I had a recent opportunity to not only fly on Frontier Airlines for the very first time (including the precedent airlines, Midwest and Republic), but to sample their nonstop route between Seattle, WA and Cleveland, OH. The creation of nonstop routes used to be a "meh" moment, since every airline was traveling nonstop between popular destinations. But as larger airlines merged and bought each other out and/or filed bankruptcy, we see less and less nonstop flights. I want to share the experience, as well as tell you a bit about Frontier Airlines from an infrequent flyer's perspective.
First, a little background. Seattle's main airline has always been Alaska Airlines, with American Airlines and Southwest Airlines coming up a close second, then Continental and US Airways a distant third. You could easily draw a dollar line between each of these levels: If you wanted a quality flight, you're taking Alaska, Southwest or American. If you just didn't care and wanted a low price, you took Continental or US Airways. Continental wasn't a bad airline either; it was one of the last holdovers that still served decent in-flight meals. But then United Airlines bought Continental, and United has the reputation of being one of the worst airlines there is, starting with the abysmal leg and shoulder room on their planes.
Recently, Delta and to a lesser degree Frontier have been making inroads into Seattle, wanting to be the primary airlines out of SeaTac rather than Alaska. On a recent business trip, I was actually struggling to find an Alaska flight out of Seattle to Cleveland; all of the flights were Delta or Frontier. Delta's problem is too many connects; some flights were over 10 hours long with 2+ stops and extended layovers. One flight even had a full day layover, which I'd NEVER seen before. American had a few flights, but then connected to United. When I asked the travel agent what the deal was, I was told that because Frontier pretty much took over the OH airports, any flights going there are going to be limited unless you selected Frontier.
Here's where it gets worse. Frontier has a policy, for the nonstop, that if you book the first leg with them, the second leg must also be with them. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, except that the plane seems to only fly on Sundays - and the first leg was a redeye in my case. SO for a convention or an event that is M-F, you're stuck there for an additional two days waiting on the plane. I couldn't even find an alternate Frontier flight that was headed to Seattle until Monday or Tuesday! Nice little trap that I didn't anticipate.
Frontier really doesn't have to do a lot to improve, to be honest. I was dreading the worst based on all of the horror stories I read online: Long lines, delayed/cancelled flights (see photo above) and poor customer service. I only experienced the last one: damned be you if you ever need to call Frontier for any reason: you can expect minimum 45 minute hold times every time no matter when you call. Now that's just silly when you think about it: If that many people really need to call you for something, there's a problem in your process, and if it's not a lot of people, you really need more staff. Ironically, the previous CEO of Frontier was on "Undercover Boss" a few months ago, but as seen on that episode, he never staffed the customer service call center to see that experience and fix it.
As long as you use Twitter to reach out to them, you'll be fine. If you hate Twitter or don't feel you should be forced to use it to get customer service, well....
The next issue is that Frontier is the only airline I know of that doesn't support TSA PreCheck. For those that don't know the program, it allows a person to be prescreened so you can get through TSA faster and with shorter lines. You don't have to take off your shoes, they'll actually order you to keep your laptop IN the bag, and no body scanner (yes, SeaTac DOES still have a body scanner and they are not afraid to use it. Cleveland Hopkins does too but I don't think it's used as often.) When asked, Frontier feels it costs too much to support. So they'd rather not pay money to ensure higher security. This alone is a guarantee that I won't be using this airline again, despite the below information, until they fix it. Frankly, I don't know why that's even up to the airline.
Frontier makes a big hub-ub about their pricing model. It's as a-la-carte as you can get on the basic el-cheapo ticket. Want to carry a bag on? That'll cost you. Want to check a bag in? That'll cost you. Want to pick your seat? That'll cost you. Coffee? Water? All cost. Everything costs EXCEPT check in. Or, you can pay about $100-$150 extra for their "Classic Plus" fare, which is refundable and includes what you're likely used to at no charge: you can pick a seat, you get coffee, water, one free check in, one free carry on, etc. Most people don't like this model. I have no problem with it except for charging for water and the delay for the stewards/stewardesses to walk around and check their sheet to see if you're on Classic Plus.
The other thing Frontier touts is their seating methodology. Unlike Southwest where there is no "First Class" and everyone is treated the same, and unlike other airlines that treat rows 1-4 like royalty, Frontier has just the "Economy" seating, which is the sardine-ish seating similar to United, "Select" seating which they say is only beneficial for those that "want to sit closer to the front of the plane", and "Stretch" seating, which has 5-6 inches of extra legroom. TO put things in perspective, Select seating is no different from Economy, except that it's forward of the wing. Stretch does have extra leg room, except that the recline on the seats is ridiculous, negating any potential room you got from the seat when the person ahead of you reclines their seat. This means your only choice, as with other flights that don't charge extra for it, is to sit on a wing aisle seat, where the seat in front cannot recline and it has naturally extra legroom. Of course, that means you're nowhere near the front of the airplane, and will be delayed quite a long time waiting for the slow people to get their bags.
The biggest issue I noticed is that Frontier's flight crew is terrible. I don't mean the stewards/stewardesses or pilots. I mean the supporting staff. Given the Undercover Boss episode, I'd hoped this wouldn't be an issue, but it felt like there wasn't any progress made in this area. There was a delay in takeoff due to what appeared to be an argument between the pilot and the fueling team; the pilot kept running in and out and wasn't pleased at something. We sat there for what must have been 20 minutes over departure time. Not a good first impression. When we finally got cleared for takeoff, a strange smell filled the cabin, and a weird duck noise from the rear of the plane. Also not good given the delay was fuel related. One of the passengers complained that his seat was "Filled with gum" - which meant that the cleaning crew either didn't or couldn't clean the seat timely (they apparently have 7 minutes to clean the plane).
After we got in the air it was a reasonably smooth flight. I was able to catch a nap through part of it.
Landing was also smooth, though again there was a delay as the flight crew had difficulty getting the walkway connected to the door. Delay of about 10 minutes. I've flown MANY times and have never had an airline struggle with this basic function. To Frontier's credit, they landed right on schedule despite the departure delay. If they hadn't had the arrival delay, I would have called them efficient.
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