Spirit Airlines

It's not all about price. Customer service and reputation matters a lot when airfares are comparable and passengers don't soon forget bad experiences.

Spirit is facing substantial competitive pressures over the short term as legacy carriers try to take away its price advantages. A lot of the outcome depends on who blinks first.

Here we have the secret of the Spirit ULCC formula for success: butts in seats. Butts in tight seats, even. You can build an entire industry around the 1%--and airline industry has--but the 99% are still going to want to fly.

Perhaps Baldanza spends a lot of time practicing his candor and approachability, but it's working.

If you were wondering why it looked like Spirit finally spent some money on good creative, here's your answer. They didn't.

Bad ideas aren’t all bad. Sometimes they lead to better solutions.

How do you compete when a low-cost carrier like Spirit is eating your lunch? Eat what your competitor eats. Delta is trying out the Spirit diet for extremely price-sensitive travelers.

That's a lot of yellow on a plane. Our guess is CEO Ben Baldanza bought it all in a close-out sale.

We've always thought that yellow and black should be associated with trusted brands that ooze quality.

Online travel and airline CEOs love it when their companies' advertisements go viral, and they can only pour ice water over their heads, dry off, and admire how the ALS Association has crowd-funded its cause.