A Spirit Airlines passenger has claimed that they and around 200 others were stuck onboard an aircraft for seven hours without going anywhere. A disgruntled passenger took to TikTok to share their experiences, and in one video was reportedly seen asking fellow passengers how long they had been on the flight so far, with one responding, "seven hours."

An unpleasant experience

At the time of writing, the video in question was no longer available on TikTok. However, in a second TikTok video uploaded by the same passenger, which appears to have been recorded earlier on in the delay, a flight attendant can be heard offering passengers a refund if they wished to get off the aircraft, saying, "I have no arguments with what all of you think and your frustrations. If you do want to come off the aircraft, you can come off the aircraft, and we will issue you a refund."

The videos were both uploaded to social media on August 16th, but it is not clear when and where the incident took place, or if the flight eventually departed or was canceled.

Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

In one of the videos, a passenger went on to say that the problem was caused by a lack of pilots available to operate the flight.

If the events shown in the TikTok video are genuine and the flight was heavily delayed due to a lack of pilots, it would be an unpleasant reminder of how pilot shortages crippled airlines around the world last summer. In contrast to the passenger, Spirit Airlines says the delays were caused by "air traffic control-imposed delays and weather conditions".

Photo: Thiago B Trevisan | Shutterstock

Earlier this month, the Wayman Aviation Academy in South Florida became the latest college to join Spirit Airlines' Spirit Wings Pilot Pathway. The partnership will support pilots as they are trained to the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) new flight training standard, Competency-Based Training and Assessment (CBTA).

A high number of passenger complaints

According to data on passenger complaints from the US Department of Transportation, Spirit Airlines was the second most complained about airline in the country in 2022, with ten complaints per 100,000 passengers. Grievances about the ultra-low-cost carrier ranged from flight delays to cancelations and missed connections.

Photo: Leonard Zhukovsky | Shutterstock

Frontier Airlines topped the list, with 20 complaints per 100,000 passengers, while JetBlue came in third, with nine complaints per 100,000 passengers. In total, US airlines canceled more than 190,000 flights last year, and a further 1.4 million flights were delayed.

What do you think of the Spirit Airlines flight allegedly stuck on the tarmac for seven hours? Have you experienced something similar when traveling? Let us know by commenting below.

Source: Insider, CBS News