MCB

I took my first flight on the current incarnation of Frontier last week, and was very unimpressed by the airline's lack of IT infrastructure and communication with passengers. Here's what happened:

We had a short itinerary (OMA-DEN-SLC) connecting through their hub, and they managed to misplace our baggage and were unable to give any information about it since their baggage operations seem to be stuck at a 1973-era level of technology. And add to that an unpleasantness (resolved in our favor) regarding our seat assignments, while already seated on the plane.

Both of these problems seemed to be rooted in an attempt to proactively deal with a rolling delay, but they managed to screw up the execution of it and the baggage and seat issue were the consequences.

We had a scheduled 43 minute connection at DEN, and our flight left OMA about 28 minutes late. We were told that we had 15 minutes to make the actual connection, which is quite doable since all their flights are in one gate area at DEN, so we would probably make it, "but just in case we protected you on the later flight". Now, in airline parlance, that means they reserved contingent space on the later flight, which would be released if we boarded the second segment. It's a nice customer service touch.

However, when they did that, apparently it (1) caused our luggage to be excepted out from the connecting flight and queued for the later flight at DEN, and (2) our seat assigments on the connecting flight were released and re-assigned to another couple. (I had paid extra for "Stretch", 3E and 3F in this case.)

As it turned out, the connecting flight was itself 20+ minutes late, leaving plenty of time for our connection and for the baggage to be transfered. We boarded normally, and waited for departure. Right before the door closed, a flight attendant came over and addressed us by name and said our seats had been "offloaded". At first I thought she meant that we would have to get off the plane, but no, it was just that someone else now had 3E-3F, and they were Frontier Super Platinum Summit Club members or whatever. (We are not members.)

I explained what I believe occurred, made an argument aloing the lines of "we were here first!" which convinced the FA and she gave the bad news to the Summit Club people, one of whom did not take the news well (but was mollified by an offer of free drinks). I thanked the FA. The seat conflict should have been noticed when either we or they had our boarding passes scanned at the gate. Apparently that scanner is not connected to anything useful.

We arrived in SLC, but our bags did not. That was the point when Frontier's archaic baggage system was revealed. The agent had absolutely no way to know where our bags were. Yes, Frontier has bar codes on the baggage tags. No, Frontier -- unlike every other major U.S. airline -- does not scan bags when they are offloaded, onloaded, excepted, or transferred. All the agent could tell us was that they would "probably" arrive on the later flight. So we went to the hotel and indeed, the bags arrived on the later flight and were delivered about 11 PM.

In all, a minor annoyance. It is not a big deal to have bags miss a connection; it happens pretty regularly and I am used to it after flying for 30+ years. Modern airlines, though, have sophisticated systems to tell you exactly where your bags are and when they will arrive, based on scanning the luggage tag bar codes. Frontier does not do this, and in fact (according to the station agent at SLC, does not even *have* luggage scanners.)

I was hoping that Frontier might be a cost/schedule alternative to some of the flying I do in the West, presently on UAL and SWA, but there incidents make it look like they are not ready for prime time. I had a long and sympathetic conversation with the station agent, and she made reference to a number of management and budget issues that really seem to be holding FFT back.

lougord99

Neither does one of the other airlines you fly, Southwest.

MikeFromMKE

It sounds like everything worked out just fine. Frustrating sure, but Frontier has bigger issues right now than baggage tracking software.

valor155

True. But his commentary wasn't on their priorities . . . it was on how far behind they are in bag tracking.

Mobile app or boarding pass e-mailed to you are probably not their top concerns either, but their competition does have that.

And also a little off topic but being positive, I like that all their Airbuses have DTV. Makes the time on the bird pass faster, and I always know it is there when I board a flight with Frontier.

MCB

I don't know exactly what technology SWA uses for baggage tracking, but last year when I flew OMA-DEN-LAS and my bags did not arrive in LAS with my flight, the baggage agent there was able to consult her computer and tell me exactly where my bag was, why it had missed the connection, and what flight it would be on, and when it would delivered to my hotel.

It looks like Frontier made some sort of investment in baggage tracking (the tags have bar codes) but then did not bother following through. Same with the boarding pass scanners at the gate -- they were scanned and presumably (maybe?) validated against the pax list, but did not alert the gate agent that our seats had been reassigned. (Lucky for us, but not the correct behavior.) Again, I do know other airlines do this: when there was a slight aircraft config change on a recent United flight, when I tried to board the gate scanner popped up an alert (my seat no longer existed on that config) and I was given a new boarding pass.

So either (1) they stopped spending money in the middle of an IT upgrade, or (2) their IT people are simply not clueful. Couple this with some other things I learned from the agent at SLC, including (1) she was told they are laying off all outstation staff, in fact nearly all of the employees other than in DEN, and replacing them with outsourced contractors, and (2) they plan to start charging for carry-on luggage.

davywavy

With all due respect, I am not sure you can count the opinion of someone in her position.

The fact that Frontier is outsourcing ground staff at all outstations is widely known - and 60% of the Frontier outstations were already outsourced when the decision was made about the rest.

The surprise is that it has taken this long. Many airlines can and do outsource at outstations - Southwest has a union agreement that it can do so at any station with fewer than 12 daily departures.

No Frontier outstation has that number of daily departures.

MCB

I'm afraid I don't understand that. What she related to me were facts (later verified when I read through this forum and the trade press), not opinions. She also expressed a negative opinion about losing her job, with which I sympathized, but I did not mention that here.

Clearly Frontier management is within its rights to outsource handling at outstations, and indeed it is not uncommon. But in my experience, it may produce cost savings, but it is extremely unlikely to result in an improvement in customer service.

davywavy

It was fairly obvious that she has a negative view. She seems not to know, or did not mention, or you didn't report that she said it, that Frontier has recently appointed a new CIO - head of IT.

How good he is, and whether he'll fix the problems you perceive, remains to be seen.

FCfree

The core question is why bother bar coding the luggage if they are not going to scan the bar codes now and then? If you have ever shipped a package via Fed Ex, you have come to expect that when something has a bar code on it, the company handling it knows where that thing (in this case luggage) is at all times.

I can see that scan it on and scan it off does take time. Maybe that isn't even necessary. But, wouldn't it be a good idea to scan every bag that is left at the hub, with plans to ship it on the next flight. Frontier would have a hour from the time (in the above case) that the plane left DEN and before it arrived in SLC. Then, when the customer gets to SLC and the bag isn't there, Frontier would know exactly where it is. That way, they don't have to scan every bag, just the "exception" bags. It would make them look like they are on top of things.