A bittersweet goodbye to Spirit Airlines

🏝️ Reviewing: Survivor 50 so far

🍕 Reminiscing: about Book-it! (which is returning)

📰 Tweaking: this newsletter!

✈️ Reading: stories about Spirit Airlines’ last day

⛽️ Wondering: your favorite gas station

Before we get into things, a shout-out to Aziz Ansari as Kash Patel on Saturday Night Live this weekend. Not all celebrity stunt casting on SNL works, but I though Ansari nailed the voice, buggy eyes and overall demeanor of the FBI director.

Because everything I talk about eventually leads back to Amy Poehler’s award-winning Good Hang podcast, I recommend listening to Aziz Ansari’s episode from last year. Some other favorite episodes of mine (with some obvious recency bias): Jon Hamm, Rachel Dratch, Nick Offerman, Sarah McLachlan, Jonathan Groff, Aubrey Plaza, and Judge Judy. But also, I recommend every single one of them.

Some small spoilers ahead on Survivor 50. If you aren’t watching the show, please quickly go back and watch all 50 seasons before reading the following paragraph. If you don’t have an extra 600+ hours to do so, just know some of my review below may require further context.

There’s only three episodes left in the landmark 50th season of Survivor (they film two seasons a year). As a longtime Survivor fan, I feel mostly “fed,” as the youth say. This season brought back some iconic players I’d been dying to see play again in Christian, Mike White, Dee, Devens, Genevieve, Coach, and Angelina. It also brought back players who I thought couldn’t possibly contribute more to the show, including Ozzy, Cirie, Colby and Aubry. But remarkably, those fourth and fifth(!) time returnees are the best part of the season. There’s something to be said about them knowing this is likely their last time and playing their best games.

But no one is playing a better game than Cirie. Have these other players even watched Cirie in her previous seasons? Did they see her in Big Brother or Traitors? Don’t they know she will crush them if you don’t vote her out the second she appears on the island? Apparently, they did not get the memo, or, like Dee, got the memo but set the memo on fire once Cirie’s charisma took effect. And for that, I am thankful.

I am also thankful for … wait for it … Mr. Beast? His recent inclusion on the last episode worked out perfectly for production, not just in the result, but in the accidental years-long story it told. Following Rick Devens’ coin flip that doubled the pot to 2 million dollars, people began uncovering Devens’ tweets over the years about Mr. Beast. This Tweet from 2022 acted as a prophecy:

And the weird “controversy” over Devens and his son picking up Feastables at Walmart a few years back came around in the best way.

See, kids? If the internet tries to cancel you over something trivial and dumb, you may just get your revenge on national TV a few years later.

And unlike Zac Brown, Mr. Beast’s inclusion in Survivor 50 felt natural, but not invasive. He was happy to be there, but understood it wasn’t his show. There are plenty of reasons to dislike Mr. Beast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, but I couldn’t find a single one in last week’s Survivor episode.

If I had one critique of the “New Era” (seasons 41-49), it’s that they were trying to force fun, with Jeff at the center of it, acting like a parent who had over-prepared for a child’s birthday party. What’s great about 50 is all the fun is coming naturally from the contestants. I have formed something of an internet friendship with Rick Devens over the years. Before he left to film 50, I texted him a good luck message. He responded, amongst other things with, “gonna have fun no matter what.” And boy, did he deliver on that promise.

The sign of a good Survivor season is when you’re near the end and would be happy with a majority of the remaining cast taking home the prize. That’s the case now with nine players left. That said … I do hope Joe, and his over-the-top “honorable play” mantra, is not rewarded at the end.

Pizza Hut announced it’s bringing Book-it! back this summer. A child of the 90s, I read many a book just to earn that personal pan pizza, sitting in a red plastic booth, underneath the stained glass Pizza Hut lights, adjacent to the delicious salad bar croutons. Like a wizened employee getting off of a long shift at work, I enjoyed all four slices of my Book-it! pizza, knowing I had earned every pepperoni.

I hope this program is back for good. I hope even more that reading programs thrive across the country. After all, with so many schools loaning out iPads, and hundreds of library apps available to everyone, books have never been better, cheaper and more accessible (even the new Book-it! has a mobile app).

P.S. Does anyone remember Accelerated Reader? Was that just in the Shawnee Mission Public School system?

Just like our short-form content, I’m always look for small and big ways to improve the experience. In the coming weeks, you’ll see some improvements on the look of the newsletter and hopefully the user experience as well.

Got any suggestions? Send me an email at [email protected].

I must confess that the original headline for this newsletter was far more cynical. I chuckled to myself and typed, “Spirit Airlines can’t hurt you anymore.” Then I started reading more about the aftermath and the people affected.

It’s true that Spirit was the most hated airline in the United States. I counted myself amongst this group of haters, having booked a roundtrip flight from Baltimore to Ft. Lauderdale in 2017. I paid the unexpected fees (carry-on and checked bag), and suffered through the website experience (I accidentally created a membership that Spirit would repeatedly charge me for in the year to come until I committed half a day to tracking down someone in customer service). I crammed my 6’ 4” body into a seat and ultimately gave into the experience. After the fact, I looked up an American Airlines flight conveniently out of DCA and realized it would’ve cost the same in the end with far less headaches (and a free in-flight refreshment).

But Spirit Airlines served a purpose - it was an option for people who needed to get somewhere cheap and fast. In the years after my Spirit headache, I still recommended it to anyone who was traveling light and understood the “vibe” (it’s like a bus, but you’re flying through the air). Also, as I understand it, the website experience got better over the years. Sadly, today, the website looks like this:

Around 17,000 people lost their jobs as a result of Spirit winding down its operations. Out of this devastating result came some bittersweet moments that are worth highlighting, starting with the Spirit pilot who was supposed to be flying his final retirement flight on Saturday. When Spirit ended operations at 3 am on Saturday, he had to catch a flight home with his son, who happened to be a pilot for Southwest. When the crew caught wind of his story, they sent him off properly:

Meanwhile, CNBC reported on several fond farewells from the tower as the final planes came in. And several airlines picked up the slack, offering capped “rescue fares” for former Spirit passengers in need of return flights. American and United Airlines quickly created a job portal for former Spirit employees. After Spirit’s union president sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, asking for help paying former flight attendants, he announced that relief measures were coming.

If I make a video about Spirit’s demise, I will certainly poke fun at the airlines’ shortcomings, but I appreciate its contribution to society, especially the jobs it created and the people with a tighter budget that were able to fly because of Spirit. Also, I just want to thank Spirit for the story that allowed me to make this video with Chris three years ago:

Rising gas prices may have contributed to taking down Spirit, but that hasn’t stopped me from stopping by QuikTrip for a coffee and hotdog on a near weekly basis. I’ve made it no secret that QuikTrip is my favorite gas station. That’s because it’s not just a gas station, it’s an experience. A small market filled with anything you could ever need. Employees are encouraged to build their careers there, with solid salaries and retirement plans as managers designed to make what may have started as a summer job, a sustainable career.

But as a QuikTrip fan, subscribed to the QuikTrip subreddit (obviously), I’ve seen an increasing number of posts from former employees who claim management, and by proxy, the stores themselves, have gone downhill. I’m putting the “local” in Local News International and looking into this over the next few weeks. If you have any connections, thoughts, or tips on QuikTrips stores, send me an email at [email protected].

Also, in my decade in D.C. I came to understand that many people felt this way about Wawa and Sheetz. Even some midwesterners swear on Casey’s, in part due to their excellent carry-out pizza. You can also shoot me an email to make your case for why your gas station is better than QuikTrip. I will do my best to put my bias aside while reading them.