Frontier website proposed modifications
 

With the final days of the Midwest website scheduled for the end of October 2010, what changes would you like to see to the Frontier website, including features and options now available on the YX site, but not on F9's?

Addendum to post
I opened this thread, because it's been quiet around here, since the move.

For starters, I suggest retaining the drop-down list on YX's homepage, which allows a customer to see all of the destinations in the route system.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about the YX site since I never flew them. But, if you ever want some ideas that work well on other airline sites to improve the Frontier site, let us know.

I would like the logged in look and feel and the booking look and feel to match up more with the homepage and the rest of the site. There are a few random UI things that just don't fit (like that random progress bar when you login) that I'd like to see improved. More of a fit and finish type of upgrade. It would make sense with the new and improved Frontier to update the entire site's look. It wouldn't have to be a big change by any means but a bolder, cleaner layout would be welcome.

Also I'm not sure what kind of infrastructure on the backend but the site loads too slow. The homepage should not take longer than a second to load, ever. Cluster and load balance!

Finally, bring over the mobile site from Midwest and update the colors.

1. Allow a seat change

2. Allow a date change

3. Save the traveler information (birthday and gender). For some reason I have to reenter this at every booking and can't find a way to add it to my profile.

+1
The YX mobile site works well; it's a great option when the main site is down or runs slowly.

According to a Frontier tweet, regarding availability of a mobile site,

I have not been using the Frontier site yet primarily because my travel and FF membership is still in the YX world. I can't log into the F9 site (yet) to access and change my reservations (like seat selection). That will change soon. But I have messed around on the Frontier site to get used to it and have found a few things I wish were different.

(a) Having to select the travel date from a calendar -- versus allowing it to be typed in or selected from a calendar -- is clumsy.

(b) When you get the results of a booking search, there doesn't seem to be a way to go back (either using the back button of the browser or using a "modify search" type of button) which retains any information. You have to enter everything from scratch again.

For example, shopping Appleton-Florida in March. Price ATW-TPA, but then you want to also price MKE-TPA or maybe ATW-MCO to see if other options are cheaper. You can't "get back" to modify your search. You have to start from scratch. And that includes plodding through several months of calendar to re-select your dates with each new search.

(c) There is not a way to search adjacent airports like EWR/LGA or LAX/LGB/SNA at once.

(d) The airport maps on the Frontier site are a waste of space because they show a sillhouette of the roads and buildings but not where Frontier is. So for example they show Kansas City's three terminal rings, the roadways and main parking structures, but they don't even tell which terminal ring Frontier is in. The most important thing an airport map can show is where to find Frontier...and that's especially true at multi-terminal airports like LAX. What were they thinking putting those worthless maps out there?

(e) The desktop timetable should have the ability to display schedule by a specific date [I]or/I] by a week at a time. That's especially necessary because Frontier has a fair number of non-daily flights, and you want to push people toward those nonstops. The Frontier desktop timetable is the same application which Midwest used for years, and the YX program had the search-by-week option. I would really like that restored in the Frontier desktop ap.

(f) Being able to purchase an upgrade to Stretch ahead of time would be a boon in my opinion. Not sure if that is a technical issue the F9 site can't do at this point, or if they specifically choose not to offer this as a matter of policy.

(g) When you search using "more search options", it does not retain what you've already typed into the home page search boxes. And when you get to the "more search options" there is a dropdown "search by" box. The two options are "Price" and "Flexible Dates". To the best of my knowledge, both choices get you exactly the same results. ????


There are things I do like about the Frontier site, and some of the frustrating things from the Midwest site don't appear to be an issue on Frontier's. But it would be nice to see some of these improvements made. A guy can hope!

+1

What the finished product looks like is anyone's guess. Be careful what you wish for.

+100

I've never understood why F9 won't allow you to change your seats online..

When searching for reward flights, I'd like to see a calendar of what's available instead of simply saying that the selected date is not available. That really irks me.

+1
Very good idea, United has that and works pretty well. With the low availability on Frontier searching online is a pain and I just tend to call their call center.

Amen!

Almost every airline has this functionality - I usually call as well, which is a pain and it's expensive for the airline

Frontier's integration between their front-end site (apparently custom built) and their back-end (powered by Saabre) is buggy. For example, when I go to the main frontierairlines.com site, it showed me logged-in with links to view my reservations (as opposed to showing the login dialog in the upper right). Clicking on the My Reservations link, however, opens up the embedded Saabre frame and gives a "Session expired" message. They should really standardize this so that you're not prompted to re-login on one part of the site, where you are still logged in on another.

As we are about to say farewell to www.midwestairlines.com, I am anxious to see if there are any upcoming changes in the works for the Frontier website.

Right now, much of the info on the Frontier site is still geared toward the "old" Frontier, including company info/history: http://www.frontierairlines.com/fron...our-history.do.

I hope that the best features and info from the Midwest site will be moved over to the Frontier site.

It would be nice to have details on the fleet, including aircraft seatmaps, as Midwest displayed. Currently, there are only links to Airbus and
Airliners.net for fleet info.

It would be nice if Midwest Miles members could actually login!
 

It would be nice if login actually worked.

I've tried 3 times to login today and each time have gotten the error message "The ability to sign in is currently unavailable. Please try again later".

Pretty sorry cutover. While the midwest site was nothing special, I was always able to login.

OK, I see they have a message now that login doesn't work
 

I see they have a message now that login doesn't work. I'm pretty sure that contradicts the message I got earlier ...

I'm thinking of putting in a wish list, but I want to see what the "my account" section has and how it functions first. That way if there's some significant functional loss that can be stressed more than simple nicities.

When searching for award travel, the search now offers a one-week span of available flights, with each date displaying minimum required miles. ^

Should I have mentioned that award travel booking is now functional on the F9 site? :)

Looking forward to searching award travel when my MMs are consolidated into my ER account. Right now only my ER miles are showing.

I spoke with a rep in ER today. He informed me there will a "major software upgrade" in the next few days.

That said, I have spoken with more than one CSR today, and gotten different answers from each of them, stay tuned.

How about mobile booking?
 

Aside from their website, what I'd like to see from Frontier is an iPhone application which allows me to search and book a flight. Southwest has a great app and I've used it several times.

I guess they should do that for Android, too but I hear that is more complicated because there are so many different mobile devises which use their interface and it causes problems.

It's kind of funny -- just about every airline website has people who say it is great and others who say it is among the worst. Today's rollout of the new AA site got me around to finally post my opinions about the Frontier site.

First, a few items I definitely like over the old Midwest site. Then a number of wish list items -- not specifcally becuase they are a step backwards from the legacy Midwest site (though some are) but things which would improve the usefulness of the site.

THINGS I LIKE

Before I dig in to the wish list, there are some things I definitely like about Frontier’s website.

--Automatically showing seven days of availability is fantastic.
--FF award booking also shows +/- 3 days, a frustrating task on the YX site.
--When shopping FF award, click of a button gives cost for those flights if you instead pay.
--More online check-in options (including FF number, or credit card number).
--More friendly flight status than YX, esp if you don’t know the flight number.
--Better contact information – the “contact us” feature on YX was notoriously buggy and it wasn’t always easy to figure out the best way to contact them.


THINGS TO IMPROVE

High Priority Deficiencies

--Have an online method to request missing FF credit. Having to call or mail in copies of boarding passes is circa 1995 functionality, and further aggravates people already unhappy that Frontier did not correctly give them credit in the first place. This is not insignificant.

--[EDIT: This one appears to be coming from a glitch where I am getting signed out during the booking process, NOT a structural or functionality shortcoming of the website.] Allow Summit to pre-reserve Stretch or exit row online at booking. (I am very much hoping this is a temporary glitch because it is a real pain to have to call.)

--Allow anyone (elite or not) to change their seat assignment online.

--Offer the ability to add reservations booked elsewhere to your F9 online profile. Don't penalize people who cannot book on frontierairlines.com, and for those people who for whatever reason chose to book Frontier travel on another site, this ability encourages them to use the Frontier web site to manage their reservation and may lead them to book directly next time. [EDIT: Since reservations booked elsewhere are at least some (perhaps all?) of the time showing up automatically, the importance of this function is less than originally thought.]



Opportunities for Significant Improvement

--When shopping, have a “Modify Search” option which retains the search options but lets you change them. Currently, if you want to try an alternate week or an alternate airport, you have to start from scratch again and again. And because dates can only be selected from a calendar (not typed in) it is very cumbersome if you’re searching for travel months out.

--Clearly communicate onboard food for purchase at booking and again at check in. Don't make the customer figure out a puzzle to know. Not properly communicating and promoting onboard food sales stunts the potential of the entire program.

--Scrap and start over on the airport terminal maps. The absolute key point of having airport terminal maps is visually assist customers in finding Frontier. None of them do that, and many of them are essentially worthless. How can you tell us Frontier is in terminal 6 at the complex LAX, but then give us a map that doesn’t identify the terminals? Or that Frontier is in the “North Terminal” in Detroit but then give us a map with only terminals labeled Smith, McNamera, and Berry?



Niceties to Wish For

--Bring back the desktop timetable Application! Both F9 and YX had it, and Frontier last updated it in September.

--Put dates on the PDF timetable and keep it up to date. A obsolete timetable can be worse than no timetable.

--Add interactive route map

--Add aircraft information, including seat maps, and not just link to external sites.

--Update the “about us” history section with a much more concise story of the airline, including a sentence or two about Midwest and the merger. (Clearly the Frontier history should be the main story as the surviving brand, of course.) The existing history section is quite a self-indulgent read…interesting for airline geeks but not especially a good image. Excessive detail through late 2008 (including items on just about every route addition…including more than three dozen routes that did not last) and no updates since. Check it out if you have a half hour sometime.



Functionality Requiring Policy Changes

These are items I'd like to see, but they may involve a change in Frontier policy, not just tehcnical improvements.

--Pay bag fees ahead of time online

--Ability to upgrade to Classic or Classic Plus after booking for an upgrade fee.

--Ability to purchase Stretch ahead of time.

--Ability to purchase segments or miles to qualify or re-qualify for elite status.

-----

I'm reaonabliy satisfied with the Frontier site, and correcting the four top priority items would be a big step in getting Frontier up to par with the competition.

a few major deficiencies
 

I concur with knope on the serious deficiencies. In particular:

1) Allow people who book through other sites to access their reservations online. As a business traveler, I am required to use the corporate travel agency's site to make airline reservations. On some sites (like United), these reservations show up automatically under my FF account shortly after I book. The old Midwest site allowed me to pull up these reservations and associate them to my FF account. Frontier does not show me these reservations. I've got to believe that there are a lot of business travelers out there who are in the same situation as I am and who are required to use a corporate travel site. Not being able to see your reservations is a major deficiency to me.

2) Once you get #1 working, allow people to change their seat assignment online (prior to online check-in). Again, to me this is basic functionality that any airline website should have.

I always thought the Midwest site was rather weak, but both of these functions were things that I could do on the Midwest site. I was pretty shocked to see that the Frontier site does not support these rather basic features.

Knope, some excellent comments.

To add to them, I would like the "My bookings" feature (I believe it is similar to the "Manage reservations" function on the YX site, where you could add a PNR to your account), to actually work, and not time out or display the message Also on my wish list:

• Mobile site (such as YX had, or better)

Coming soon, we are told. Don't ask how soon. :confused:

Out of curiosity, do any of the elite-status legacy Frontier people know if this is the case for you? I'm hoping that maybe even though my profile says Summit that maybe it doesn't recognize my converted YX profile as elite, and thus blocks my choice of Stretch or exit seat.

Is this true of flights originally booked as Midwest, as well as those booked as Frontier, no matter whether under your ER account number or MM number?

FS-Dad has been a Summit since 2003. When making reservations we are able to select stretch just fine..

Today this ability is working.

Here are the steps I was taking previously (when it didn't work) and today (when it now does):

(a) Go into the Frontier site
(b) Log in as my profile (which says Summit)
(c) Search for and select flights
(d) Continue on to where you enter your personal information, and enter it
(e) Click on "select seats"

Until today the seat map has X'd out everything except the last several rows -- the normal avability for the economy fare bucket.

I had this happen every time in the past several of days playing around (maybe four times total), including yesterday as I was writing the posting and decided to go back in just to confirm that I was remembering it correctly.

Today it works, which I am glad to see.

What might be the issue is that it was dropping my "signed in" status, because several times in playing with the site on award seat shopping, the site has made me sign in again even when I've already been signed in during the same session.

Today, when I just tried this and it allowed me to select any seat, when I got to the passenger info section my name and FF number were in the dropdown box. That's the first time I've seen this, and that tells me the other times it had forgotten who I was by that point. And thus...no seat benefits.

So...I'm glad to see that this doesn't seem to be a matter of missing functionality, but instead one of dropping my logged-in-ness. That's not a matter of site design and functionality, but a nagging problem that could be related to my particular browser, how my PC handles cookies, or similar glitches.

This one appears to be at least somewhat less of an issue than I thought it might be. Yesterday I booked travel on Frontier via a different website (the corporate travel tool we are required to use here at work) and the reservation was immedateily available on frontierairlines.com. The old YX website never did that, and so all reservations booked elsewhere had to be manually added if you wanted them to show on your profile.

I do think this is still functionality to add because the "it-automatically-shows-up-on-your-profile" function likely doesn't work in all situatinos. I can't base that assertion on experience with the Frontier site because I'm still pretty new to it. However I have run into this a number of times when I book travel on Delta -- sometimes the itin makes it over to my Delta profile with no issue, and other times I have to go in and manually add it online.

Ideally you should almost never have to manually add an intinerary manually to your profile no matter where or how it is booked. And if that nearly always works, then the ability to add a reservation manually isn't a big deal. However unless this nearly always works, being able to manually add it yourself is a key function which other websites have.

That being said, I am very happy to see that at least some (maybe all?) of the time a reservation booked elsewhere is automatically available on the Frontier website profile. That's something which never happened automatially on the YX site.

After booking my first two flights, I see a few things that would make booking more convenient:

• Store credit card information in the profile
  • saves time, especially with business cards having different billing addresses
  • can be more secure if one doesn't have to type in the CC number by hand every time and potentially expose it to prying eyes
• Store TSA information
  • saves time typing information
  • saves some from having to look up things like redress numbers
• Store additional e-mail addresses for sending copies of itineraries
  • all of my business bookings have to get copied to others
• Store additional people in my profile
  • Including ER number, TSA info, seating preferences, etc.

I'll add a "me too" to some of the other thoughts, like:

• Change seat assignments
• Change/cancel/rebook itineraries
• Missing flight credit requests
• Remembering entries made in previous screens (read: changing flight search options, etc.)
• Knope's list of Functionality Requiring Policy Changes

-btr

New to Frontier. Today is my first flight on them in a couple of years.

Notes to the IT guys:

1) Ever heard of "trim()"? It takes a string (series of characters) and removes the extra white space from the beginning and end of the token. I wanted to check in yet there was no link to my res on the check-in page. It instructed me to enter my 6-digit (actually, 6-character since alpha characters are not digits) conf code. So I had to go to "My Account" and copy/paste the conf code. Ooops, I had an extra space at the end. The conf code was not recognized.

Really? It's (almost) 2011 and such a remedial web functionality is overlooked. :rolleyes: Sorry. I'm in IT and am embarrassed for them.

2) My itin is listed with flight # 0383. Yet when I enter "0383" on the flight status tab on the home page I get an error. Apparently it can't understand 0383 because I (yes, me... the end user) needs to take off the leading zero. Again, this is a very remedial issue that any high-school kid would be able to address.

Let's see some consistency. If my flight number is 383 then list it on my itinerary as 383 and not 0383... or change the flight status field to see the two formats as the same.

If F9 wants to claim "we're a low fare carrier so we don't offer all the costly frills that a legacy carrier offers"..... SPARE ME! Kick the butts of either your own IT guys or the IT company to which you outsource your web site. If they are charging you for such stuff fire them and get someone else in that position.

For anyone that might say that this is such trivial stuff and not important it should be noted that in the 21st Century a web site is often the very first interaction a customer has with a business. 'nuff said

[rant over]

Their website has a history of this sort of poor JavaScript coding... I remember a while back that the callback for the AJAX handler which populated the city name auto-suggest didn't have a field name specified, so you'd get into situations if you entered the "From" city name, tabbed into the "To" box and entered the name there, that the results from your "To" search would show up in the "From" box. This sort of stuff is just as much a failure of QA as development, this is kindergarten stuff but unfortunately I've worked with many developers like this, it's the job of QA to catch it before it goes to production.

Well whaddya know - it happened! I was searching for a reward flight yesterday and it came up with all these options. Nice job, Frontier. (you've been a bit behind your competitors, but better late than never)

With the redesigned site arriving within the next few months, availability for both rev and award travel will hopefully be visible from a calendar set-up. DL and FL offer practical options for viewing availability, for more than just a few days at a time.

F9 was showing about a one-week span of dates, but now reduced viewing to three-day periods; this is going in the wrong direction.

Not sure what that is about, but I've seen both 5-day and 3-day windows in the past several days. Just did a check and it shows 3-day windows.

The week-at-a-time check was a very nice addition when moving to the F9 site, and hopefully this is not the direction they are planning to go.

I am starting to get the feeling the new site will be a major disappointment.

The web searches are once again showing a week at a time. The very same search which earlier today only showed three days now shows a full week.

I haven't read the thread but I just booked a trip for my family.

1. Allow itineraries to be sent to more than more person at a time. I tried to use a semi colon between them and it wouldn't let me.
2. Send itineraries in multiple formats both email and one that can be loaded automatically into a calendar.
3. If I log into my Frontier account can I link to my kids accounts so that their information automatically fills?
4. Put country of origin last so that if the customer has a city, state, and zip in that clearly looks like the US, USA should pop up immediately. The list of every country in the world looks somewhat silly on a Denver based carrier's website with very limited foreign destinations.

Why does the booking engine allow booking an itinerary like FLL-MCO, with a connection in DEN? :confused: