Is Spirit Airlines Safe?
If you’ve been looking for a cheap airline to save on your travels, you may have come up against Spirit as one of the options. And while it may feel great to have to pay less for a flight ticket (sometimes significantly less), you may be wondering if paying less for a Spirit ticket makes the airline less safe?
After all, if Spirit collects less revenue from their customers, will they have less money left to spend on keeping their airplanes in good shape which could potentially compromise your safety? Well, the answer is no. In this article, you will learn why any airline in the US, be it a discounted airline like Spirit or a legacy airline like United, will provide the same level of flight safety for their passengers.
Why is Spirit Airlines a safe airline?
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), any airline that is allowed to fly in the United States is required to meet certain FAA safety standards regardless of their status or price. These safety standards are strictly enforced so no airline is potentially more or less safe than any other airline.
While a budget airline like Spirit may cut corners around customer service, leg room or snacks, every airline will have to spend the necessary amount of money on airplane maintenance, equipment, pilot training, or anything else that’s required by FAA.
The same is true about security. While security matters such as luggage screenings and airplane cockpit access are regulated by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the TSA has the same requirements for all airlines that operate in the US, be it a budget airline like Spirit or a legacy airline like United.
So relax, you are completely safe if you choose to fly with Spirit Airlines.
Why Spirit Airlines may be safer than other airlines
What if we told you that Spirit Airlines could be potentially safer than some other more expensive airlines? That’s because Spirit Airlines has one of the youngest fleets in the industry. Let’s take a look at the average fleet age of the 10 major US airlines from oldest to youngest:
| Airline Name | Average Fleet Age |
|---|---|
As you can see, Spirit has by far the youngest fleet out of all the 10 major airlines in the US. While there is no correlation of accident rate with aircraft age, you should be still feeling safe knowing that you’ll be flying on a newer airplane if you choose to fly with Spirit Airlines.
So why are Spirit Airlines so cheap?
If you made it that far, you may be wondering why exactly are Spirit Airlines so cheap if they are as safe as other airlines.
Well, Spirit has a different business model where they do not offer luxury services as other airlines do. In a way, because they are a budget airline, they can often get away with many things such as flight delays when other more expensive airlines simply can’t.
As we mentioned already, Spirit is cheaper not because of safety. All airlines in the US, both cheap and expensive, will have to adhere to the same strict safety standards. Instead, here’s what allows Spirit to cut prices.
| Southwest Airlines (more expensive, more services) | Spirit Airlines (less expensive, fewer services) |
|---|---|
As you can see, not only Spirit gets more customers due to lower prices, but they tend to make up the money they lose from cheaper airfare by asking customers to pay for in-flight services that other more expansive airlines are offering for free.
That’s how Spirit is able to offer dirt-cheap flights while remaining a safe airline at the same time.
If you’d like to watch a documentary on how budget airlines operate, check out the video below.
Have you tried Spirit Airlines? Please rate and share your experience in the comments below!
Rude NASTY NO CUSTOMER SERVICE! TIEFS! Stole my life! Everything in my suitcase was my life and they took it!
Spirit was just fine.