Spirit Airlines, the most hated carrier in the industry – by its own admission – has released its own industry findings on what travelers dislike most about flying, with the aptly named ‘State of Hate’ report.
The carrier, notorious for its ‘nickel and diming’ and questionable customer service recently canvassed passengers’ views on what they hate the most about air travel.
In July it said it wanted to ‘hug the haters’ by inviting comments with the offer of 8,000 frequent-flier miles for all those who ‘unleashed the hate.’
Spirit received almost 30,000 responses and has published its ‘State of Hate’ report, which it says highlights just as much passenger disdain for other airlines.
"I think if any organization asks for feedback you would expect the vast majority of responses would be directed at the company that seeks it, but in this case we were surprised that most consumers chose to share their frustrations about other airlines," Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza said in a statement.
The report said 60% of responses cited hassles with other airlines.
Baldanza admitted Spirit came top of the hate index with most complaints but said: "it still surprised us that over half the feedback we got was complaining about other people."
"The second thing that surprised me was just how relatively nasty a lot of the comments are."
Some of the findings from the report show that 20% of fliers hate everything about seats, from their shrinking size to battles over reclining.
Also, 15% of air travelers were annoyed by delays and airline customer service.
The report backed up Spirit’s reputation as the undisputed king of added fees.
"We don’t look at them as fees, they are options that our customers can choose or not depending on how much money they wish to save," Baldanza said.
"This clearly shows we need to continue educating our customers about our business model. We found that when you address controversial issues head on, you get a more rational dialogue."
