OhDoctor

Reports of rioting at SJU today, possibly secondary to NK's massive service disruptions. Staff reportedly being told to shelter in the airport and change out of uniform to avoid being targeted. Anyone on the ground can confirm/clarify?

Reports here: https://liveandletsfly.com/spirit-airlines-collapses/

CPRich

Spirit is pretty much the only airline I won't fly. This isn't going to change.

OhDoctor

Flew them once when they were the only ones flying direct to MYR. Occasionally tempted to fly the Big Front Seat but otherwise agree with you.

NoLaGent

I've never flown Spirit, and never will, but I do have a friend who is an FA for them out of FLL. He's stuck in Dallas and can't get ahold of crew scheduling at all. According to him, the problem is a complete meltdown of their IT. His next leg was supposed to be to Chicago, but he went to the gate only to find it cxld. He knows the crew hotel at DFW, and thankfully they had a room, so he's there for the foreseeable future.

What a mess.

Pretzelsandpeanuts

Flew Spirit once years ago, nope never again. I would rather walk or just not go

redtop43

You call Sprit an "airline?" I have visions of the Flintstonemobile.

OhDoctor

Appreciate all the NK-bashing and it's mostly deserved but I was hoping to hear from someone on the ground at SJU or one of the other hubs that are getting absolutely demolished at the moment.

Tino

My SO is an FA for another airline and is reading Facebook group messages from Spirit FAs looking for help trying to escape Puerto Rico. No other airlines have spare capacity, and no company support is coming from Spirit. Not a good scene. With all the crew and planes being mispositioned all over the continent, this could take days/weeks to get the house back in order.

OhDoctor

Scary for the FA/staff, although I can also imagine how enraged I would be to be abandoned at SJU with no return in sight. For those with the money to buy a new ticket and hop on a different airline, it's not the end of the world, but for those without the means to do so, sleeping at SJU for days on end with staff having essentially abandoned their posts, I could imagine things getting ugly.

OhDoctor

update here: https://onemileatatime.com/news/spir...onal-meltdown/

80% (!!!!) of flights delayed or cancelled (predominantly cancelled) network-wide yesterday, and almost 50% of flights already cancelled/delayed today before we've even hit noon EST.

ewoo

There's no way to spin this: This is an enormous meltdown for Spirit and the fact that there is another massive wave of cancellations today shows that there's no end in sight.

But the thing I don't understand is this: This is *not* Spirit's first rodeo. They have bases in south Florida and Orlando, where crazy stuff happens all the time. Storms and hurricanes and shootings and whatnot. They've dealt with significant labor issues in the past. They should not be as completely overwhelmed by the situation as they appear to be.

Other things that concern me from the outside looking in:

1. Total radio silence from upper management. Only public statements are vague comments from p.r. people.

2. None of the front-line workers seem to know what's going on.

vincewy

Is this the premonition of airline shutdown? Not trying to be cynical but this happened to a few carriers abroad in the past when they abruptly announced temporary suspensions of flights for 2-3 days, but after that the airlines indeed suspended operations permanently. Even the employees didn't know what was going on, including the upper managements, let alone front-line employees.

CPRich

They keep trying. Every comment on the cause of the meltdown starts with weather.

Flight impacts:
8/1 - 59%
8/2 - 70%
8/3 - 80%

8/4 is 46% as of 7am.

That’s a lot of weather…

sunnn

it was started by weather which resulted in apparently a lot of people just quitting on the contract ramp and ground handling aspect, which then resulted in crew scheduling melting down

Jeff767

When there are jobs easily available in the current job market it makes no sense to work at Spirit wages and work rules. McDonald’s has better employment packages than Spirit.