A Word to the Wise

This doesn’t have to do with writing or art, but don’t fly Spirit Airlines.

Just don’t do it.

Spirit was the only thing left when I booked my trip. I already knew that they charge for a carry-on and for water, but I was at least able to avoid those problems on my trip there. In fact, everything went so seamlessly that it was too good to be true.

Upon going home at the end of the trip, however, I was faced with all sorts of problems. My connecting flight got really delayed, which I was not happy about since my layover was already 4 hours long to begin with. They didn’t even announce the delay at all, and I only heard about it because other passengers checked their emails and told everyone else about it. I started hearing stories about that flight being cancelled before. One girl even said that she had been stuck there for 3 days already because her flight was cancelled. The flight before ours actually did get cancelled, and those people were sent back through security to get rebooked.

Once our plane arrived at the gate, everyone cheered. We boarded the plane, but were met with an announcement about repairs, and they claimed not to know how long we would still be there. An hour or so later, the pilot announced “there’s a limit to how long flight crew personnel can keep working, and [we] have already been flying the maximum number of hours and are not legally able to operate this plane. Therefore, your flight has been cancelled.”

So the flight was cancelled, even though we were all already on the plane. I had to wait in line for almost 2 hours to get rebooked on a different flight. They were going to give me a 3pm flight, but it was 2 in the morning and I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could, so I asked if they had anything earlier, and they gave me a 5am flight. And thank goodness they gave me a 5am flight, because that ended up being 6 hours of travel by itself, even with barely a layover, and I would not have gotten home in time for band practice if I had taken the 3pm flight they were going to give me.

I was not happy about going through security again, having a connecting flight again, and getting home 11 hours after I was originally supposed to. BUT at least they did rebook all of the passengers for no extra cost, which is a lot more than I have heard of them doing. And for a lot of the people there, that was already a flight that they had been rebooked on when their original flight was cancelled, so their flight was cancelled on them twice.

But this was still the worst thing that had ever happened to me at an airport. Far worse than the time I got stuck in New York at 3am, lost my checked luggage for a time, and had nothing but McDonalds to eat, because at least then I was with my family. And that was the beginning of a trip and not the end. This time, I was stuck at an airport at the end of a trip when I was almost home and anxious to see my boyfriend. At least they gave me enough food vouchers for a feast of a hummus plate, a sandwich and quinoa.