HOUSTON – Flights in and out of Houston airports are expected to get a whole lot lower thanks to major airlines adding new options for travelers; but the new flights may look a little different than what you're used to. It could mean sticker shock once you get to the airport to set off on your vacation.
There are new airlines with international flights popping up at Hobby and Bush Intercontinental Airports almost weekly. They're bringing more competition and lower prices to Houston. Right now, the number 2 carrier out of IAH behind United also ranks high in customer complaints.
Spirit Airlines has received so many complaints, it started its own marketing campaign offering fliers 8,000 miles for complaints submitted at hate-thousand-miles-dot-com.
"For the two-thirds of the people who buy their tickets on Spirit.com, they're not surprised and they're not complaining," said Spirit's Paul Berry.
He says the people complaining are those who purchased Spirit tickets on third-party sites, like Expedia and Priceline where the warnings and notices regarding the extra fees are not as prominent.
After you pay for your flight, Spirit will charge you $10 if you check in at the airport instead of online. They charge you $35 for a carry-on bag. If you carry that bag to the gate without paying in advance, Spirit charges you $55; and that's each way. Water is another $3.
"We call that frill control," Berry said. "When you fly on any airline, you're charged for everything in an all-inclusive ticket. What we've decided to do is say we don't want to force you to pay for things you don't want or need."
We checked out three round-trip flights from Houston to Denver, Vegas and Chicago. To make an apples to apples comparsion, we added a carry-on bag each way and paid to pick our seat on the Spirit flights. On average, Spirit's airfare was 24% lower than the other airlines. On one Houston to Denver flight, Spirit was 40% cheaper than Delta and 48% lower than Southwest. Berry said that's what consumers want.
"It's not leg room. It's not on-board wifi. It's not anything else," he explained. "They like those things. But the number one thing a consumer looks for when they're buying their ticket, is to have the absolute lowest price."
By the end of May, Spirit will have added 10 new destinations at IAH just this year. Seven of the new flights are international to cities like Cancun, Costa Rica and Mexico City. Experts say all of the extra flights will drive down prices among competing airlines like it has in other cities.