Usually, when you book a ticket on a budget airline, you know that you’re sacrificing some creature comforts in order to save money, as well as agreeing to be upcharged for every little thing up to and including using the onboard bathroom, probably. Despite this, few people would anticipate something like a seven-hour wait before even taking off, but that’s apparently exactly what happened to a plane load of passengers earlier this month.


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In a video posted to TikTok, one passenger, Lindsey Mascera, records her fellow passengers stuck in plane purgatory, explaining that they have “200 passengers on this flight right now” and asks another passenger to tell the camera how long they’ve been waiting, to which she answers, “Seven hours.”


Mascera continues, “They told us it was going to be 30 minutes, and we’re all still on this flight, at 10:44, it’s almost 11 p.m., we’ve been here since 4:47, we got delayed and now we’re back and there’s no pilots to be found and there’s no answer.” She closes the video with a warning to potential passengers: “Do not ride Spirit. They ****.”


Commenters rushed to share how they would have handled the situation differently, with one person writing, “I would be yelling, I’ve been kidnapped by Spirit Airlines, HELP!!” Another vowed, “7 hours? Nah. They’d let me off that plane and refund me.”


Mostly, everyone had jokes, with one person suggesting Mascera fly the plane, while another said that being Spirit, “the girl that checks you in also flies the plane and unloads the bags when it lands.”


Spirit is famously one of the worst airlines in the U.S., with the airline being known for unreliability, uncomfortable planes, lack of amenities and hidden fees, amongst other issues. In fact, it’s the second most complained about airline in the U.S. behind Frontier.



In a follow-up video posted by Mascera, a flight attendant can be heard explaining that while they aren’t allowed to deplane, individual passengers can choose to disembark and seek refunds from Spirit. In a comment, Mascera shared that the delay ended up lasting about 12 hours.


A spokesperson for Spirit told Simple Flying that the delay was the result of air traffic control-imposed delays and weather conditions and that customers were offered the option to rebook on the next available Spirit flight or request refunds.


They certainly had enough time to think about it.