Hi everyone,

just bought several tickets BDL-MCO today at the Spirit counter in Hartford Bradley. Online the tickets were at $42.29 one-way:

Flight $4.65

taxes and carrier charges $37.64

Federal Excise Tax $0.35
Security Fee $5.60
Segment Fee $4.20

Passenger Usage Charge (Non-refundable Carrier Fee) $22.99
Passenger Facility Fee $4.50


Most recently I booked several flights with Frontier, and the full $21 of the "Carrier Interface Charge" were not charged, so the ticket is $21 cheaper at the Frontier airport counter.
I did not fly with Spirit since 2016, and was already happy about the $22.99 savings per one-way by going to the Spirit counter. What a surprise - I got some savings, but not quite as large as I hoped. It ended up being a total of $33.31 per one-way, so $8.98 per one-way cheaper than online, but not the $22.99 cheaper which I expected:


FLIGHT $0.01
TAXES AND CARRIER CHARGES $33.30
Regulatory Compliance Charge (Carrier Fee) $6.51
Fuel Charge (Carrier Fee) $11.16
Security Fee $5.60
Segment Fee $4.20
Passenger Facility Fee $4.50
Federal Excise Tax $1.33



So Spirit can really do that, and say that they will only charge the Fuel Charge and the Regulatory Compliance Charge at the airport counter only? Also the base fare is different, for the same flight on the same day, depending on if it's online or if it's at the airport?


Buying 6 one-way tickets today with Spirit, I still got some savings, but going forward into the future, despite having a buggy website or no big front seat, I'll stick with Frontier instead, whenever the flight times allow it. For example I also bought 3 one-way tickets with Frontier today, and 2 times I got the full $21 off, and one time $10 off, but also online the flight displays only a $10 "Carrier Interface Charge", so it is okay that I only got $10 off, because otherwise the base fare and fees/taxes were identical. So Frontier is still being honest. At least for now, as they are also a for-profit company and thus could soon follow Spirit's lead on charging extra fees which are exclusively charged when booking at the airport counter. For now I hope Frontier continues to grow as planned, and thus will provide more frequencies, more destinations and will continue to offer low fares. After all, Frontier had 96 planes at the end of November, but 167 more planes in the order book. Frontier plans to double in size over the next five years, and to go 15% year-over-year in 2020, which hopefully will be good news for the budget-conscious traveler.


I hope this update regarding the fees at the airport might be helpful to someone. :-)