Spirit Shares "State of the Hate"

Spirit Shares "State of the Hate"

Last summer Spirit Airlines launched the “Hug the Haters” promotion offering FREE SPIRIT members 8,000 bonus miles for sharing their complaints about the airline. According to Spirit, the response was overwhelming with nearly 30,000 people sharing their gripes with the airline in the first few days of the promotion alone. Surprisingly, nearly 60 percent of the responses received were about airlines other than Spirit.

In their State of the Hate Report, Spirit noted that 20 percent of consumers who responded during the promotion said that they hate cramped airline seats (noting that they hate everything from size, shape, access, legroom and recline), 16 percent said that they were most frustrated with lost bags and baggage policies and 15 percent complained about delays and airline customer service.

The report also listed various complaints by category and ranked airlines by the number of complaints received in each category. It was no surprise that compared to other airlines Spirit received the most complaints when it came to frustrations about their “fee structure”.

Bottom line: While it seems that travelers love to hate cramped seats, based on recent moves by JetBlue and other airlines, it doesn’t seem like the average traveler will be getting more legroom any time soon–unless they pay for it.