Flight Review: flying coast to coast on an Spirit Airlines A320neo!
Flight#: NK727
From: Newark (EWR)
To: Oakland (OAK)
Flight time: 6h 15min
Aircraft: Airbus A320neo
This was my experience with America’s most quintessentially low-cost airline, ultra-low-cost-airline (ULCC) in fact, and I did it full in, with what must be one of the longest no-frills flights in the contintent, a transcon, from Newark to California!
Pre-flight experience
There is not much to say on this front. Curiously I found the ticket at a slightly cheaper rate on a meta-search engine than on the airline’s website.
The online check-in process later on was quite smooth. Beware with your email permissioning settings, though, unless you want to receive TONS of mail offering all sorts of upgrades and discounts for other flights!
The airport experience at EWR airport was pretty dreadful. This is not the fault of the airline, but since it is part of the experience, I mention it here.
I am aware that the NY & NJ Port Authority is investing heavily in airport renovation and that Newark’s Terminal A is quite nice now, but this certainly not the case yet of Terminal B, which is dated, noisy, crowded and has chaotic security queues, disfunctional toilet facilities and very limited and overpriced commercial offerings!
The Cabin and flight experience
As an ultra-low-cost airline, Spirit Airlines has a single class all-economy cabin.
It offers, however, some seats with extra space, branded as “Big” (as you can see in the picture), the ones on the first row looked pretty spacious. I also found interesting these panels separating the cabin from the galley and crew area.
Spirit Airlines’ A320neos are fitted with slim seats made by Acro Aircraft Seating. These are, apparently, ergonomically designed, so in addition to being lighter, the designers have managed to squeezed a little bit of space for the same seat pitch, with a slightly curved pre-reclined design. The manufacturer claims also that, despite their thinness, these seats have also an improved cushioning.
And you know what?
There must be something into these claims, because the 6 hour 15 minute night flight wasn’t that bad!
It is certainly far from the most comfortable flight I have had, but it was actually much better than I expected and I even managed to sleep a bit!
Overall, I found the cabin pretty neat and sleek. The black leather upholstery gives the Spirit Airlines cabin a rather elegant look and the plane was also spotlessly clean throughout.
Also, I don’t know if this part of the ergonomic design, but I noticed I had also some space between the seat and the fuselage wall, ideal to leave a little document folder that I had with me and leaving the space in front free to stretch the legs.
Another detail that I liked is the signage. These big and very visible letters indicating row and seat make the cabin more accessible (for example for people that may have reduced vision) and it may also help people find their seats faster squeezing a little bit of time off the boarding process.
On the right side below you can see the seat pitch, which is way better than I was expecting, tbh. Notice that my legs are not touching the shell of the seat in front!
There is (rigid) literature pocket on the upper part of the back of the seat, which fits little more than the food and drink menu and the safety card.
This A320neo was equipped with inflight wifi. As you can see, on Spirit Airlines wifi is an ancillary service so you need to purchase one of the inflight data plans. I didn’t use it, so I can’t comment on the speed or performance of the connection, but I post here the screenshots, so that you can get an idea of the costs.
What it is possible to check for free is the flight path, which is always a nice feature, particularly in longish flights like this one.
As you can imagine, food and drink is also an ancillary service. You can order from the menu that is found on each seat’s literature pocket. Tbh, the selection is not amazing and it is mostly snacks and soft drinks, but I guess this makes sense when considering that most Spirit Airlines flights are way shorter than this coast to coast service.
Our Take
Spirit Airlines is an ultra-low-cost airline, so the expectations were naturally low when it comes to service, but I must say that it delivers really well in the most important thing: the actual seat comfort. The prospect of spending over six hours on a non-reclinable flight with limited seat pitch is not very enticing, but I must say that the sense of personal space was, within the context and compared to other LCCs I have flown recently, reasonably good.
Also, the aircraft (unlike the airport terminal it departed from) was in mint condition.
So, if the price is right, why not?