Spirit Air CEO: 'For a Very Long Period of Time We Didn't Run a Good Airline'
Skift Take
Focusing on reliability and customer satisfaction is the right move for Spirit, provided it can do it without increasing costs significantly. The airline's brand is not in strong shape, and it needs to be rehabilitated.
Until recently, few airlines seemed to care so little about satisfying customers as Spirit Airlines. Its flights were on-time far less than the industry average, and passengers complained about Spirit considerably more than other carriers.
Previous management didn't appear to mind. Spirit was almost always less expensive than the competition — often far cheaper — and enough customers kept returning for deals. But over time, legacy airlines started matching Spirit's prices, or at least came close to them, and Spirit, while still profitable, began to stumble slightly. It began discounting significantly — even more than before — to fill planes.
It was at about this time, in early 2016, when Spirit replaced CEO Ben Baldanza with Bob Fornaro, former CEO of AirTran Airways. Fornaro promised to build a kinder, more gentle airline. It would still focus obsessively on costs, but it would be reliable and friendly — more like AirTran before Southwest Airlines acquired it in 2
