ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Three days after Spirit Airlines suddenly shut down, a couple from the Lehigh Valley is still days away from flying home.<\/p>\n
They’re among thousands of people across the country who found themselves stranded when the discount carrier ceased operations on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people are trying to get refunds across the country.<\/p>\n
Jay Spiegel of Allentown paid $442 for two round trip tickets.<\/p>\n
But he didn’t get the round trip.<\/p>\n
Now, he and his girlfriend are stuck in Fort Lauderdale, and when people call Spirit, they get a recorded message.<\/p>\n
“Spirit has announced a wind down of the business. All Spirit flights are canceled and guests are advised not to go to the airport,” says the Spirit phone number.<\/p>\n
It was a perfect storm for a shutdown months in the making. Last August, Spirit filed its second bankruptcy in nine months. It’s survival plan assumed fuel prices of $2.24 a gallon, but when that price recently doubled, Spirit’s profit margins plummeted to negative 20 percent, forcing liquidation, and stranding Jay Spiegel and Heather Kimble, who were celebrating their 6-month anniversary in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n
“It seems all the other airlines are okay, so evidently (Spirit) didn’t prepare very well,” said Jay Spiegel of Allentown.<\/p>\n
The couple knew something was wrong when the crew made its in-flight announcements.<\/p>\n
“They didn’t have tea and coffee, and then they said they don’t have running water in the bathroom,” said Heather Kimble of Bath.<\/p>\n
Three days later, out of cash, and out of time, Spirit Airlines folded.<\/p>\n
“When they landed and they got us off the plane. They knew nobody was coming to pick us up. That’s my take,” said Spiegel.<\/p>\n
The Spirit website still provides stranded travelers guidance for refunds and lost baggage. And the hotline reassures that refunds will be made.<\/p>\n
“While we are not able to help rebook your flight on another airline, we will automatically issue refunds for any flights purchased through Sprit with a credit card or debit card to the original form of payment,” according to the Spirit phone number.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Heather and Jay remain stunned and stranded in Florida. They feel like they won’t get their money back.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, if you close your business and no one’s there to receive your email, your phone call, your text, whatever, you’re not going to get anything back. To tell you the truth, I really didn’t expect it,” said Spiegel.<\/p>\n
The couple booked a return flight to get home to Pennsylvania on another carrier but won’t get back to Philadelphia until Thursday. They say the price of their trip doubled.<\/p>\n
Attorney General Dave Sunday encourages stranded travelers to contact their credit card companies, or third-party booking sites, directly for refund options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Three days after Spirit Airlines suddenly shut down, a couple from the Lehigh Valley is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[53474,153,155,154,41556,669,82436,36279,63917,58650,82437,56542],"class_list":["post-184715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bankruptcy","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-business-closure","tag-consumer-protection","tag-flight-cancellation","tag-fuel-prices","tag-refund","tag-spirit-airlines","tag-stranded-travelers","tag-travel-disruption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}