Hey, MostlyAir, thanks for updating us. You can see how upset and irritable we get,when left out of the loop.

As for the revised website, there was a recent tweet and reply that hinted on improved functionality:

Reply from @FrontierCare
Does the reply mean that the "refreshed" website will allow reservations to be cancelled or modified, but still not accommodate changing seats?

Hope that you can continue to keep us updated, so that you won't have to put up with readng so many of our snarky posts.

I'm sure that call-center staff isn't compensated that highly, but I'd still think that the ROI on coding the ability to self-change seat assignments would make a pretty compelling business case in terms of reduced call volume.

Your reservation system on the website used to look like it was something hosted by Saabre and framed-in to your site. That appears to have been changed at some point, but does Saabre still power your back-end? Surely they must have some existing seat-change capability being used for their other sites that you could integrate and leverage?

LOL...no spilled coffee.

The information is appreciated, even if it is to talk us down a bit.

That's too bad, but hopefully it's on an "eventual" list if nothing else. Midwest had this functionality for the last few years, and I definietly miss it. I would miss it less if the Frontier site recongnized my Summit status and let me choose Stretch without buying a classic plus fare, but it doesn't.

Very good to know. Were it not for the tweet (which likely only a small number of people noticed and remembered) this would probably have gone unnoticed. A limited rollout like that is not a bad approach, and if you found bugs you have the opportunity to address them with essentially no damage.

The update is appreciated -- how crappy for them to give Frontier short shrift. The media / social media people get put in a bad situation when things out of their control (like this) bite them. But recovery from unexpected issues is sometimes the real hallmark of effective PR.


The E135's and E170's are probably not long for the fleet, and a waste to be painted. But until they do leave, that means some other liveries will be flying around for the time being. I don't as much mind the Midwest paint because it doesn't look generic -- getting the no-name whiite and blue schemes out of rotation will be nice when it eventually happens. Until very recently Delta still had some DC9s in NWA colors, many months after NW went away. Midwest is gone six months and of course it would be nice to see more of the fleet. Here in MKE we see moer than our share of non-Frontier paint, and later this summer the number of flights with animal tails here should be close to 40% as the E135's and E170's are fewer in number.

I wonder if there's any thought of putting temporary Frontier titles on aircraft until they can be painted? Obviously it would look "funny", but it might be better than the generic E145s and E170s if they are not in line for paint soon. Back when NW took over RC, there were aircraft in modified Republic livery with only the tails painted red and Northwest titles for years.

At any rate, the update is appreciated. It's good to know more of what goes in to making all these things happen, and why it's not as easy as one might like it to be.

Good to hear some news from the "inside." Thanks.

I've got to say, the wifi thing is losing Frontier business, at least from me... I've begrudgingly flown about 20k miles on USAir this year as they are non-stop (I'm based in PHX) and have wi-fi. Being able to work on the plane makes all the difference flying cross country. Laying over in Denver is no biggie to me on F9, and well worth it for the comfort and care, but the wifi has got to get there!

Unfortunately any major changes like reservation interaction will not be part of the "refresh". But like most things that would improve customer experience on the website, like this, are on the radar for future enhancements.

Most airline employees are not compensated to the market, so you can imagine how much a call-center agent or programmer would be paid. I would agree that ROI would be pretty significant, but the problem is the availability of resources, programmers, to make the changes.

Yes, Saabre is still the host of our PNR system. However, I wouldn't know the details or why we wouldn't integrate with it.

J

Are we all seeing a new home page?

Or am I just one of the chosen few?

I think it's been rolled out since (at least) this morning....but today was been one of those days when I have had very little time to look at it.

So far I like the layout, but have not much time to play with it. It's good to know that it's primarliy a front-end refresh and not to expect further changes within at this piont.

Eager to play with it more later or tomorrow...

Some items I've noticed to comment on:

--I like how it welcomes me by name if cookies have me already signed in..."Where would you like to fly, <name>? When I'm not signed in, it remembers the last origin city I did a search from. So if I last searched MKE-LGA, when the "Where would you like to fly?" box, if I type Boston it autofills MKE-BOS. For me, personally, it doesn't really do much because I'm checking all sorts of routes all sorts of directions. But to the average consumer who usually is pricing from "home", it is a benefit.

--Back buttons...at least in many circumstances...now seem to retain information. I like that a **lot**. The week-at-a-time search which the F9 site has had for awhile is nice (and better than what YX had) but the legacy F9 site blanks everything out, which makes it a pain to search alternate airports or "a week later" kind of alternate day searches. If you wanted to check the fare difference flying MSN-PHX versus MKE-PHX, or DEN-TPA versus DEN-MCO, you had to start completely over. The back button retaining information is a little thing but cuts down on frustration.

--The new splash screen does not have the ability to search one way -- you must choose other search options. Not a bazillion people price one-way trips, but it would be nice to have a "one way" button on the first page like most sites (including the "old" Frontier site) have.

--I like the "hover over" icons in flight search results that say things like "Stretch Seating / DIRECTv"

--The boxes where you type in the name of the origin and destination airports seems to work well -- it readily accpets names or codes, or brings up a popup of all cities available to choose from. This is similar to what WN has but IMHO it works a little better than theirs, and the responsivness seems better than the legacy F9 site. On the legacy F9 sice I have troubles typing too fast where I'll type MKE and tab over to the next box, but it didn't "think" enough to recognize MKE as Milwaukee before I tabbed to a different field, so it won't search unless I go back and rekey.

--The flight status search has similar boxes if you want to search by city, but it does not accept what you try to key in. It seem like it should but it fights you, so you must select from the popup list. That seems like a coding bug which is stopping something intended to work.

--When you check in, the default is to check in using reservation code (ZVOTTU for example) and to use FF number, credit card, or e-ticket number you have to click over to the legacy check-in screens. It would be nice if you could choose any option. The FF number is a number which never changes, and you can even save it in cookies (as I do) to make check in speedy. And if I don't have it handy and am using a different computer (like using the computer at a hotel to print a boarding pass) I use credit card number. It's always handy in my wallet. The confirmation code is a random six-letter code that changes with every flight.

--I really like the new flight search -- not specifically the search-and-price feature, but the flight search in the schedule section. To be honest I really miss the desktop flight tool and the PDF flight schedule...I suppose it was a matter of cost versus usage. But especially without those tools, checking flight schedules on the legacy F9 site is a little clunky if you're using it look up more than one or two flights. The new one is much slicker for my needs, at least.

--The new site definitely works better in Firefox, but at least in my opinion isn't bad in IE. The WN site is nearly unworkable in IE sometimes.

One additional thing which I *think* is not a change with the new F9 refreshed site, but is an issue anyway. When I have a same-day return, the online site won't let me check in for the return leg. Tried doing it many ways but it just won't do it. The kiosks do -- when you check in for your first flights, it will see that you have another flight within 24 hours and ask if you'd like to check in for that flight as well. Again, I don't think this is new in the fresh, however.

That's what I have for now. The front page will take a bit of time to get used to for somebody like me who goes there tons....simplly because it is change. But so far I'm relatively happy with what I'm seeing, given that it is a "refresh".

FYI I think the legacy one is back up for the time being.

I could not see the "refreshed site" till this morning.

The following message appeared on the homepage:

I have not had any real time to take a tour, yet, so I will hold off on any comments/opinions. I do believe, however, that the company listened to customer feedback in developing the modifications to both the website and company policies and procedures. For this, I give Frontier ^.

The new design is defiantly a step in the right direction. However, I did send a comment about adding more functionality like changing seats.

Still no sightings of the new site for me. Boo-hoo. Hope its worth the wait, at least as eye-candy.

Actually, this seems to work okay in Internet Explorer, but does not work right in Firefox...it won't let me type in the origin and destination boxes in the flight status area -- I must choose from the popup box.

That's only in the flight status area in Firefox, not in the "book a flight" which is fine in IE and Firefox.

I miss the View Itinerary tab. Hopefully, it will be part of the full release.

After a disasterous 3-day trip on United that ended up taking 5-days, I'm back and planning my next trip on Frontier. I logged in this afternoon and the site is still the old one for me. Looking forward to the refresh soon.