PG: What do your passengers complain about?

BB: The passengers who don’t understand our model– complain about the fact that we charge for extra services like bag fees and things like that. We’re working on ways to try to manage that expectation– How do we communicate our value proposition better to consumers?

We don’t want anyone to be surprised when you buy Spirit that you’re going to pay for your bag, that we’re not going to pour you a drink of water on the airplane but you can buy a bottle of water.

People complain when we’re late or when we cancel a flight, and they should complain about those things. And we try to do as best we can for customers in those situations.

PG: And what do you complain about?

BB: I complain that– we’re not as operational, as efficient as we could be. We could be more on-time. We can do better at everything we do. Our fares can be lower. Our service can be better. Our flights can be more on time. Our cost can be lower. And so that’s what we try to drive the airline every day to try to do.

PG: That’s Ben Baldanza as the CEO. What about Ben Baldanza as a passenger?

BB: As a passenger? I generally complain when I don’t get service that I think that I paid for. And that would be true at a restaurant or when I buy a car or a watch or anything, right.

PG: You’ve worked at American, Northwest, Continental, US Airline, and here. What were your complaints about those airlines when you worked there, that led you to come here?

BB: That people tried to bend rules to pay lower fares, right. I was a finance and marketing guy at those airlines. And I spent all my time thinking about how do I get customers who will pay me more to pay me. How do I trap them in little boxes so that they can’t find the loophole and get on my plane for really cheap?

You played all these games in pricing and in the arcane science of– of yield management to try to make sure that if you would pay me $200, I’d better not sell you the ticket for $190.

That’s absolutely insane because what you’re trying to do is say, how do I gouge customers and how do I get more?

What I love about Spirit, and the reason I’ve worked at Spirit longer than I’ve worked at any other airline is–this is the first airline I’ve worked at that’s really fun–because we try to lower customers’ prices. And we challenge ourselves every day to say, “How can we make the price lower? How can we create more choice for consumers?” And that’s fundamentally a real empowering thing.

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