Eager to experience spring break in Miami for the first time, a college friend and I decided to book a cheap and cheerful roundtrip from Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) on Spirit Airlines, which has just emerged from bankruptcy protection.
It was a last-minute decision so the flight options in our meager price range were limited. Frontier Airlines offered some decent deals, but ultimately Spirit’s ‘Go’ basic economy product at $169 roundtrip won out. While we were certainly grateful to get down to Florida for peanuts on Spirit, it came with a few sacrifices, as this first-time Spirit flyer learned.
The first concession was evident on the outbound; rather than fly nonstop to Miami, we would be routed via San Juan, Puerto Rico on the carrier’s 6:35 am flight.
On the day of travel, we arrived at BWI’s daily parking garage at 3:30 am and hopped on a shuttle to the terminal. Given that neither of us checked a bag — though, in a rookie mistake, I did have to pay $79 during the online checkin process for a single carryon — we were airside in short order, with plenty of time to spare.
Boarding began, and when our group was called, we made our way on board the Airbus A320, past the eight plush-looking Big Front Seats up front, and down to Row 17, where our aisle seats in standard economy class awaited.
There was just enough space under the seat to store my personal item, a regular-sized backpack. But my friend encountered a little more trouble. She ultimately squeezed her bag in without a hair to spare.
As lean humans, we both felt that the ultra-slim seats sorely lacked in padding, with an emphasis on ‘sorely’. But I was grateful for the fact that the seats are pre-reclined, so the passenger in front of me didn’t encroach on my living space.
My biggest complaint was that the aircraft was freezing cold for the entirety of the flight. Indeed, it was the coldest flight I’ve ever experienced, and served as a good reminder to always layer up when flying!
Spirit provides the option to purchase snacks and beverages on board.
For the purpose of this review, I paid an eyewatering $17.99 for the Streaming plan — billed as 20 times faster than the Browsing plan — for the four-hour BWI-San Juan leg to put the Thales FlytLIVE inflight connectivity system through its paces.
Would the service, which is powered by SES’s much lauded high-capacity SES-17 Ka-band satellite, live up to the hype?
I shared content on Instagram, listened to streaming music without any buffering, and browsed the Internet. The only hiccup I encountered was when trying to use data-heavy Snapchat. In every other way, I used the Internet in the same way I would at home.
We landed in lovely San Juan for a three-hour layover, and enjoyed a bit of aircraft spotting. Spirit’s yellow and black birds basked in the beautiful sunshine.
Sadly, Spirit does not offer an ‘all day’ connectivity package so my $17.99 purchase did not carry over to the next leg of my journey, from San Juan to Miami.
After boarding the A320, I found myself forking over $15.99 to stay connected. This felt like a bit of a money grab in the moment. But on reflection, I can’t really blame Spirit. The no-frills airline unabashedly offers an ‘a la carte’ fare bucket where the base fares are incredibly low and everything else, including bags and Wi-Fi, cost a chunk of change.
The Wi-Fi performed equally as well as on the first leg.
This time, neither myself nor my friend paid to select a seat and so Spirit chose for us. I lucked out with a window seat and my pal ended up in a middle seat. The benefit of a window seat, of course, are the great views. The A320 took off and rocketed us to Miami International Airport (MIA) for an on-time arrival.
Our return flight, a Miami-BWI nonstop, was uneventful. And the streaming class of Wi-Fi, for which I paid a full-flight fee of $15.99, worked really well again.
In the end, I paid $169 roundtrip for basic economy plus $158 for baggage ($79 for a carryon each way, admittedly higher than it needed to be had I paid up front) plus $49.97 for three Wi-Fi sessions for a total of $376.97.
Though it clearly came at a steep price — and, incidentally, wouldn’t have cost extra had I booked a ‘Go Big’ fare bundle with a Big Front Seat — the inflight Wi-Fi was by far the smoothest and most consistent I’ve ever experienced, which might be a useful data point for readers because I used to travel extensively with my mother, RGN editor and publisher Mary Kirby, and she always kept me connected in-flight.
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