to travel without luggage of some sort.

To try to couch this in an argument that "you expect fares to come down" is disingenuous at best. Your actions actually cause fares to go up. The other carriers followed your lead and started charging for luggage after you started to. I am guessing that they are salivating to see whether or not you will pull this off so they can follow suit yet again. To try to say that this will save us money is quite frankly offensive to intelligent people.

Over the course of the 3 years I have been a Spirit MC Card holder, 9 dollar fare club, and FreeSpirit club member I have seen changes for the worse, and not better. I am paying more for my travel this year than last year. The coach seats in the new A320 plane do not recline and are uncomfortable. Booking reward travel was easy until you removed the ability to do it online. The new levels and categories for award travel are complicated and cumbersome.When Ft Lauderdale when busy it is still chaos at check in.

Many of your customers who are furious with this action. Charles Schumer has even been moved to legislate against it. That's just what we DON'T need!!! As a business owner myself I recommend you reconsider this action. Regretfully, I for one will stop flying your airline if you take this action, use my reward mileage and turn in my mastercard.

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Why settle for just one woman when you can enjoy them all?

I guess you don't like it so much when someone else insults YOUR religion, do you? You ask me what did any Christian "do to dictate in any way the increase in random fee's[sic]" ? I could just as easily ask YOU what did any Jew do either? If this has turned into a "Christian debate", as you now call it, it is only because I was sarcastically trying to point out the absurdity of using religious stereotypes, which YOU started with your earlier blatantly anti-semitic comment about "jewing over the clientelle[sic]", but apparently you're just too thickheaded and racist to even realize the offensiveness of what you had posted.

As far as whether he's Italian or Cuban or even Christian, my point there was that the CEO of Spirit Airlines who implemented these new charges is certainly not even Jewish and if his actions seem somehow cheap and greedy to you that does not make him somehow Jew-like, it simply makes him cheap and greedy, traits that can cut equally across ALL racial, ethnic and/or religious lines.

PR, that was a great letter (and, unlike the one I would have written, was concise and cut right to the point). It will be interesting to see what sort of response you get if any (probably nothing more than just a canned response like the one JMac posted), however I seriously doubt it will have any real effect on their policy. Perhaps it might if enough other loyal Spirit customers write similar letters, but even then there were similar outcries when they implemented similar previous add-on fees (like the ones for checked baggage, seat selection, etc.) and those still went through and even got picked up by most other carriers.

For my part, I USED to travel with Spirit when they first started up but came to realize what they really were and where they were heading a LONG time ago and so stopped flying with them COMPLETELY. I even cancelled the last flight I had booked with them as soon as I saw the new fees they wanted to tack on for seat selection (and hadn't previously disclosed) AFTER I had booked the flight. Instead I went with another carrier whose pricing was more opaque (and who actually came out less expensive in total). And, despite cancelling my refundable ticket weeks earlier and immediately after I had booked it, they still tried (unsuccessfully) to charge my credit card for the flights I didn't take. I just say to hell with them, whether they take back this latest charge or not.

Prolijo; give it up.
How you manage to pull the term "jewing over" in loose context into an anti semitic, or racial meaning is beyond me.

Your talking about self righteous hypocrites, and your the only one with your panties all in a bunch here.



Im presuming you would be paying out extra money on my new dollar for pounds model. No one forced anyone overweight to be that size. Think of it as a consequence of your ignorance, or lack of action

JMac, there is nothing "loose" about the "context" when you used the term "jewing over". Your context was that Spirit Air was being cheap and somehow cheating their customers AND that somehow made them Jew-like because, of course, we all know (please note the sarcasm here) that Jews are cheap and that they cheat everybody financially (an unfair and offensive stereotype). I suppose you'll try to maintain that there is nothing anti-semitic about "Kike" either or racial about "Nigger", "Dago" or "Mangia cake" because the "context is loose". In fact, what you wrote was even worse, because those are just names whereas what you wrote unfairly ascribed negative traits to a whole people. Then you twist my sarcastic comments about "self righteous hypocrites", which were clearly only used to point out the racism of your earlier comments, to suggest that I'm the one insulting other members and yet I'm the only one with my "panties in a bunch". Maybe no one else is calling you on it, but I'm CERTAIN plenty of others see your comments for what they were. Why don't you simply just own up to it and admit that your phraseology was wrong and offensive and try to stop using it in the future? Even if you THOUGHT your remark was completely innocent at the time you wrote it, now you KNOW that others find it offensive and yet you're completely unapologetic and STILL maintain it is somehow okay to use such needlessly hateful remarks.

Regarding LIK's comments, you similarly seem to fail to understand how they were directed at YOU not me, since you have shown similar disdain and prejudice for the "weight-challenged", which I presume includes LIK. Personally, I'm NOT overweight and so would NOT expect to pay out extra money on your "new dollar for pounds model" (any more so than any other fit adult male). However, I don't think airline pricing policies should punish those who do have weight problems UNLESS they don't fit into their seat and spill over into mine (in which case I might be tempted to spill my drink on them too). One serious flaw in your so-called plan is that it would disproportionally penalize men since we as a gender tend to be much larger than women even when we AREN'T overweight (using your reasoning: no one is forcing you not to be anorexic either). Besides, IMHO, this whole weight issue is a canard, a deliberately misleading excuse. I seriously doubt whether a passenger weighs 180lbs or 280 really makes that huge a difference on flight costs of an aircraft that already weighs 600-700 tons and would have to fly whether that seat was filled or not, and certainly not enough to justify the sorts of penalty fees that the airlines are trying to impose.

+1I couldn't have said it better.

What in the world is a "mangia cake"

mh

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mh

Like you was lost on that one MH So I went to the urban dictionary and found this.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine