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.