Analysis: Are We Unknowingly Supporting The Villain?

Are We Unknowingly Supporting the Villain?

“A Tale of Two Airlines” by Christopher Elliott brings good versus evil to a whole new level. It depicts Southwest Airlines as a hero, who only cares about the well-being of its customers. On the other hand you have the “villain,” Spirit Airlines. Spirit attempts to deceive its customers by advertising the lowest possible price, however underneath that cover is hidden fees. The purpose of this essay is to analyze “A Tale of Two Airlines” to see if Elliott can pull passengers out of Spirit’s evil grasp and back into the trusty hands of Southwest Airlines.

Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate as well as a consumer service expert, this means that on a daily basis Elliott fights to get the absolute

best for each customer. He also has written many books on airfare and the best way to fly. This immediately establishes ethos in his essay, because Elliott has proven that he knows what it takes for an airline to win over the consumer. When the article was published in National Geographic Traveler in December 2012/ January 2013 Spirit Airlines had recently announced that they were expanding into Texas. Elliott felt compelled to write this essay because he knew that Spirit was moving onto Southwest Airline’s home turf. An issue could arise from this, as in Spirit stealing all of Southwest Airline’s hard earned customers due to their low prices.
Elliott didn’t want the “hero” Southwest Airlines to lose business, so he jumped into action writing an essay with a claim of: Give your business to a company who cares (43).

This is a claim of value, it puts a good company up against a bad company. He supported this claim by showing that Southwest and Spirit Airlines were worlds apart when it came to customer service. Southwest Airlines constantly goes out of its way in order to give the passenger the best experience possible. For example, giving concerts on the airplane, going against their own rules in order to make someone happy, and not punishing customers with fees. Spirit Airlines is the exact opposite. Spirit Airline’s customers say they are “treated like cargo” and the business is ran more like a “trucking business” (42). The saddest part of all is that Spirit Airlines couldn’t even find it in their heart to immediately give a veteran a refund after he found out he was terminally ill and couldn’t fly. It took a rally of veteran groups to convince the CEO to give the man his money back. The only thing Spirit Airlines really has going for them is the low prices. However, you have to jump through hoops to ensure that you are getting a low price and not walking into a trap full of fees. This all boils down to the warrant: Businesses like Southwest Airlines deserve our business over uncaring companies such as Spirit

Airlines.
Each customer has the choice of what airline they want to fly with.

When the consumer chooses price over quality, they get the service they paid for. Spirit Airlines has the same amount of customers as Southwest, even though they have horrible service, therefore Spirit has no reason to improve their customer service. That is because Spirit brings in the big bucks without even trying. Elliott argues that price shouldn’t be the only thing we look into before booking a trip, but also to take into account a “company’s service reputation” (43). There are so many different review sites out their nowadays you can find a review on nearly any place there is. Often times if people were to do their research before just jumping into something they would find out that the deal isn’t worth it. Spirit Airlines is one of those times; after a quick search using yelp you can find dozens of one star ratings and the only positive being the price. On the other hand you have the Southwest Airline reviews. There are dozens upon dozens of four and five star reviews on yelp for Southwest Airlines each exalting the staff and how clean the airplane was. This instills the fact that we have to know a business’s reputation before requesting their

services.
Elliott effectively proved his arguments. No one wants to go to a restaurant and have the worst waitress/waiter ever, no one wants to sleep in a motel where bugs are crawling up the wall, no one wants to be “treated like cargo” no matter how cheap it may be. People want good service, and they want to feel cared about. With the hero, Southwest Airlines, that’s exactly what you are getting.