(flying) Machine I Loathe to Fly

I thought it was just me. My wife, daughter and I flew Spirit Airlines for a spring-break trip to Florida, and I hated it. The cattle-car atmosphere and the I'd-rather-be-anywhere-but-here in-flight staff were only topped by the guy driving the tractor that pulled luggage carts up the plane. He ran into the front tire of the plane!

They herded us off the plane, and apparently the airline's relationship is so bad with other airlines that if the damage would've grounded the plane, no other airline would honor Spirit tickets and accept its passengers. Spirit offers so few flights that we'd have to wait until the following day to catch another flight.
 
I hate Spirit Airlines and have now vowed to never fly it again. NPR featured a story on Spirit's MILF advertising campaign ... that would be "More Islands. Lower Fares." for any of you porn-seekers whose search found the acronym. For the "culturally" deprived, MILF was popularized in the movie "American Pie" (warning: graphic description of MILF).

It does get worse: following the Anthony Weiner uproar, Spirit ran an ad with the tagline "The Weiner Sale: With fares too hard to resist."

I'm committed now. These people are so grossly offensive that I'll swim to Florida before I attempt to sit in one of their 3/4-size mini-seats again.
 
So I thought it was just me until I began looking for Spirit employee survey results to learn how this crass approach to marketing and promotion affected employee morale and retention. It certainly seems to have affected employees' driving abilities.
 
Instead, I found several sites with customer-survey results. I think the Facebook site, Boycott Spirit Airlines, pretty much sums up the customer sentiment I found on other websites. Check out these holiday postings:
 
"Sorry kids. The Easter Bunny was coming this weekend to hide eggs, but Spirit Airlines canceled his flight for no reason."
 
"If your mom's flying Spirit this Mother's Day, you might want to send the flowers to the airport.... There's a good chance they will cancel the flight for no good reason. Spirit, you suck."
 
"Its Memorial Day. I'm sure Spirit's busy screwing over a vet."
 
And between holidays: "If dog poop had a spirit... It would be called Spirit Airlines."
 
The MILF campaign was an email effort directed to existing customers who had signed up for Spirit's distribution list. Spirit's Director of Communications acknowledged that the airline had received some letters of complaint; however, he also said, in an interview with ABC News that "most found the connection amusing rather than offensive and that customers are responding to the airfare deals."

You have to give Spirit's public relations people credit. They've trained their President Ben Baldanza. In an interview with hard-charging Bill O'Reilly on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," Baldanza snagged some free ad time with his response to O'Reilly's attack on the MILF ad. Baldanza replied, "Our consumer feedback has been positive, and the only thing we think is obscene is the fares that most of our competitors charge."

All I can say to Spirit is "Your mama is SO ugly that she'd never be on anyone's ..." well, never mind.


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