Apology emails and $50 vouchers from Spirit Airlines are probably not enough to make it up to people who were supposed to fly on more than 2,000 canceled flights over the past weeks.
"I felt like I was held hostage by Spirit,” Texas mother of three LeAnn Hilton told USA Today of her recent experience with the airline.
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After she spent a week in New York City, N.Y., for a short vacation and medical appointments for her 7-month-old daughter, Spirit canceled Hilton’s flight home on Aug. 3. With the cancellation, Hilton wasn’t offered another flight, a hotel room or meal vouchers.
When she called to get a new flight, Hilton was told she would have to wait for days. Which she did, spending $1,600 of her own money on lodging alone and missing work. Hilton said it felt like “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York”.
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Others told USA today that they were left stranded in airports without meal vouchers or hotel rooms.
In response to the cancelations and lack of customer service, Spirit has started sending out apologies.
“We’re sorry,” said the subject line of an email sent out at 5:20 a.m. Friday. However, some of the recipients hadn’t had any issues with their recent Spirit flights. A pilot on a flight from Las Vegas, Nev. to Dallas, Texas also apologized to passengers about the recent delays and cancellations, which amounted to 60 percent of total flights on some days.
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Spirit CEO Ted Christie told USA Today Saturday he plans to continue to saying sorry.
“Did we fail our guests over that period of time? We absolutely did,” he said. "And we gotta fix that, and we gotta earn that back. It starts with an apology, but what it really is: We're going to earn the trust.”
It seems that Spirit’s attempts to apologize to passengers via Twitter have not been received warmly.
Many of these apology tweets from Spirit were sent around a week after flights were canceled:
Even as the tweets went out Wednesday, others on the site were complaining of continued problems with the airline.
Apart from angering its customers, Spirit has also ended up in hot water with its own employees this week after asking flight attendants to volunteer their time on days off due to staffing issues, said Business Insider.
“The company that wants you to sit on hold for hours on end, surpassing legal duty periods, and jeopardizing rest periods, invading on your days off without remorse. Now they want a favor?” said an email response from Teri Davison, a representative from the Spirit Airlines Association of Flight Attendants, according to the outlet.
John Bendoraitis, Spirit's COO, later apologized for the email that requested flight attendants volunteer their time.
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As of Wednesday, Spirit cancelations were down to just 2 percent of flights, said Business Insider.