Does spirit airlines serve peanuts

■■■ Case 15 Company Case Spirit Airlines: The Lowest Possible Price—At All Costs Customers were tweeting terrible comments about Spirit Airlines. They were complaining about the lack of empathy they received from airline agents when their flight was cancelled. They are complaining about having to pay for extra charges after they had purchased their ticket. One customer tweeted out that one warning others not to fly Spirit Airlines. These comments, tweeted by real Spirit Airlines customers, are not the types of feedback a company generally wants to hear from customers. And at the same time that the airline’s operating philosophy has generated lots of negative testimonials in social media, it has also earned Spirit Airlines the dubious distinction as Consumer Reports’ lowest-rated airline for the customer experience. In fact, Spirit Airlines received one of the lowest-ever overall scores given by the esteemed consumer watchdog. Z03_KOTL6156_07_SE_CASE.indd 628 07/26/16 3:58 PM Case Studies 629 With that kind of reputation, you would think that Spirit Airlines is headed down a path to bankruptcy. To the contrary, however, Spirit is one of the fastest-growing U.S. carriers. It fills almost every available seat on every flight. And it turns profits each and every quarter—a difficult feat in the airline industry. In a world filled with companies doing back flips to fill each customer’s every desire that kind of financial success seems like an unlikely outcome given such a high level of customer dissatisfaction. How does Spirit do it? And what are customers complaining about? As it turns out, although Spirit Airlines doesn’t want its customers to leave its planes unhappy, its philosophy is described perfectly by an old adage—when you make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. Value Equals Low Price Spirit Airlines first began scheduled flights in 1990 out of Atlantic City. Over the next 17 years, the airline expanded along the East Coast with limited service to Caribbean and South American destinations. But in 2007, it unveiled an entirely new business model as part of a nationwide expansion plan. Billing itself as an “ultra low-cost carrier,” Spirit set its prices lower than any other airline on the routes it flew. In the years since, Spirit has consistently maintained lower prices— in some case up to 90 percent lower than competing airlines. But to fly so cheap, customers must not only pay the fare, they have to pay the price. When customers buy a ticket on a Spirit flight, they are paying for one thing and one thing only, occupying a seat on a plane from one destination to another. That’s because Spirit Airlines has deconstructed airline flight service, charging a fee for each and every service component. Charging fees for various components of flight service is common airline practice these days, but Spirit charges extra for everything. On Spirit Airlines, you really do get what you pay for—and not one peanut more. For example, although other airlines charge for food, they typically provide free beverages and a basic snack