I flew with SPIRIT AIRLINES (spoiler: I cheated)

Hello and welcome to another trip report. The last time I was in America I got loads of comments on my videos saying you should really check out Spirit Airlines. And that's exactly what I'm going to be doing today. I'm flying Spirit Airlines, perhaps America's least favourite carrier between Los Angeles and Denver. Let's go check it out

spirits are based out of terminal 5 here at lax and despite the early morning start you can see

it's always busy with traffic here check-in is pretty simple but there is something i really

should let you know about be aware of spirits baggage allowance it's only 18 kilos for your

main cabin bag a couple of things you'll need to know if you've never come across spirit before

the first thing you need to know is spirits are an ultra low cost carrier and that means that you

have to add in all of the bundles and services that you want on top of a cheap base fare. I'll

go into full details about the cost at the end of the video but you should know that what I paid

for this flight is the same as what United Airlines were offering on exactly the same route

leaving half an hour later on a 757-300 in first class. One of the things I love about LAX airport

is the fact that you can walk between all of the terminals now quite easily on the inter-terminal

connector routes. There is no Priority Pass lounge at all in Terminal 5, but that's no biggie

because you can simply walk five minutes down the road to Terminal 6, where you'll find the Alaska

lounge. This is a pretty standard Alaska Airlines lounge, and I was using it really as a quick stop

for some breakfast. The lounge filled up really quickly, and in fact they stopped admitting

Priority Pass customers about 10 minutes after I entered, so I was quite lucky

a self-confessed aviation geek my favorite part of this lounge is the fact that you can

look out onto the tarmac through these enormous windows talking of alaska airlines i personally was disappointed when they bought out the unique

virgin america carrier i never had an opportunity to try them myself and i'm disappointed

that the virgin america tales are now a thing of the past however alaska do have this wonderful

transition livery which is going around on one of its a321s i don't know about you but i'm always

inspired by looking at the different airlines on the tarmac this is hawaiian airlines an airline

i yet to take and seeing this jet blue a321 reminds me of the fantastic journey i had last year in their mint business class so pre is going to start in about 10 minutes had a pretty good morning actually security

no problem got through the airport absolutely fine and even had a brief stint in the lounge

courtesy of priority pass and alaska um so yeah so far so good looking forward to it

This is our ride, an Airbus A321. Let's get on board. So, yeah, I cheated. I actually bought one of Spirit's big front seats

which are basically first-class seats that you'd find on any other United States carrier flying domestically

Here are Spirit's normal seats. These are incredibly bare seats. 28 inches of pitch, apparently

I'll admit that this kind of seating is not something I'd like to endure for anything more

than an hour. Despite all of this I have to say that Spirit's cabin looked fresh and was spotlessly

clean. I was also pretty impressed with the legroom that you get in these big front seats

As I said definitely comparable to any domestic first class seat going

Everyone has told me that Spirit Airlines are a terrible airline but so far so good. Let's get

into the sky. I flown into or out of LAX several times now and I always struck by how spectacular the departure is if you heading towards the northeast A top avgeek tip keep your eyes on the runway as you turn away at LAX and you definitely see other aircraft taking off into the sky after you

It's quite a sight. As we turn out and head over the San Gabriel Mountains

it's time to have a quick look at the route we'll be taking today. It's 861 miles and we'll be travelling at 35,000 feet

It'll take us just an hour and a half today. If you fly over this part of the world, you will come across many interesting and varied airfields

This used to be Hellendale Auxiliary Army Airfield, and its history is too interesting for me to share here

so I've included some links in the description below. I'm pleased to report that unlike my previous flight on United, the toilet was completely intact on this flight

However, I wasn't quite so impressed with their whimsical choice of name for their toiletries

something else that made me chuckle was having a look at the safety card

look at this infant's face it looks like a fully grown man

what's going on there somewhere that spirit definitely fall behind up with

their competitors is with onboard connectivity wi-fi is not available but is apparently coming next year

given that there's no entertainment on board there's only one way i know how to keep myself occupied on board a spirit aircraft

and that's by ordering something to eat and drink Now there's no such thing as cheap onboard catering anywhere in the western world, at least not in my experience

but I was quite pleasantly surprised when I flicked through the menu to find that Spirit weren't ridiculously overcharging you

I thought the prices, in all honesty, were quite reasonable. Having read lots of feedback about Spirit's onboard catering, I knew that the thing to try were buzz balls

now it may only have been 9 30 in the morning but these cocktails were definitely on my to-do list

and i wasn't disappointed for pre-mixed cocktails i thought these were pretty good my favorite

was the malhai lemonade they also got some of spirits cup noodles all in the name of research

of course something i've not seen in a long time is flight attendants barricading the aisle with

the trolley so that they can open the cockpit door safely and serve the pilots

This is one of my favourite journeys to do in America. The scenery is wonderful

Thank you Descending into Denver requires going over the Rocky Mountains

and the turbulence is quite something. Turbulence or not, we're soon approaching Denver's enormous airport and I'm arriving

refreshed, slightly half cut and pretty happy

So, on to what I paid for this ticket. The base fare for this particular flight was $59, which I do think, in American terms, is genuinely a cheap fare

However, with all of the add-ons that I had, including flexibility, a whole bag, my big front seat, and so on

this came to $173, about £130 one way. Now, instinctively, yes, you would think that's expensive, but remember, I do take these flights for research purposes

I found the big front seat to be a complete game changer and if I did have to fly Spirit I would

certainly be looking into purchasing the big front seat again especially if it was on a longer route

another thing I should add is that the crew were very polite approachable fun and professional

I did promise you guys I would fly Spirit and now I have I'm sorry for cheating there

so that is how I found Spirit Airlines in their big front seat on a two-hour flight

between Los Angeles and Denver where the weather is fantastic here in the American West

really glad you can join for this particular video really glad that I could show you Spirit

Airlines as well which is not an airline that features often on YouTube trip reports let me

know what you think of Spirit in the comments below but until next time I'm going to wrap it up here and I'll see you around