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- Spirit Airlines canceled hundreds of flights this week in six straight days of disruptions.
- We talked to a Spirit customer service agent about what it's been like working through the meltdown.
- She described dealing with crying customers and stranded crew members.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
When Spirit Airlines employees walked into work on Sunday, airports across the country were in utter chaos. Customers were screaming and crying, demanding to know why hundreds of flights were being canceled. Part of the problem: most staff had no idea either.
"We were not aware why the flights started canceling," one Spirit employee who works in customer service told Insider. "It was one after the other. I had an anxiety attack, thinking maybe something like 9/11 was happening."
More than 1,000 Spirit Airlines flights were canceled this week in an epic meltdown caused by a poorly timed combination of bad weather, system outages, and staffing issues.
The low-cost carrier canceled 260 flights on Friday and 402 flights on Thursday, marking six straight days of disruptions despite Spirit's reassurance that cancellations would start falling.
The Spirit staffer – one of almost 9,000 Spirit employees – requested anonymity to speak freely about the situation, though her identity is known to Insider. She has worked for the airline for seven years and said she stays at the company for its flight discounts, which allow her to visit her son in the military who's stationed abroad.
"I'm exhausted," she said, adding that some Spirit workers felt like they couldn't take breaks or take time to eat lunch, despite working long hours.
She said customers and workers alike could be seen crying throughout the airport. Stranded crew members and passengers whose flights were canceled slept on the floor and on benches. The international flight zone transformed into a temporary rebooking area, as the terminal overflowed with people waiting in lines for hours on end.
The customer service agent said most passengers were extremely frustrated, and that some became aggressive. The most difficult part for her, she said, was not being able to help groups with infants or elderly family members. At one point, she spent four hours trying to help a group after the company's rebooking system crashed. When she finally got the information she needed from her supervisor, the family was nowhere to be found.
-TWU (@transportworker) August 5, 2021
"There's definitely some angry people," Spirit CEO Ted Christie said Thursday, according to CNBC. "Right now, all I can say is we're very sorry for what happened."
During the peak of the meltdown, Spirit Airlines announced that employee shifts would require "mandatory overtime due to irregular operations," according to the Spirit staffer, who also provided a copy of a company flyer announcing the policy. She said this led her and other employees to work until 3 a.m. one day, and that some junior staffers worked shifts as long as 15 hours on Sunday.
She said many employees felt trapped in mandatory overtime and thought that if they left, they might lose their job. According to the Spirit staffer, this fear stemmed from the airline's attendance policy regulated by the "Team Member Dependability Program," an 11-point system that keeps track of missed shifts or tardiness.
The policy dings employees with points for planned absences, unplanned absences, no-shows, and late arrivals, according to a copy of the program obtained by Insider. Once a staff member accrues 11 points, they can be fired.
Spirit Airlines
A Spirit spokesperson did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
Spirit COO John Bendoraitis sent the airline's operations team an email about the cancellations roughly 12 hours after they began.
"Our scheduling disruption this weekend stems from weather and ATC delays that added up over the past week, taking a toll on our crew availability. I own this, and we have a plan," the internal email read. "Right now, all hands are on deck working around the clock to solve the network disruption. We will not stop until we are successful."
The Transport Workers Union of America said in a statement on Thursday that Spirit Airlines executives have "shown little concern for the safety and mental well-being of their frontline agents at FLL, who have been attacked and even spat on - just for doing their job."
Do you work for Spirit? Contact the reporter of this piece from a non-work email at [email protected]