a Spirit Airlines forum, it's time
Dec 17, 2015, 11:08 am
#211
Moderator: American AAdvantage
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I will be moving the two "closed to posting" forums under United Airlines in to the Discontinued Programs boneyard in early January. I'll also be moving the AirTrans forum at that time. Last month, I moved the two forums that were under the Delta forum head. The closed AA and US forums won't be moved yet as that airline merger has occurred very recently. People are still referring back to threads in the closed forums.
Are those the ones of which you speak or are there others?
Are those the ones of which you speak or are there others?
American Airlines | AAdvantage (current): 339 (50 members & 289 guests)
Legacy American Airlines | AAdvantage (Pre-Merger - closed): 106 (3 members & 103 guests)
Legacy US Airways | Dividend Miles (Pre-Merger - closed): 13 (1 members & 12 guests)
Last edited by JDiver; Dec 17, 2015 at 4:42 pm
Dec 17, 2015, 4:26 pm
#212
Original Member
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I will be moving the two "closed to posting" forums under United Airlines in to the Discontinued Programs boneyard in early January. I'll also be moving the AirTrans forum at that time. Last month, I moved the two forums that were under the Delta forum head. The closed AA and US forums won't be moved yet as that airline merger has occurred very recently. People are still referring back to threads in the closed forums.
Are those the ones of which you speak or are there others?
Are those the ones of which you speak or are there others?
If nothing else, it will save my occasional mis-click on the closed UA section when I click too fast!
Jan 13, 2016, 10:58 am
#213
Join Date: May 2009
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Posts: 5,678
I'm not sure that Spirit would get more active discussions on here if Spirit had its own forum, but (then again) absent trying it, who knows for sure. I'm just curious where the line is being drawn and about why it is being drawn where it is. And I'm talking more about how each of us individually decides than about a collective vote by TalkBoard.
There are circumstance where increased forum specialization undermines information acquisition/sharing and discussion on a topic; and there are circumstances where decreased/reversed forum specialization undermines information sharing/acquisition and discussion.
Spirit is enough of a different beast and a large enough airline that I think it worth trying a separate forum. If it flops, after say 1 or 2 years of failing to meet some kind of predetermined activity criteria, merging it back into some amalgamated forum is easy enough to do.
There are circumstance where increased forum specialization undermines information acquisition/sharing and discussion on a topic; and there are circumstances where decreased/reversed forum specialization undermines information sharing/acquisition and discussion.
Spirit is enough of a different beast and a large enough airline that I think it worth trying a separate forum. If it flops, after say 1 or 2 years of failing to meet some kind of predetermined activity criteria, merging it back into some amalgamated forum is easy enough to do.
Spirit had about 17M emplaned passengers in 2015 and has a frequent flyer program that some folks get a lot of utility out of, and others may be able to use it more effectively if there were more discussion of it.
There is a separate Frontier forum so I just checked some quick statistics since they're both in the ULCC model. Both airlines serve a similar quantity of destinations (57 Spirit and 55 Frontier). Spirit has a current fleet of 79 aircraft to Frontier's 61. Frontier has around 275 daily departures to Spirit's approx. 250 (I assume these vary with seasonal flights). Offhand I couldn't locate 2015 total pax emplanements for Frontier but in 2013 it was about 10M so they're likely in the same ballpark as Spirit anyway. The current EarlyReturns program is not anything to write home about these days.
I don't know the history of the F9 forum creation but I realize that Frontier was a different animal when that forum began years ago. But in their present forms the NK and F9 airlines are certainly comparable and their FFPs are more in the same ballpark than the other major carriers. If the only argument is that there aren't a lot of active Spirit threads now, while Frontier is a decently busy forum, I'd circle back to the quoted post and my own thoughts, that traffic may build up if there is a dedicated forum which begins to grow organically. Why not try it and see?
Jan 13, 2016, 11:39 am
#214
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Great analysis!
Bruce
Bruce
Jan 13, 2016, 11:45 am
#215
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Six Spirit threads in the last five weeks. Other than the long running "Lower Fares at the Airport" thread, the most posts any thread has is 12.
I'm still not seeing the demand.
I'm still not seeing the demand.
Jan 13, 2016, 12:41 pm
#216
Moderator: Hilton Honors forums
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Marietta, Georgia, United States
Posts: 24,996
I am the type of person who would rather refer back to factual information and proof rather than merely speculate what could or might happen.
Despite the lack of actual demand, I am in favor of launching a forum dedicated to Spirit Airlines and revisiting it after a specific period of time — say, six months or a year. If the demand or views never develop to be enough to support a forum on its own, then TalkBoard can vote to deactivate that forum, as we have voted to do for several now-former forums during the past year or so.I was also impressed with your analysis and data, 84fiero. Thank you for putting the time and effort into it, as it helped sway me further towards voting to launch a forum dedicated to Spirit Airlines should a vote occur.
Despite the lack of actual demand, I am in favor of launching a forum dedicated to Spirit Airlines and revisiting it after a specific period of time — say, six months or a year. If the demand or views never develop to be enough to support a forum on its own, then TalkBoard can vote to deactivate that forum, as we have voted to do for several now-former forums during the past year or so.I was also impressed with your analysis and data, 84fiero. Thank you for putting the time and effort into it, as it helped sway me further towards voting to launch a forum dedicated to Spirit Airlines should a vote occur.
Jan 13, 2016, 5:03 pm
#217
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Despite the lack of actual demand, I am in favor of launching a forum dedicated to Spirit Airlines and revisiting it after a specific period of time — say, six months or a year. If the demand or views never develop to be enough to support a forum on its own, then TalkBoard can vote to deactivate that forum, as we have voted to do for several now-former forums during the past year or so.
Jan 17, 2016, 1:49 pm
#218
Moderator: Hilton Honors forums
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Jan 18, 2016, 8:54 am
#219
Suspended
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Also, is it really necessary that a thread have a lot of posts for the thread to be really useful? Sometimes view counts speak to utility more than even post counts.
Jan 18, 2016, 12:30 pm
#220
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges and Environmentally Friendly Travel
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Rather than address piece meal requests such as this, I think it might be a better idea if a wider, more strategic review is undertaken in order to identify potential new airline forums. This initiative might involve an ongoing due diligence exercise, studying the traffic being generated in all four regional airlines forums.
Is this an exercise TalkBoard would be interesting in leading?
Is this an exercise TalkBoard would be interesting in leading?
Jan 18, 2016, 3:05 pm
#221
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Jan 18, 2016, 4:07 pm
#222
Moderator: Delta SkyMiles, Luxury Hotels, TravelBuzz! and Italy
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Jan 18, 2016, 5:27 pm
#223
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Just curious - in the other forums where Spirit appears, have the mods moved them to the Other North/South American forums? Sounds like they haven't & would be interested in knowing why not. Obviously they know of the "Others" existence.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Jan 21, 2016, 3:35 am
#224
Moderator, Hertz; FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Nov 12, 2016, 12:58 pm
#225
Moderator, Amtrak & Spirit Airlines
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With TB going away I feel like this should be the final push to treat Spirit with some respect.