Emphasis on 'cranky'.

LOL

I don't disagree with the desirability of having a standard IFE product customers can reliably get, and I hope they move that direction. However when it comes to Cranky's particular position:

(a) This may well not be the final word in what will be offered long term.

(b) Most airlines with IFE, especially on domestic routes, have a very mixed bag between different aircraft types and configurations.

(c) Other than JetBlue's E190's, I'm hard pressed to come up with aircraft in the 75-100 seat range with IFE on any US airline. I might be overlooking somebody, but it's not the norm.

Frontier could have decided to leave the E170/E190 fleet with out any IFE to keep them standard with the E145/E1335 fleet. That's more standard...would that have been better?

Call him cranky, but he is right.

IMO there needs to be some uniformity in the mainline fleet. (319, 190, 170)

Denver is a Hot and High airport. The new Frontier's largest hub is in Denver. I'd rather not have a ticket on a flight only to have the airline tell me the flight is weight restricted and can only carry 85 of the 99 booked passengers, so I have to take a bump along with 14 other ticked off people. If I'm being told correctly there may be weight issues with the 190's on Denver's hottest days without the TV equipment installed.

No, not IMO.

I guess I don't understand the intrinsic good in 'uniformity'. (Just scratching my head a bit here, not trying to stir anything up.)

If you fly a 190 on Frontier you should know what on board amenities you'll get. It shouldn't be a guessing game as to whether or not you have, for example, WiFi. Uniformity lets the consumer know what it is they can expect when they buy their ticket. Otherwise, it's a disservice to the paying customer.

If ONLY UA would do this...

I gotcha, MatthewT.

But you will know what onboard amenities you get when you fly a 190 on Frontier. All E190 and E170 aircraft will have WiFi. All Airbus aircraft will have Live TV. Not that difficult to figure out, and when people check in online they can clearly see what aircraft they are on if they have not already figured it out. (Might not be a bad idea for the new F9/YX to specifically put the IFE on the web check-in display.)

Almost nobody has the same IFE on all aircraft in their route system. Frontier will have IFE on all aircraft over 50 seats, which is something only a few US airlines can boast. This is so bad?

Why not place a small icon, indicating whether a particular flight has IFE or WiFi, in the airline's booking engine? That way, a customer will know what amenities will be accessible during that particular flight.

It would also be a way of promoting the service.

+1

It's great and I realize you won't have to guess. I was just explaining why uniformity is important because I agree with you.

I think the next step is installing Wifi on the Airbus fleet so you can at least have internet on all flights > 50 seats.

Like others I think it would be great if Frontier made it clear what IFE would be on the flights at booking.

Bryan Bedford remarked today at RAA convention that F9 will decide on in-flight wifi for Airbus fleet about 6-9 months following Gogo installation on the E-jets.

Also commented that IFE purchases are "quite sustantial" on 2+ hour flights.

What type of confusion is this going to cause with the IFE on the Airbus aircraft, but wi-fi on the E-Series?

I know when I switched my flying from United to Frontier several years ago it wasn't just for the better service, or the cute little animals, but because of those little televisions too. By having different systems on different aircraft, it seems to muddle the brand premise and even devalue it, because the average consumer isn't going to know what to expect on the aircraft when they fly F9.