Originally Posted by
jfinsocal
These moves reek of desperation. I fly Frontier occasionally and have no problems with the carrier but it's nothing special or anything that I'd seek out. Their web site is poor and it's very difficult to use the Early Returns miles except on AirTran (but I live in a city this is thinly served by AirTran).
I stinks for the investors (they've already lost their money since the stock is now "pink sheeted") and it's gonna stink for both the employees and the Denver area economy but this company is on a trajectory to insolvency unless the price of oil reverses quickly. They don't have the oversees routes to subsidize the domestic flight schedule and leisure travel demand is elastic in nature. It is truly a vicious cycle.
Capacity need to be taken out of the domestic air system and losing Frontier will help alleviate this imbalance. Hopefully I'm wrong here but looking at thing objectively, the outlook is bleak for this carrier.
Then what would you call what the rest of the industry is doing? They charge for the above and for curb checking your bags, for checking a second bag, for speaking with an agent, for buying a ticket at a ticket counter, etc, etc, etc.
Don't mention loosing half a billion, that's billion with a B, in one quarter or even more, if that doesn't cause desperation, I don't know what will. The entire industry is about to go up the creek and its going to be a fun one to watch.
I would hope you are wrong, because we will all have a great time flying on the new and unimproved UA once a huge chunk of their competition in Denver just goes away. Of course, WN will fill the void, but it seems most people have a thing about assigned seats and nice FF perks, so that'll just be "good enough" as well.
Don't worry, that nasty overcapacity issue will go away once we have two or three megacarriers to choose from, we'll also be paying a ton more for your flying. But hey, that's the way it has to be so the airlines can simply cover their costs, right? The sad part is, that its the airlines that actually try to care and do what is right that will go under.