As Spirit Airlines shuts down, I recall my first ever Spirit Airlines flight…a 2004 redeye flight from Los Angeles to Detroit on an MD-80 as a high-schooler.
2004 was my senior year in high school. Like many high schoolers, I applied for colleges and universities in autumn, and visited many schools over the winter as I considered where I’d go (ultimately, I did not go far at all and went to UCLA). I was invited to interview for a scholarship to a school in Michigan. They would provide room and board for a couple days, but I’d have to arrange the airfare.
2004 was the year I fell in love with flying, but the first half of 2024 was prior to my “awakening.” The school said to book Northwest Airlines nonstop from Los Angeles to Detroit because the McNamara Terminal was very nice (it just opened a couple of years prior). My dad booked Spirit Airlines instead, which even 22 years ago offered a much cheaper option than NWA.
It turned out to be my first flight on Spirit (and my only one for over a decade) and also my first-ever redeye flight. Back in 2004, the Spirit Airlines route map looked like this:
When we showed up at LAX ahead of our redeye, I had no idea what to think…I didn’t give it much thought back then.
We boarded and the first thing I noticed was that we were on a very old plane.
It was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 and the overhead signs were in English and German. Spirit Airlines obtained MD-80s (including MD-81, MD-82, MD-83, and even on MD-87) from all over the world and this aircraft was a former Aero Lloyd aircraft, the defunct German leisure carrier based in Frankfurt.
In addition the German signs, the ashtrays all worked (I wondered, not knowing better as a 17-year-old, if this was a smoking flight). The ashtray was full of trash…the plane was very dirty (some things never changed). I remember beverages were free, but there was no snacks or food…we landed on time in Detroit to a very dilapidated terminal.
The school visit went well and we braved the icy cold winter weather back to Detroit for our evening nonstop back to LAX. It was a different MD-83, this one with newer livery and no German signs inside. I remember there was a snack box for purchase that my dad and I purchased onboard. Of course, there was no in-flight IFE, though I remember I spent the flight catching up on my AP economics reading.
Spirit did not fully unbundle until 2010, when it introduced a $45 fee for carry-on bags (the subject of an eventual class action lawsuit of which I was a key expert witness). But even back, it was very bare-bones.
I’ll miss Spirit for many things, but I won’t miss actually flying it then or now.
aircraft images: Konstantin von Wedelstaedt / Wikimedia Commons
