Spirit back in chapter 11

The only thing Spirit can control… the automated bag machine that sends your bags off. Zero human contact . It’s how terminal 5 was set up. Scan your DL, barcode for boarding pass, throw bag on belt, scans, and takes it away. And then you walk away. We wasted over one hour for a manual person checkin just for the bag drop. A bag drop should be a true bag drop. We are already checked in. Just need to get the bag onto the belt.


And man they were strict on the 60 minute cutoff for bag checkin at LAX. Turned plenty of EWR redeye folks away for showing up less than 60 minutes (most ran and were there 50-60 minutes before). They were all screwed. Rules are rules, but I still felt bad for them. It’s like, these people are literally keeping your door open. Take the bag, throw it on the belt, and tell them to run for security and the gate. Best case, bag makes it. Worse case, it gets rerouted and arrives later that same day.

100% agree on some of the customer service pitfalls. That's part of the problem when almost every forward-facing "employee" is actually a subcontractor and their performance metrics don't necessarily align with what's best for the operation as a whole. Just the other day in MCO a woman on my flight forgot an item up at the gate. We were already a few minutes late and the gate wouldn't let her off the jet to go look around saying she'd be deplaned if she got off the jet. Well I went to the back of the jet and asked her what she forgot and where it might've been left and I went up to the boarding area to get said item. Told the gate agent we were already late and we're in the business of customer service, too bad if they want to close the door. Unfortunately I couldn't find her item where she said she was sitting so either someone had already snagged it or that wasn't where she lost the item. BUT, I tried to make it right for the customer...you know, the people keeping the lights on!!
 
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