USA Today - 09.08.2019

USA TODAY z FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2019 z SECTION D

Back to Beverly Hills

Review: “90210” revival weirdly fun. 3D

Touring Paris without Notre Dame

Famed jewel out, but there’s plenty to see. 3D

Listen up, music lovers

USA TODAY’s playlist and song of the week.6D

IN LIFE

SHANE HARVEY/FOX

LIFELINE

Show Interactions (000)

Presidential Debate (7/30) ....7,177

Presidential Debate (7/31) ....6,493

The Bachelorette (7/30) .........2,161

WWE Monday Night RAW .......2,147

Descendants 3 ...........................1,526

NIELSEN SOCIAL CONTENT RATINGS:
JULY 29-AUG. 4
Original social media posts and engagement
related to series and specials.

TV social ratings

USA TODAY SNAPSHOTS ©

NEW YORK – Michelle Williams is just as obsessed with “Fleabag” as

you are. z“ ‘Fleabaaag! Fleabaaaaag!’ I think we’re all living for ‘Flea-

bag’ at the moment,” says the actress, who’s a fan of the Emmy-nomi-

nated Amazon comedy. “I haven’t even finished the second season,

but I just don’t even want to. I look forward to accosting (creator/star

Phoebe Waller-Bridge) at the Emmys.”

A four-time Oscar nominee, Wil-

liams, 38,earned her first Emmy nods

for executive producing and starring in

FX miniseries “Fosse/Verdon,” in

which she plays Broadway legend

Gwen Verdon, the often-overlooked

wife and muse of choreographer Bob

Fosse. The former “Dawson’s Creek”

star says she celebrated the honor

modestly with Matilda, 13,her daugh-

ter with the late Heath Ledger.

“I was somewhere I couldn’t check

my phone when the news came out,

but then I had a lot of messages,” Wil-

liams says. “My kid hugged me and

said she’s proud of me, and nothing

really touches that.”

Motherhood is at the center of Wil-

liams’ new film “After the Wedding” (in

theaters Friday in New York and Los

Angeles, expanding to 200 theaters

nationwide throughout August). She

plays Isabel, a reticent manager of an

orphanage in India who’s summoned

to New York by a wealthy benefactor

named Theresa (Julianne Moore). But

PEOPLE

Motherhood “reinvented” Michelle Williams.FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES

Williams says

‘nobody cared’

about pay gap

Patrick Ryan USA TODAY

Michelle Williams, left, and Julianne Moore go toe-to-toe in family drama

“After the Wedding.” JULIO MACAT/COURTESY SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

See WILLIAMS, Page 5D

Tell someone you’re flying Spirit

Airlinesand you’ll likely be greeted

with sympathy or disdain.

The budget airline with the distinct

yellow planes, cheap fares, flurry of

fees and historically spotty service has

long been seen as something to endure

or avoid.

Spirit draws daily hate on social

media, five years after it famously

launched a “Hug the Haters’’ cam-

paign to address its then “different ap-

proach’’ to air travel.

“Spirit Airlines I gave you a chance.

You are dead to me,” passenger Jerome

Bartlettsaid on Twitterlast week after

his red-eye flight from Las Vegas to

Houston was delayed more than 12

hours.“I’d rather go through a root ca-

nal than endure what I went through

here tonight again.”

So imagine the comments when I

told friends I was taking seven Spirit

flights in five days. One called it a

“torture tour.” Another called it

“enough Spirit flights for a lifetime.’’

I called it a test of Spirit’s nascent

turnaround and, spoiler alert, the air-

line passed, with surprisingly good

grades. The flights were on time, the

much-maligned seats perfectly fine,

flight attendants friendly, and I only

spent $3 on board, for a Diet Coke on

one flight.

Spirit has dramatically improved its

operations and customer service in the

past few years under new manage-

ment, with employee training, sched-

ule fixes, a focus on metrics and more.

All in a bid to improve its image and

spur repeat business. Its new mantra:

“The best value in the sky.”

The early results are encouraging:

zSpirit has the third-best on-time

performance (80.7%) in the industry

year to date through May, behind only

Hawaiian and Delta, according to fig-

ures from the federal Bureau of Trans-

portation Statistics. That’s on top of a

fourth-place finish for all of 2018, in-

cluding a No. 1 ranking in October 2018

that turned heads and prompted Spirit

to trumpet the ranking. In 2015 and

2016, Spirit had the worst on-time per-

formance in the industry, and in 2017 it

was near the bottom.

zSpirit’s cancellation rate is 1.5%

year to date, up slightly from a year ago

(the airline stretched the operation too

thin after a banner 2018 and expects

lingering effects throughout the rest of

the year), but down significantly from

the same period in 2017 when it was

3.2%.

zSpirit had the fewest mishandled

bags in the industry last year through

November,according to the Air Travel

Consumer Report.

zComplaint levels are still among

the highest in the industry but are a

fraction of previous levels.

“The company made a decision to

focus more on the operation and the

guest,’’ said Greg Christopher,who left

Southwest Airlines in early 2016 to join

Spirit as vice president of its opera-

TRAVEL

I took 7 Spirit

flights in 5

days. Here’s

what I found

Dawn Gilbertson

USA TODAY

See SPIRIT, Page 4D

Travel reporter Dawn Gilbertson in

one of Spirit Airlines’ Big Front Seats.

DAWN GILBERTSON/USA TODAY

The singer’s plans to be “On the
Road Again” have been halted
due to health reasons. He shared with
Twitter followers Wednesday that the
issue stemmed from “a breathing
problem that I need to have my doc-
tor check out.” Nelson had to cancel
his six remaining August shows, rep
Elaine Schock told USA TODAY in a
statement. “He will be back on the
road in September,” she added.
Schock confirms Nelson, 86, will still
be a part of September’s Farm Aid.

SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

HOW WAS YOUR DAY?
WILLIE NELSON

Hundreds of fans of The Beatles
gathered at a crosswalk in London’s
St. John’s Wood neighborhood Thurs-
day to recreate the “Abbey Road”
cover shot, half a century after it was
shot. Spectators snapped photos on
cellphones as Beatles lookalikes
crossed the street outside Abbey
Road Studios in tribute to the original
image. At 11:35 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1969,
Iain MacMillan photographed John,
Paul, George and Ringo striding
across the black-and-white “zebra”
crossing while a police officer
stopped traffic. Used as the cover of
the band’s penultimate studio album,
it became one of the most famous
images in music history.

LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES

MAKING WAVES
BEATLES FANS

Sam Elliottis 75. Hoda Kotbis 55.
Anna Kendrickis 34.

IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY
WHO’S CELEBRATING TODAY