[rezonant]

Yes this is terrible. All it does is ensure Spirit will continue to be terrible until it goes under and prevent a major competitor from arising for the big 3 airlines. The doublespeak required to say that keeping Spirit as it is pushes air ticket prices down is baffling, unless we are to assume that the quality that you get with Spirit is in any way comparable to the large airlines (it's not). It's almost like saying we need to keep this bike company around so that it can drive car prices down.

[dtnewman]

1) The “quality” of spirit is just fine. They explicitly market themselves as a budget airline and that’s what you get. A lot of people just want the cheapest ticket to go from A to B and they provide it. Personally, I have enough disposable income to pay more for another airline, but sometimes the difference is so dramatic that I will take spirit. When I’m traveling with my two young kids, having a reclining seat and better flight attendants makes a marginal difference to an already difficult situation.

2) Their ticket prices are often a fraction of the others. Even if service quality is lower, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t pushing down overall prices.

[luuurker]

Don't make the mistake of assuming everyone requires the same level of quality as you do. Some people just want to go from A to B as cheap as possible. Want more quality? Pick a different option.