Ouch, this airline badly needs Customer Service training.

Spirit Airlines is trying to charge passengers extra fees after canceling a flight, which forced the passengers to be on the plane that landed in the river Thursday.

Rob and Jeff Kolodjay were scheduled to fly on Spirit Airlines to a golf vacation with four other friends on Thursday out of LaGuardia in New York City. Their flight got cancelled, and they were rebooked on to US Airways flight 1549.

While the Kolodjay’s have good things to say about US Airways, they are less pleased about the policies of their original carrier. When they tried to cancel the return tickets on Spirit they could not use because they never made it to Myrtle Beach, the company representative insisted on charging them a cancellation fee.

Source: Fox61,   Consumerist, and soon all media outlets.  I doubt Spirit has even a clue about the magnitude of the PR Nighmare they are getting into…

Update: The story is making the rounds.  Her’s an interesting reaction:

You know, in some cultures the response to this would be to lock the customer service representative in a room with a gun and expect him to do the honorable thing. I’m not saying that this is the right solution – but it’s probably the one that Spirit Airlines might end up wishing that it could pursue…

(Photo Credit: CrunchGear)

Update:  Somebody who thinks woke up @ Spirit, reversing the earlier decision:

Spirit Airlines has given the Kolodjay family a full refund and have issued credits to their credit cards.  They will not be charged anything by Spirit Airlines..  We applaud everyone involved in bringing these passengers to safety wish the family the best.