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Spirit pounded for its misleading criticism of fare rules

Spirit Airlines is surely getting what it wants these days with its highly misleading statements posted on its Web site about the new federal requirement that airlines display the full cost of airline tickets, including the fare, taxes and fees. After all, here I am writing about it again. But as the Business Travel Coalition points out in a statement, reported today by the Travel Agent Central Web site, Spirit apparently believes that blatantly insulting government regulators is good corporate policy and will help force the government to back down. Spirit added insult to injury by also adopting a new $2 per one-way segment fee to cover the supposed cost of meeting the new regulation.

Once again, as I pointed out in my blog post last Thursday, found just three items below this one, some airlines -- notably for PHL fliers US Airways -- are breaking out taxes from the fare in one simple, easy to understand display. Other carriers are including the taxes as they are now required to do in the ticket cost, but making you look harder for the breakdown between fare and taxes. Spirit is simply not telling the truth when it says it is required to hide the taxes.Yes, the fares may be low (or maybe not after all the fees are added) and some employees good and helpful, but this is another reason to avoid an otherwise sleazy outfit.