We discussed the baggage charges that Spirit Airlines has been levying since last year. It was originally $5 per bag each way if pre-purchased online. A few months ago they doubled the fee to $10 if pre-purchased and $20 at the gate. Do you dare to bring a 3rd bag with you? That will set you back $100 each way plus $10 each for the other two bags. SO... 3 bags for one person, round trip... add $240 to your bill. Now Spirit has taken to charging a seat premium for each seat if you wish to pre-assign your seats... Optionally you can have them randomly assign one for you when you check-in online but of course there's no guarantee that your party will be seated together. Spirit is charging a $10 premium for window and aisle sets, $5 for the middle seat, $15 for exit row seats... each way. I don't normally complain about things online and I refuse to discuss politics or allow them to be discussed on this forum, so please do not turn this into a political issue, but I don't think this is fair at all. I paid $633 for 3 round trip tickets a few months ago and thought I got a fair deal. Now, we need to add $40 for baggage transportation fees along with $50 for the honor of pre-selecting our seats in order to be able to sit together. Add in $1 per person each way for your beverage. $633 magically transformed into $727 and I got NOTHING for it. That seems like a magical increase of 13% and I GOT NOTHING FOR IT! Might this be yet another sign that apocalypse is upon us? [This attachment has been purged. Older attachments are purged from time to time to conserve disk space. Please feel free to repost your image.]
In several years this will sound cheap. Either the airlines will be out of business, or else a domestic flight will cost as much as an intercontinental flight used to. Just look back at how absurdly expensive $2 gas used to sound, and now that's a fond memory. Whether it's the apocalypse or not depends on what course we take. If things go badly, and I'm not optimistic at the moment, in roughly two decades you won't care about how much it costs to fly to Disney World because it'll be completely beyond your means. Everything will be more expensive and significantly more of your budget will be taken up by the basics. Even with that your standard of living may take an unavoidable hit. Believe me I hope I'm wrong. I do tend towards a fascination with end of civilization type scenarios, but we're at least heading towards a period of things getting worse before they get better. Yes, worse than $100 for taking an extra bag onto a plane and $5 (just wait) for a gallon of gas.
I had every intention of coming over for Mousefest later this year but those plans are now vitually dead the cost of the flight has spun out of control coupled with the price of gas over here at the moment it is £1.17 a LITRE thats about $2.30 there is I belive 4.5 litres in a US gallon you do the math $5 a gallon Id pay that any day of the week at the moment. The days of cheap flying I think are over many small air operators will either get eaten up by the big guys or go bust leaving the way clear for the bigger operators to charge what they want.
Ive flown Spirit a dozen times in the last couple years and have always enjoyed it. These fees, however, sound ridiculous. Part of what I liked about Spirit was that they DIDNT pull this crap. I wish there were more alternatives, but the sad fact is that ALL airlines suck right now.
Not technically, really this is more of a case of a failure to plan for a completely predictable chain of events.
