Denver based Frontier Airlines is trying its hand at being an ultra cost airline – hitting people where it hurts… in the wallet.
Firstly Carry on luggage to be charged on basic fare, with Checked luggage to be charged on basic and Economy Fares
The charges look something like this – and are dependant on fare class, frequent flyer membership of Frontier and where you booked your ticket – penalising you if you brought your ticket from places other than FlyFrontier.com:
Data – Frontier Airlines – http://news.flyfrontier.com/press-release/general-news/frontier-enhances-services-customers-using-flyfrontiercom
The only free bag you can take is a personal item, no more than 18” x 14” x 8” and must be stowed under the seat in front of you.
Next up, on-board drinks are to be charged for with tea, coffee and soft drinks charged at $1.99 (payable by card). Ascent and Summit EarlyReturns members as well as ticket holders who hold Classic and Classic Plus fares will have free drinks when they show their boarding pass or EarlyReturns membership card. There is a small upside – with customers getting a full can of soft drink, and those drinking coffee having free refills offered.
And finally mileage earning. Booking at FlyFrontier.com, you’ll get a minimum of 100% of frequent flyer miles flown with Economy, (100%) Classic (125%) and Classic Plus (150%) ticket-holder, regardless of where booked.
From the 1st July 2013, on basic fares (booked on other fare engines) will earn from 25% to 50% of miles on a ticket.
Full details are at http://news.flyfrontier.com/press-release/general-news/frontier-enhances-services-customers-using-flyfrontiercom
So this is Frontier trying the Ultra-Low-Cost Game – and whilst its trying it very well at the “cheap” end of the market (and trying to get passengers to direct them buy from their own sales agent as opposed to going elsewhere), it’s keeping some of the frills for passengers who pay more.
Can it straddle the two markets… or will it fall to the low cost side completely? This is a tough one to call, with Ryanair seemingly to do the the ULCC game well. Spirit seem to play the game within reason.
The Ultra Low Cost Carrier model requires cutting hard at all ends whilst trying to extract the maximum amount of money from the customer – which Frontier seems to be doing at the Basic fares. The question is – how much more cash can they squeeze before the customer says no?
I fly to Florida from Chicago quite a bit. I will be taking Airtran thru Atlanta today but take Spirit a lot. Not bad service, Clean, new A319s with with no reclining seats… But you get there and it is only 2 hours or so. My last trip was on United and the big difference was the direct TV. I did not even use it as it was a 6am flight and i wanted to sleep. Take that away and the experience is pretty much the same. International is another story with my last trip to Ireland on a very tired AA 767- center aisle TVs only. Sad and boring!
Okay, I accept that they’ve decided to nickel and dime customers LIKE a LCC, but the fundamental question is: are their basic airfares “low cost”?
Alas, something I forgot to put in the article was the line “A Low Cost Carrier isn’t designed to be low cost to the consumer, but a lower cost to the owner of the airline”
As to their “Basic” Airfares, I haven’t had a chance to hit the fare engines… and won’t for a bit of time sadly…