Is Spirit the nation's true low-cost airline?

In case you missed this story in today's newspaper, USA TODAY reporter Charisse Jones writes:

Spirit Airlines, the ultra-cheap carrier known for charging passengers to carry a bag on a flight, is fast looking more like the nation's true low-cost airline.

Spirit, which only a few years ago flew largely to destinations along the East Coast, is rapidly adding planes to its fleet and expanding its routes to more cities that are dominated by the country's biggest airlines.

And it's asking for fares, such as $38.79 one-way from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Chicago O'Hare, that at times are about half the price charged by bigger carriers such as American.

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"Whenever we add a new market or a new service, we always try to price that market at lower than the prevailing fares in that market to bring back some people who've been priced out," says Ben Baldanza, Spirit's President and CEO.

"Our vision," Baldanza says, "is to make sure the customer who can't afford to pay current airline prices has an option to still travel."

Spirit may never have the flight network and frequency to make it the go-to airline for frequent business travelers. Nor is its bare-bones way of flying — in which all you get for your ticket price is a flight because everything else costs an extra fee — for everyone.

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