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Old Apr 25th, 2017, 04:18 AM
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Car seat harassment

Spirit Air refuses my child safety seat, then kicks my toddler and me off the plane

https://medium.com/@pjparmar1/spirit...e-dbee2c0ab82a
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Old Apr 25th, 2017, 05:33 AM
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Why did you touch the flight attendant? You found someone to switch seats with you. Why didn't you just let it go? Touching a stranger and making a sarcastic remark seemed an unnecessary provocation.
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Old Apr 25th, 2017, 05:53 AM
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So, you decide to fly the cheapest airline, well known for bad customer service, and then complain when you get bad customer service?

Anything more than a tap on the shoulder is excessive contact, and being rude to someone in authority is never a bright idea.

Since you did all that research on the FAA regs, how come you didn't also research Spirit's regs?

Seems that if you had simply accepted the offer of the window seat, you would have been fine. Act confrontationally, and you have to accept the consequences.
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Old Apr 25th, 2017, 04:12 PM
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Your bad,period. This doesn't make the cut even in our shakedown society. And all those kids you take care of are irrelevant.
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Old Apr 26th, 2017, 11:51 AM
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whaa whaa whaa. Don't want to face assault charges, keep your hands to yourself. I almost believe about 1/2 of what you posted.
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Old Apr 26th, 2017, 02:45 PM
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Spirit is one of the lowest rated if not the lowest rated airline in the US. I would never fly them.

You should know better than to touch a FA and should have tried to f/u afterwards wit the airline or ask for the head FA on that particular plane. And stayed calm. You can't win doing what you did.

And you say you are "brown." Are you alleging racial discrimination? I think Spirit sucks towards everyone.
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Old Apr 26th, 2017, 08:17 PM
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I have flown Spirit a bunch of times in the last ten months or so, got there just fine every time, had no issues with the Spirit employees, and saved a great big bundle.

The casual, downright glib comment by Thursdaysd above isn't warranted in my experience.

Spirit doesn't come up with bad numbers when it comes to customer service. Only people who don't understand how Spirit works get into the look-down-your-nose complaining mode.

The fares are rockbottom, and if you need more than the bare transportation from A to B, you can choose to pay, like for things like bags or if you feel you need to know in advance what seat you'll be occupying.

The Spirit people I have observed and had contact with were no different than those on other airlines - some are more jolly than others, some are tired and work hard at "keeping it together".

Where Spirit has been lacking is in on-time performance - the latest statistics from the government put it at 81 percent arriving within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival time.

So if you don't approve of the way the airline does business, don't blame the employees. Fair enough?
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Old Apr 27th, 2017, 01:56 AM
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According to CNN story from yesterday, Spirit ranks dead last in customer satisfaction.
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Old Apr 27th, 2017, 01:16 PM
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I'd never heard of Spirit Air before, so I used Google to looke them up.

Their website says "If you don't select a seat we'll assign random seats at check-in for free". You write that you had been assigned "aisle and middle", so you did not select those seats yourself. Considering that they also say that they "can't guarantee that you'll get to sit with your friends or family" if you don't select seats I'd say you were lucky you got two seats together. Selecting a seat costs money, of course, but at least then you'd be guaranteed the seats you selected. Including that window seat.

Further search on Spirit's website gives the info that a seat for an infant can be reserved, but the "infant must be securely placed in an FAA-approved child restraint system (car seat)". Ok. They also give a couple of links to guidelines and security procedures.

The FAA link says that the safety seat "should be placed in a window seat so it will not block the escape path in an emergency". So it's clearly not something that Sprint came up with on their own.

While the FAA text does say that "the airline is responsible for accommodating the CRS in another seat in the same class of service" it also says that "The airline may have polices that dictate the specific safe seat locations for specific aircraft".
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Old Apr 27th, 2017, 01:18 PM
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Sigh. Need to spell check my text before posting. I'd blame the fact English is my second language, but that doesn't explain why I spelled the airline name wrong.
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Old Apr 27th, 2017, 02:31 PM
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There is a difference between customer service and customer satisfaction. People in the US still have not gotten used to the idea of paying for things many of us don't really need, so they book an ultra-cheap fare and then bitch about having to pay for bags and seat reservation and printing boarding passes at the airport etc. etc., and about being held to the conditions of those fares.

The people working for Spirit that I encountered on my many trips were fine. If you don't like the business model, don't book and then complain about what you didn't understand in the first place.

Ryanair is the worlds biggest/busiest airline and has had the same business modalities as Spirit and Frontier in the US, for many years.

Europe has gotten used to it, and embraced it, as witnessed by the myriad of similar airlines.

Here it's Spirit and Frontier, and that's just about it. And look at the customer satisfaction - very low. To me that says more about the flying public than about the airlines in question.
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Old Apr 27th, 2017, 03:56 PM
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Well said, michelhuebeli. There is a lot of carping and complaining about airlines, but the truth of the matter is that it is a low margin business and we shouldn’t expect champagne on a beer budget (or even a pack of peanuts). I for one am glad that the industry has enough choices that I can afford to travel; fares relative to income are much cheaper than they were a generation ago.


The passenger appears have a sense of entitlement, feeling the cabin attendant should assist her in solving a problem of her own making during preparations for takeoff when there are numerous safety and other pressing matters. She also mentions that she is a physician--so she is entitled to special treatment? Given that this thread relates to an incident almost a year ago suggests to me that she is also a grudge holder.

If there is a lesson to be learned here (undoubtedly lost on the OP) it is that airline employees have a lot of authority when it comes to dealing with unruly or disruptive passengers, and rightly so. Their behaviour affects both the comfort and the safety of all passengers.
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Old May 8th, 2017, 10:46 PM
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I think its ridiculus they charged you with assault.. there was clearly no assualt. ( charges were dropped) .

I don't think you should touch people though.

And I hate that some FAs seem to make up rules , change rules or are just ignorant of rules.
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Old May 9th, 2017, 11:38 AM
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I sincerely hope that all of you defenders of the airlines come-what-may have your posts printed out and on your person when you fly, so that when they harass and assault you, you can prove that you are Friend, not Foe, and thereby avoid a beating.

I can think of no other reason for these lame brained posts.
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