Heroic Effort by Spirit Airlines to Rescue Family

Airlines normally take a beating in the court of public opinion for a variety of reasons – ancillary fees, delayed flights, shoddy refund policies, to name a few.

And, the last four months or so, they have taken a financial beating due to the coronavirus pandemic and lowered demand for travel.

So it’s nice to see some positive news, and this piece of news just happens to be heroic.

Spirit Airlines diverted a flight to get a young girl the medical attention she needed. Then, a day later, after she quickly recovered, Spirit sent a plane back to pick up her and her family – a plane that was not a regularly scheduled flight.

Talk about coming to the rescue.

According to the aviation blog One Mile at a Time, Spirit Flight 3216 was scheduled to fly from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Philadelphia on June 30 when the young girl had a medical emergency. So the flight diverted to Providenciales, Turks & Caicos so that she could receive immediate medical treatment, and then continued on to Philadelphia.

Problem – the girl and her parents did not have passports to be in Turks & Caicos and, worse, due to the virus the airport in Providenciales was still closed to commercial flights.

Seemingly stuck on the island, the family was saved again by Spirit. The airline sent an unscheduled, empty plane back to Turks & Caicos the next day to pick up the family and take them home to San Juan.

Good news in the travel world – we love to see it.