A technical glitch caused Spirit Airlines customers to miss their flights on Wednesday after they were sent emails saying their departure times had changed.
Dozens of passengers blasted the airline on social media, with some claiming they received poor customer service when speaking to representatives.
‘Worst customer service ever! They send a link to check flight status after their system causes me to miss my flight. What am I supposed to do with this link now?’ Danielle McGee tweeted.
McGee said she booked a last minute flight from Nashville to New Orleans to meet and surprise her mother and grandmother who both had flown there from Chicago.
A technical glitch caused Spirit Airlines customers to miss their flights on Wednesday after they were sent emails saying their departure times had changed
Dozens of passengers blasted the airline on social media, with some claiming they received poor customer service when speaking to representatives. Danielle McGee said the error caused her to miss her flight from Nashville to New Orleans on Wednesday
‘Worst customer service ever! They send a link to check flight status after their system causes me to miss my flight. What am I supposed to do with this link now?’ McGee tweeted
Other customers had similar complaints regarding the glitch
‘I get in an Uber this morning [Wednesday] and head to the airport, go to retrieve my boarding pass and it says I have changes to my flight. Flight time has changed from 9.10am to 3pm. Cool,’ McGee explains.
‘I have the Uber turn around. I call talk to an agent who confirms the flight has been changed and sends an email confirmation of such. At 9am I get a call from an agent at the gate asking me if I’m still coming because the flight is boarding. WTF?’ McGee continued.
She then said a representative from Spirit explained to her that there had been a system glitch that showed that her flight had been changed.
‘So now I can’t get out until tomorrow [Thursday] and have to turn and be back on Friday. I’m so upset! I was looking forward to surprising my family. Any flights leaving today would be an additional $300 that I just can’t spend right now,’ McGee said.
Other customers had similar complaints.
Shauna Walsh tweeted that her flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas went from a non-stop flight to an indirect one, with a connection in Atlanta.
Another person shared their experience on Twitter, saying: ‘This has been a freaking nightmare. The cs # hung up on me three times, so it took an hour and a half to speak to someone to find out that my flight- which time changed by 18 hours – was not changed’
‘We’ve been here [Atlanta] for over 6.5 hours. Our flight was delayed again and we have another two hours to wait,’ Walsh tweeted.
We went to double check our boarding passes with the gate agent and she said we are not on this flight that we had missed our flight because there was a system upgrade that changed all the times in your system to the Zulu time zone,’ she added.
Zulu time is used in the military and in navigation generally to ensure that all pilots, regardless of location, are using the 24-hour clock, thus avoiding confusion when flying between time zones.
Another person shared their experience on Twitter, saying: ‘This has been a freaking nightmare. The cs # hung up on me three times, so it took an hour and a half to speak to someone to find out that my flight- which time changed by 18 hours – was not changed.’
Some customers said this incident would more than likely affect their decision to make future travel plans with Spirit
On Twitter, Spirit Airlines reached out to those who complained about their flights, asking them to inbox the company for further help. According to Spirit, ‘a system error’ affected check in for some flights
‘Well now I don’t trust the website, since it says it’s been delayed but who even knows if people apparently aren’t getting delayed. Never using this airline again,’ one Twitter user wrote.
One person wrote: ‘After a 55min hold the agent told me to disregard the email and check the status online. In other words, my flight is still the same as I booked even though I received the email.’
On Twitter, Spirit Airlines reached out to those who complained about their flights, asking them to inbox the company for further help.
According to Spirit, ‘a system error’ affected check in for some flights.
‘If you are having trouble, please try again shortly. Also, if you received a communication stating that your flight time has changed or has been canceled, please confirm your FLIGHT STATUS here: http://spirit.com,’ the airline tweeted on Wednesday during the chaos.
It’s unclear what exactly caused the glitch but according to some customers, they were told that a system upgrade may have caused the error.
It is also not known exactly how many customers were affected by the error.