His view is that most people who complain about Spirit fail to grasp how it’s different from other airlines — like visiting Wal-Mart and expecting Nordstrom-level service. You want Spirit’s fares? You’ll have to play by Spirit’s rules.

This is from “Don’t Come Crying to This Airline,” a nicely done piece on Spirit Airlines. Worth reading. H/T to Lew Rockwell.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a United Airlines flight attendant a year or so ago. I was telling him that I didn’t mind the unbundling of services and that it was probably a result of deregulation. When the Civil Aeronautics Board ran a cartel, it made sense to compete by adding services. When the cartel was ended in the late 1970s and early 1980s, unbundling made sense but certainly took longer than I expected. This young flight attendant, who had had no experience of the regulatory era, uttered words of wisdom. He said:

In every transaction with an airline there are two customers. The first is the one who buys the ticket. He wants the best deal and is willing to go to another web site to save ten bucks. The second is the customer who shows up and acts as if he bought first class.