Despite Pak 'n Save being a discount format, this store does have a proper customer service counter, right next to the bakery. I guess that's not too surprising since it wasn't until decades later that grocery stores really started aggressively cutting staff to cut costs. Behind the counter, there seems to be a whole shelf of shampoos and such -- not something I'm used to seeing locked up! And on checkout 1, it's weird seeing a modern LED bulb sticking out the top of one of these old-fashioned register lights.
It's a little weird to be writing about an all-but-defunct discount grocery chain right as one of the big names in American discount companies is abruptly shutting down. Goodbye Spirit Airlines, you will be missed. I never did fly them -- their premium product was certainly my sort of thing (decent seats without added extras that I have limited interest in), but they never had enough of a presence in my area for them to be a reasonable option for me. Before their first bankruptcy, when they still flew to the northwest at all, I had looked in to their flights, but to fly them to anywhere I actually wanted to go involved long, inconvenient connections and simply wasn't cheap enough to be worth it. But it is sad to lose what was probably the cheapest way to travel between many parts of the country, with Spirit flights often being cheaper than driving or even Greyhound if you were OK going without any of the add-ons. In the end, I suspect their extremely poor brand perception is the main reason they ended up failing, something we've seen in the retail world as well, potentially including Pak 'n Save itself (I've briefly mentioned before just how many negative comments about Pak 'n Save I've found, while I can find pretty much nobody mentioning a positive opinion of the brand).
It seems to me that discount supermarkets and discount airlines are going in opposite directions! The Aldis around here seem to be about as busy as Houston Aldis have ever been (granted, that's not saying much, they generally have about the same traffic as a Walgreens or CVS) and HEB is committing to expanding their Joe V's deep discount supermarket format even though regular HEB stores are pretty much discount stores themselves! I'm sure WinCo and company are doing pretty well out in your part of the country.
ReplyDeleteOf course, people have to buy groceries, but travel is a luxury for most and it seems a lot of people have cut back on that with the high cost of tickets, hotels, rental cars, event tickets, and so forth. The people who have money and want to travel domestically will just take United or Delta if they can, or maybe Southwest if they are more convenient. Plus, United, Delta, and American have their profitable credit card and loyalty points programs.
So, with that, I suppose it isn't surprising Spirit went under and some of the other lower cost airlines are like JetBlue are struggling. Although ultra low-cost carriers are all the rage in Europe, they've never really caught on here, perhaps for the above reason that those who vacation here almost have to have a lot of money by default to pay for hotels and so forth. Europe isn't so much like that. I've never personally been on an ultra low-cost carrier, and I've only been on a couple of regular low-cost carriers. One of those, Southwest, was nearly 40 years ago at this point! The other, WestJet, isn't even American and I'm not sure if WestJet was really considered a low-cost carrier in 2018 when I flew them. Air Canada didn't seem any fancier at least.
One reason why ultra low-cost carriers never really carried much interest to me is that they seem to have favored flights to places like Las Vegas and Florida. I've been to both, but I really have little interest in returning anytime soon to either (no offense, AFB, I just don't like going to places as hot or hotter than Houston!) and so they just don't have much relevance to me. That said, Spirit had a major operation at IAH Terminal A, so it'll be a big loss for IAH. Southwest left IAH a year or two ago (for a second time), WestJet and Air Canada moved to international terminals from their long-time homes at Terminal A, and so Terminal A might look pretty bare now with most of the flights there being from American and Delta, two airlines with relatively minor presences at IAH. Maybe United will be interested in some of those left over gates, though that'll add little variety to IAH!