PreCheck coming to Spirit Airlines

The line between business and leisure airlines continues to blur. Even as legacy network carriers in the US seek to add “basic” fares targeting the price-sensitive and leisure markets Spirit Airlines is making a move to be more business friendly. The carrier is increasing frequencies in certain markets, adding multiple daily flights which appeal to business travelers. And, perhaps more importantly, later this year the carrier expects to offer TSA PreCheck integration for its passengers.

Getting the technology set up to offer PreCheck is not a trivial task. There is a significant technology budget involved and that is the sort of thing which historically Spirit would not spend money on. In fact, it didn’t. But things are changing with the new CEO and efforts to fight back against the legacy carriers as the competitive landscape shifts. In this case it is a move which should actually benefit passengers rather than punish them. That’s worth getting a bit excited about. And given how often the Big Front Seat is priced competitively with other airlines’ economy product, moves to make flying with Spirit easier are most definitely attractive to me.

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Back in Business: A transcon trip in the American Airlines A321T

Is $50/hour a fair price to pay for upgrading to a business class seat? American Airlines suggested that price to me last week, and after a long couple days of work north of Los Angeles I took the offer. With a transcon flight home ahead, I figured the extra space and comfort would be worthwhile. It was a pleasant and comfortable trip, though the A321T fleet is starting to show its age.

by Seth Miller 10 months ago10 months ago

9 Comments

Interesting.

I wonder if this will put any pressure on the lovely Allegiant to follow suit? (Assuming it hasn’t done so when I wasn’t looking.). Historically, Allegiant has been so, so, so resistant to expenditures like that.

When a 4 hour mid-con flight in a Big Front Seat costs $70 vs. $240 on legacy carriers in Economy (~$500 in First), you know that Spirit might actually have a shot at getting into the business traveler market.

I really think if Spirit is smart and adds enough frequency on key routes, it could win some good share. Operational efficiency will help too.

Lots of business travelers in Europe fly Ryanair and EasyJet – that’s a big part of the reason their legacy airlines, with the exception of IAG and LH, are in trouble.

Correction. Daniel Palen just pointed out to me that Allegiant had already done this “while I wasn’t looking.” So never mind, and thanks, Daniel.

They asked me in a trip to jamaica, what airline are you flying, I told them SPIRIT to FLL, so I heard they said, oh thats the welfare airline,I lost the ticket for not flying on issued date , no penalties to change the date, I had to buy another ticket on Air Jamaica, Spirit is a crap of airline !

Seth Miller says:

14 March 2016 at 10:11 pm

Hate to break it to you but all airlines will make you buy a new ticket if you miss your flight on the originally booked day of travel. That’s not unique to Spirit.

And a guy who supposedly has 20+ years in the industry as you claim should probably know that.

Will Spirit charge me to add my KTN, either once or per flight?

How do you know this will happen? I have not seen anywhere that spirit is joining TSA precheck. I fly spirit once every 2 months and would love it if they had precheck