USVI-On-Line

Hello all,

I just went to the Spirit Airlines website to check fares from Atlanta to STT for a midweek departure in November, and I got this message: "Service to St. Thomas, USVI operates on Saturdays only effective September 2, 2008."

I also checked some (non-Saturday) dates in January 2009 and got the same message -- maybe it's just to and from Atlanta?

Update: It looks like this applies to other U.S. cities, as well.

Boston, Atlantic City, Chicago, and Ft. Lauderdale also get the "Saturdays only message."

Los Angeles and Las Vegas got a "Fridays only" message.

Has anyone else encountered this? I tried Googling to see if I could find an official statement, but no dice.

Hey there Snorkeloony,
Yes, I have also encountered that problem/message as well. I HOPE that it changes as I want to fly in on a Friday and use Spirit vouchers that I have by a certain date. Also the Sat only flight from FLL doesn't get to STT til 4PM

If you've flown w/ SPirit before you already know that their CS Dept is pretty much non-existant!

Anyway, I will be on Spirit is 5 days and I will try to get the "scoop" confirmed, etc and I'll report back.

Have a great Monday
Kathy

Lotsa talk about this and the American cutbacks on the BVI forums by the many folks who charter sailboats, many of whom currently get there through San Juan (SJU) to Tortola (EIS) on American using the American Eagle (AE) turboprops.

It was noted that this week, there 9 daily flights scheduled on AE from SJU to EIS. In December, there are two. Many of these folks may therefore spill over into the STT bucket, which is also shrinking per this internal memo to Spirit pilots posted on another forum:

“May 31, 2008
Greetings fellow pilots,
At 1744 EDT Friday evening our VP of Ops, Jeff Carlson, sent facsimile copies of three certified letters to ALPA President Capt. John Prater. These letters were notices pursuant to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN). Spirit Airlines gave the minimum required legal notice of potential base closings in LGA and SJU, and of a potential reduction in base size in FLL. Capt. Creed, upon hearing of the notices, spoke directly with Ben Baldanza who indicated Spirit would be finalizing decisions concerning these bases in the next week, and merely wanted to have the legal notification in play for that eventuality.

Under the WARN Act the Company is required to provide an accurate number of those employees who could be affected by these types of decisions. Spirit has indicated 242 pilots are exposed to displacement or furlough. We hope their plan includes the growth of other bases but it’s hard to imagine the economic benefit of such realignment in these times of cost control.”

Others have also noted that starting Sept. 1 it looks like Spirit will only be flying to/from St. Thomas on Saturdays.

I found the same yesterday for DC