5.12.14 Spirit Airlines = Rest Day

At my son's request, he asked for a blog post concerning my trip home from Minnesota on Spirit Airlines.  I have never flown Spirit.  They nickel and dime you for everything to make up for the cheap fares.  I sat in 13F on the way up.  I am not tall, 5 foot 10 inches.  My knees were jammed into the seat in front of me the whole flight.  It was impossible to get comfortable.  I wasn't all that excited about the ride home.  You can upgrade your seat to a first class type seat for $40.  I was going to try to get on that.  After my run on Sunday, I decided to use the hotel computer to check in and get my boarding pass.  The first computer I used was horribly beat down and slow.  It wouldn't show the seating chart.  Must have been running IE6 or something ancient as a browser.  Abandoned that PC and moved to the next one.  Much better.  However, when you came to the page to change your seat, the seating chart didn't provide any upgrade options.  I left the hotel with my seat assignment as 23F.  Had to be the back of the plane.  Feeling defeated, I decided to try and call.  The number for customer service is no where to be found on the web site.  I had to google for it.  The number I called referred me to another number.  Finally, after navigating the IVR hell hole, I got a real person.  For $40, I was the spanking new owner of a first class seat on the first row of the plane.  I was feeling better until I checked my flight status.  Flight was delayed 9pm to 9:40pm.  My daughter was doing her homework in the Student Center.  I had nothing to do so I watched TV.  When she finished her homework, she was going to print my boarding pass.  When I printed the boarding pass, my flight was delayed again to a 10:30pm departure.  This was getting worse by the minute.  My daughter had a lot of work to do, so I decided to just have her take me to the airport at 8pm.  No need to keep her from the things she needed to do.  I don't think anyone flies out of Minneapolis after 8pm.  That airport was a ghost town until you arrived at the Spirit Airlines gates.  Every single plane was late.  This wasn't some bad luck thing for me.  My boarding pass said my flight was leaving out of H2.  No one was there and the screens were dark.  Plus, this was the hell gate usually occupied by Sun Country.  It was the same gate where they picked me out of a crowd of hundreds to extort a baggage fee from me.  Didn't work  but that is another long story.  After a few minutes, I started thinking something was wrong.  I looked it up on my phone and the gate was showing H6.  Back to the mass of humanity waiting on Spirit flights.  I asked the gate agent if I was in the right place because the board said Chicago.  She said yes.  Dallas would be leaving out of H6 at 10:00pm.  My plane was on the way from Denver.  Checked flightaware.com and sure enough the plane was coming.  Landing at 9:50pm so there was no way we were leaving at 10pm.  One of the flights that was supposed to leave around the same time as mine was a flight to Las Vegas.  The Vegas flight was delayed until 12:15am.  I grabbed a seat close to the gate and this was highly entertaining.  Travelers to Las Vegas come in two varieties.  People who live or work there and people who are going on vacation.  I literally watched at least 20 different people ask about the flight.  The people who live or work there were very agitated and the gate agent was getting an ear full about the crappy web site and lack of notification.  The more entertaining crowd belonged to the vacationers.  They seemed to all find each other and took over the bar next to the gate.  Nothing to lose for that crowd.  The longer they waited, the more they drank.  Each time they would walk up to talk to the agent, the more contentious it became.  The vacationing drunks came in two varieties as well.  The pissed off drunks and the happy go lucky high fiving drunks.  The bar was erupting into strange chants like an Aggie football game.  I don't know what they were doing in there and I didn't want to know.  Every so often, one would stumble out and look for a status.  Granted, the board said the Vegas flight was not leaving until 12:15am.  Maybe they were too shitfaced to remember the status hadn't changed in the last 10 minutes.  I sat there until 10:30pm watching the insanity.  These guys were hammered by the time I left.  I can't imagine having to ride to Vegas with all of those idiots.  It would either be very loud and obnoxious or half the plane would be barfing all the way there.  Best case would be they all passed out.  Sitting on that Vegas flight was going to be miserable for everyone.  One of the last drunks to stumble out with the deer in the headlight look was a woman looking to start trouble with the gate agent.  Lots of repeated explanations with blank staring and repeating the same question over and over.  I'm pretty sure a cat fight was going to ensue but she finally gave it up and went back to the bar.  Once my plane arrived, the gate agent dispensed with the usual orderly loading by zone.  She announced the entire plane was open to board creating a mad dash to the gate.  I'm fairly sure a few people were trampled in the bum rush.  I made it on fast since I was right next to the gate agent.  Never was $40 better spent than getting the seat up front.  We didn't take off until around 10:45pm and landed after 1:00am.  The terminal was empty in Dallas with the exception of a Spirit flight going to LA.  I feel your pain people.  They still had not left yet.  Good luck guys.  As a result, Spirit created a rest day for me on Monday.  I only slept for a few hours and went to work.  Thanks for the memories Spirit.