KING OF AIRLINE FEES

Spirit Airlines is the frat boy of the airline industry, known for provocative ads and a no-apologies attitude. But its CEO is more like the captain of a marching band.

As a kid, Ben Baldanza practiced his trombone and launched mice into the sky on model rockets. Today, the airline CEO enjoys historical mystery novels and collects board games.

A graduate of Syracuse University with a master's from Princeton University, Baldanza, 49, has spent his entire career working for airlines. But it is at the no-frills, fee-happy Spirit that he has made his mark. The airline carries less than 1 percent of overall U.S. airline traffic, yet it has significant name recognition thanks to playful advertising campaigns and a policy of charging extra for almost everything, including water. Spirit is the only airline to charge for carry-on bags.

The airline, based in Miramar, Fla., offers 150 daily flights to 49 destinations in the U.S., the Caribbean and Central and South America. It has 35 aircraft and plans to expand to 68 by the end of 2015.

Spirit is the ninth-busiest airline serving Tampa International Airport, with 2.23 percent of the market share. It serves Atlantic City, N.J.; Detroit; and Fort Lauderdale from Tampa.

Spirit was losing money until Baldanza took over as CEO in 2006 and transformed it into an "ultra-low-cost carrier." The company's new mission: Charge cheap base fares, pack more people into planes and add fees for everything else. Spirit has been profitable since, earning $190 million in the past four years, a period in which many airlines struggled to stay in business.

It is those very fees that frustrate many customers. Baldanza is unapologetic.

"We believe this is the most consumer-friendly model in the world because we're giving consumers the option to save money if they are willing to behave in a way that saves us money," he says.

Baldanza recently visited The Associated Press in New York. Below are excerpts of the interview, edited for clarity.

Q: Many Americans perceive flying as a painful experience. Why?

A: Because it is in many cases. (Laughter) There's a reality today that is just different than maybe 10 or 20 years ago. It can be annoying and take a long time to get through security. In many people's minds the industry has nickel-and-dimed customers and has added fees for a lot of things that used to be included in the base fare. We've helped lead that to some extent, although we like to think that we're a little different than the other guys, because in every case we've added fees, we've also correspondingly lowered our base fare.

Q: Does Spirit annoy people?

A: I think we do in some cases. But I actually think we annoy people who don't fly us more than we annoy people who fly us.

Q: Did you ever question charging these fees, saying the risk is too high?

A: In 2006, we decided we were going to run Spirit as an airline that competes on the basis of price and price alone. Making that decision made it easier for us to make other decisions about how to run the business that are probably very difficult for other airlines. You start asking yourselves, "Why would I put fewer seats on the airplane than the airplane can hold?"

Q: At what point does the price of oil make it impossible for Spirit to make money?

A: Our business model works at higher fuel prices. Would it work at any fuel price? Well, I can't say that. Because the density of our airplanes is so high, we need to raise our ticket prices less than the rest of the industry. Between New York and Florida, for example, both we and JetBlue fly the A320 airplane. They put 150 seats on the plane, we put 178. If oil prices go up such that it costs $100 more in fuel to fly, JetBlue's got to get that over 150 people, we've got to get it over 178.

Q: Do you see a merger or acquisition in Spirit's future?

A: It's taken a lot of effort to convert Spirit into a winning model. We don't see a lot of other winning models out there. So right now, we believe we have enormous growth potential to natively grow our airline.

Q: What kind of boss are you? Do you consider yourself a micro-manager?

A: When I need to be, but I don't like to be. I like to have people who are smarter than me working for me. If I'm better at finance than my CFO, then I don't really need him.

Q: What keeps you up at night?

A: Big fuel price shocks, another 9/11 kind of event that changes the way people think about travel. It's not that I obsess about those things, but I live with the ongoing recognition that you could wake up one morning and the world is just really different. I worry about what's going to happen that I can't quite predict, and will I be aware enough, active enough and flexible enough to be able to react quickly enough to deal with it.

Q: Spirit doesn't do much advertising but relies on controversial promotions. When former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner admitted to sending photos to women, you launched "The Weiner Sale: With Fares Too HARD to Resist." Bikini-clad pole-dancers recently drove around Los Angeles with a sign saying: "You can take me home for $9." Who comes up with these?

A: It's a joint effort. In general, we come up with most of the ideas we're using in-house.

Q: Are you sitting around with a six pack of beer?

A: No. The media focuses on stories that people are interested in whether or not that's really news. Anthony Weiner dominated the news for a week while the country's going bankrupt. So why shouldn't we talk about Anthony Weiner?

Whether you say this is funny, really annoying or distasteful, if you forward it to 10 of your friends, then we won. We don't intentionally try to incite. We believe there's a line we shouldn't cross.

Q: So have you ever vetoed anything?

A: Oh, absolutely.

Q: What was it?

A: I can't say. Let me talk about Anthony Weiner. The day that scandal broke, there were these pictures, but the congressman was saying: My account was hacked. We talked about how this would be a really fun sale but said: No, we can't do that. This is a sitting congressman. Somebody is trying to subvert him. Once he admitted to the scandal, then we said: "OK, that's fair game." Now, a celebrity is different. When Tiger Woods had his problem, we ran that sale really quickly. I think we ran his sale one mistress in.