I saw an amazing deal for RT airfare to New York today and quickly headed over to Spirit.com to purchase two tickets. I picked the flight times at the dirt cheap price of $31 one-way and continued on to check out when I was met with some glorious fees that added $75 (that's a whole extra ticket!!) to my balance. If this was some Illinois sales tax type of deal I probably wouldn't have been quite so flabbergasted, pissed but not surprised; Chicagoans are used to paying outrageous taxes and fees for absolutely no good reason (like the $100 we pay for the City sticker, plus the $25 for the parking permit which allows us to park on the roads that we pay taxes to maintain -- limited roads, plus $100 for a license plate sticker for ...fun? Annually, by the way. :-/) but these fees were way more creative than that. Here's the breakdown:
Passenger Facility Fee: $18
According to the Spirit website, "the Passenger Facility Charge (PFC) Program allows the collection of PFC fees up to $4.50 for every enplaned customer at commercial airports controlled by public agencies. Airports use these fees to fund FAA-approved projects that enhance safety, security, or capacity; reduce noise; or increase air carrier competition."
Great! Just what I've always wanted; contributing to the ridiculous security binge we've been on ever since 9/11, $18 at a time.
Passenger Usage Fee: $32
This one definitely takes the cake, it's my all-time favorite.
Spirit's website doesn't really provide much detail on this one but you can't really blame them -- if I were scamming the U.S. to this extent, I would try to keep it under wraps too.
"Travel within the United States - Fee of $8.00 per one way travel per traveling customer applies to all reservations excluding bookings created directly at Spirit Airlines’ airport locations.
International Flights (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) - Fee of $13.00 per one way travel per traveling customer applies to all international reservations excluding bookings created directly at Spirit Airlines’ airport locations as well as flights originating in or departing from airports in Colombia or Panama."
Basically, unless you go directly to Spirit Airlines's airport location to purchase your ticket, you'll be paying $32 for the luxury of using your own printer's ink. Spirit charges you because they are upset about the money they're saving on paper and ink!
Segment Fee:
This one is pretty boring. "Commercial operators are required to collect a tax on air transportation for each flight that begins and ends in the United States. A segment tax of $3.50 per U.S. domestic flight segment. A segment is a single takeoff and a single landing."
Lastly, the one that initially got my attention because I love all of the new groping policies that have been instituted at airlines:
September 11th Security Fee:
For the low cost of only $10, I can now ensure that all TSA virtual strip search equipment is maintained properly. What about those of us who opt out of the cancer machine? Am I paying to be groped? yes, yes, yes!!
They call it something else on their site, "Passenger Civil Security Fee" but it's the same crap either way. I'm paying $10 extra to guarantee that I either get virtually stripped searched with a possible side of harmful radiation (excuse me, "safe" doses of radiation) or, I can get groped by some sweaty TSA agent.
"A September 11th Security Fee of $2.50 is charged for each one-way flight segment to fund screeners, equipment, and other costs of the Transportation Security Administration."
So thank you, Spirit Airlines, for providing me with all of these forced opportunities to pay a bunch of BS fees for a bunch of BS services. I quickly steered away from their booking page. Although $214 is still a good deal for two RT tickets to NY, it's not worth supporting Spirit's notion that it's a-okay to screw people over in this fashion.
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