Do you have any evidence to support that? While it wouldn't surprise me it is hard to say one way or the other without numbers. It is a nice perk for the elites though, and since they didn't remove any seats it really isn't costing them any money other than the installation costs. It would surprise me to see them raise prices almost across the board if they were getting little uptake because you would assume raising the price would drive more people away.

If you look at seat maps, a few hours prior to scheduled departure, you can get a fairly good picture (no pun intended). :) The aircraft looks lopsided, with the first four rows sparsely filled, while the rear 80% or so is densely occupied. It's not very scientific, but there is a pattern. If customers are upgrading to STRETCH for a fee, they could be doing it at the airport, at the last minute, therefore, not showing up on seat maps a few hours before departure.

I think there is better take on the Airbus, for some reason; maybe it's the 3x3 seating that makes STRETCH more desirable, especially on long haul flights.

If people were not willing to purchase an upgrade to Midwest's 717 signature seats (after the seating change) for $50, what makes Frontier think customers will for extra leg room and the same smaller seat?

I do remember being asked to upgrade (even after I already had) when I attempted to print my BP at one of their kiosks in MKE.

I wonder if they would ever consider making the pricing based on availability? Say at the 24 hour mark, it is full price, then around check-in time at the airport and based on how many people are checked in/STRETCH seats left, start offering it at discounted rates at the kiosks. IE, 5 open STRETCH seats and only 20 people left to check in for the flight, instead of offering it at $25 for those 20 people, put it up for $15.

Another pricing tactic would be to discount for multiple people, IE if there are 2 people in your party upgrade for $40 instead of $50 (assuming $25 is the base rate).

Anyway it seems like they will figure out a way that keeps customers happy while maximizing their profit. Like I said before, STRETCH isn't costing them much to have so any additional revenue they can gain there will hopefully keep their fares low.

Greg Aretakis has mentioned in the past, they would be tinkering with STRETCH pricing. It sure looks like that is what they are doing.

No better time to test things than during a busy holiday travel week.

upgraded to STRETCH on two A320 flights earlier this year. very much worth it for us DEN-CUN-DEN. i think the extra room is very noticeable despite what some say. i'm 6'3" and appreciate the option. i don't appreciate others who move up into vacant STRETCH seats during the flight though.

From what I've heard, Stretch uptake is pretty good in some markets and no so much in some others. What makes it tough to judge compared to the old YX Signature are two key differences:

(a) Stretch cannot be pre-reserved by anybody before check-in unless one purchases the Classic Plus fare, or one is a Summit member...but even Summit members may have to call to be upgraded ahead of time because you can't change seat assignment online until check in. So at 24 hours ahead of departure, Stretch almost always looks largely bare. (On Midwest, people could upgrade from any fare, at or anytime after purchase.)

(b) Frontier's seat maps disappear 2:00 ahead of scheduled departure. A fair number of people will have checked in online by T - 2:01, but quite a few have not. Once T - 2:00 comes, you can't tell what happens. Midwest's seat maps showed right up to departure time, so around 30-40 min ahead of departure...before people were bumped up to Signature for free if they didn't have a seat assignment in Saver...you could get a good idea of how many people upgraded.

A key thing to remember about Stretch...as opposed to Signature or conventional first or business class....is that origin and purpose is a bit different, and as such I think the goal differs, too.

Stretch key purposes include:

--Generating upgrade fees
--Rewarding frequent flyers
--Encouraging purchase of bundled fares

Frontier created Stretch without any reduction in seating, and so the economics are a bit different. If Stretch didn't generate a cent of paid upgrade, it would still improve frequent flyer loyalty and encourage the purchase of bundled fares without much of a downside.

Compare this to conventional business or first class, which means fewer seats onboard. The lost revenue from fewer seats creates an immediate deficit that must be overcome with higher revenue.

Although I'm sure Frontier would be disappointed if the uptake on Stretch was 0%, there's no lost revenue potential to recover. It's kind of like charging for exit row, which some airlines do. It doesn't cost anything to do so (other than administrative costs) so whatever revenue they get is pretty much gravy.

As for the pricing, the new fees seem to be aligned pretty close to what United charges for Economy Plus upgrade, which is a fairly similar product.

As long as you select your seats at the time of booking, Summit members can select any available Stretch seat.

Sorry, I should have been more clear about what I meant.

If you're not able to choose a Stretch seat at booking you must call. I run into this all the time at work, where our corporate online booking tool recognizes that I'm Summit and lets me book exit row, but not Stretch.

When I book on the F9 site (which I can for personal) I can get Stretch.
When I book on the corporate booking tool (which I must for work) I have to call to be upgraded.

Does anyone know on what basis the upgrade fee is now calculated?

Is it similar to FL, where distance is usually the basis for the particular upgrade fee?

Perhaps one of our Frontier/Republic contributors can offer some information.

Just curious, what did they have to remove/reduce to get extra space for 4 rows of seats?

On the Airbus aircraft, they adjusted the pitch on the remaning rows down a bit to get extra room in Stretch. The remaining are 31-32" pitch.

On the E190, to keep under 100 seats they already had a decent amount of pitch, so giving more to the first four rows still leaves decent pitch in the conventional seating.

On the E170 there was less leeway, so they put slim-line seating in the conventional section so the reduced pitch wouldn't be as bad as it would be with regular seats.

So...all three aircraft had pitch reduced in the regular section to give more to Stretch. Not too big a deal on the Airbus, not a big deal at all on the E190, and compensated for on the E170 with slimmer seats.

Flew out on an E190 that up until about 4-8 hours prior to departure showed STRETCH in 1x2 configuration; actual aircraft was 2x2 with five rows of STRETCH.

After boarding was underway, a family started walking up the aisle, against traffic, repeatedly saying "There's no row 11!" They probably did OLCI before the aircraft was swapped, and nobody caught the problem till the passengers boarded and realized they had no seats. All worked out well, as the family got moved to some unoccupied STRETCH seats.

At this time of year, when load factors are high, it was lucky that there were seats available to move them to.

I have the same issue, do you know why this is? Do you just call the summit desk and ask to be switched?

Obviously not a good snafu. I wonder if there was a relatively-late swap of aircraft among the three E190 that overnight at MKE? No matter what they should recognize that aircraft swaps which affect seating configuration mean that some seat already assigned don't exist on the current aircraft. I'm not sure of the mechanism of how that happens, but apparently it didn't work in this case. I'm glad that the family was able to sit close to each other and were moved up to stretch.


[Regarding not being able to pre-select Stretch when booking through a third party
Yes, I just call the Summit desk and have them move me. It understands that my FF level allows me to select exit row, but not Stretch.