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The myth is the idea that Spirit’s added fees bring the cost of flying with them close to that of other airlines.
Spirit doesn’t fly to (or from) JFK. NY area airports are LGA and EWR. If you want to go to Lakewood, you can also try PHI and ACY.
FLL-EWR on Spirit as of a few nights ago was $17 (just over half of what you thought).
A bottle of water in-flight costs $3, not $10
A carry on is not the same as a personal item. Most people traveling with a whole family usually check their luggage either way, so the carry on fee is mostly irrelevant. Personal items are free, in addition to your bag of food and any drinks you choose to buy after passing security. But let’s say I pay the $30 (or however much it is; I don’t actually know) for the carry on. Now I’m at $50.
My return flight was the same price, so let’s call it $100 for the round trip.
I checked all three airlines you recommended for the dates and airports of my flights. The cheapest of them was AA for $207 for the one round trip ticket, or more than double what I paid on Spirit including the drink and the carry on.
Delta and JetBlue were both considerably more expensive.
Incidentally, for any flights booked after the end of February 2021 and scheduled in July 2021 or later, JetBlue will be charging for carry on bags.
I noticed this after closing the Delta and AA tabs, so I didn’t check with them. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they follow suit soon enough. It’s the same as charging for checked bags. Everyone screamed when Spirit started with it, but I think Southwest is the last airline that still doesn’t charge (although I may be wrong about that).
In any case, for a family of 10 ticketed passengers, on Spirit you’re paying a total of under $800 round trip including checked bags and drinks, assuming that you don’t pay for carry on bags (fair assumption, since most people don’t).
And these fares are readily available. It’s not like something you hear about that other people always do, but you can’t get.
No other major airline comes even close.