Spirited Away
In Defense of America's Most Hated Airline
Hear me out. I wanted to be in Atlanta over Thanksgiving break for a Christian conference. Failing to realize this until a late, manic mid-October night, at which point the only available and reasonably-priced flights were offered by none other than Spirit Airlines, I booked round-trip Spirit tickets between Logan and Hartsfield-Jackson for just under $400, $80 of which covered my carry-on. Though I had the option to purchase a larger seat, a seat with more legroom, or a seat guaranteed to have no one next to it, the seats I selected were ordinary. I panicked when the confirmation email didn’t appear immediately in my inbox, then promptly fell into relieved slumber after it did some ten minutes later.
On the day of my departure, I rode to the airport with a dear friend of mine, another Harvard student attending the conference. We sang hymns beforehand. What happened next, at the gate, seemed rare, even miraculous. Having purchased the right to travel with a suitcase in addition to the personal item included on all Spirit flights, we boarded the plane quickly, in the first two groups. We loaded our suitcases into the overhead compartment and found the seats we’d purchased. The vast majority of our fellow passengers boarded in group three (those sitting towards the back of the plane) and group four (those sitting towards the front of the plane). Having not purchased the $80 right to a suitcase, they walked in with their personal items and sat down. And then we took off.
Did you see that? No jostling, no pushing someone else’s suitcases upright for space’s sake, no frustrated demands that a volunteer check their bags at the gate due to a full flight. A place for everyone, and everyone in their place—shockingly, astoundingly fast. Therein lies the miracle. Spirit, though greatly preceded by its reputation, offered me the most efficient boarding process I had ever experienced. Anyone who travels even semi-frequently knows that efficiency is the real luxury. It has been achieved by Spirit’s subversion of the self-aggrandizing hierarchies to which we are so accustomed. Unlike the air travel industry as a whole, Spirit rejects the sleekly marketed loyalty program’s promise of elite status for something that is simply faster.1 In boarding Spirit first, you are who you are, someone needing to get somewhere by plane, cheaply, with stuff that wouldn’t fit in a backpack. In boarding Spirit last, you probably purchased a seat at the very front of the plane. In boarding Spirit at all, you are reminded that you’re no better than the person walking onto the plane before, and no better than the person walking onto the plane after. You are who you are, nothing more and nothing less.
For the rest of the flight, I was left blessedly undisturbed. That, too, seemed a luxury. No snacks were served to me. No (well-meaning) flight attendant came by to take my order. The seats were minimally padded, but in a manner that felt orthopedically beneficial. No one next to me blasted an alien movie or attempted to do work by connecting to the inevitably spotty plane WiFi. These things—entertainment, internet connection, snacks, drinks—are not included on the basic Spirit ticket. Many passengers thus do not bother paying extra for them, resulting in a great sense of calm. I dozed off wondering when we collectively determined bags of dry peanuts, miniature packages of crumbly cookies, two sips of blisteringly cold ginger ale in a kiddie-sized cup, and hot water that tastes of coffee to be necessary. They aren’t.
At this point, I want to remind you that the flight from Boston to Atlanta is only around two hours. In no way would I suggest that passengers be deprived of food and drink on long-haul flights. But I emphasize that on relatively shorter domestic flights, the stakes are not very high. The danger is not very grave. Some people, myself included, would perhaps rather not be awoken or disturbed by a drink cart rattling down the center aisle. Some people, including myself, care primarily for getting from Point A to Point B. Some people find silly the modern travel industry’s vainglory, and would prefer to be freed of the behavioral distortions created by it—the rush to board first as a marker of “superiority,” the choking anxiety of getting the proper place in line to get a row deemed “best,” the fake coughing and bag-placing on middle seats that deter boarders from arranging themselves quickly and calmly. There is an airline for these “some people,” and it doesn’t care who we are, and we are all the better for it.
At a certain point, air travel became to us an end, not a means. I take issue with this not because I believe travelers don’t deserve to be “comfortable” on a flight, but because many of these perceived “comforts” have distracted us from the point. This year, we might recalibrate ourselves. Interrogate the bells and whistles. Observe the way greed, pettiness, and selfishness specifically manifest at the airport gate. If what you require is indeed a larger seat, more legroom, a snack, a drink, WiFi, or something else, fear not, for on Spirit Airlines you can pay a reasonable price to acquire them. If you don’t want them, perhaps never really needed them in the first place, they certainly won’t be forced upon you. Such is the essential beauty of the airline we love to hate. But—tell me, where else does everyone get what they want and nothing they don’t need? What we need, lest we forget, is to get where we are going. Sometimes that’s all there is.
JEANNE GUYON
A version of this article originally appeared in Wealth of Nations, the February 2025 print issue of the Salient.
Of course Spirit has a loyalty program, but it’s different, promising the cheapest possible flights of all, as opposed to a free glass of champagne, a larger pillow, a pair of pajamas, etc.