New Frontier website
 

New website rolling out 04/01/2011...hope it's not an April Fool's joke.:)

Sweet. Wonder what goodies they have in store for us.

Think the Wifi might be ready by then too?

You guys better hope it beats the WN roll out. :td:

That is part of why I am over here lurking. If you have some time, head over to the Rapid Rewards forum and read about the wonderful new web site.

Not to get off the F9 topic, but the performance of the WN site is stunningly frustrating IMHO and I second the motion that Frontier (hopefully) will not have a similar fiasco.

For an airline that essentially forces you to only use the website or call center, the website needs to be a Cadillac, not a Vega. The current Frontier site definitely has some significant functionality shortcomings (high among them is working with resevations you've already made), but at least it is generally quite useable for shopping and purchasing.

No new website?
 

Weren't we supposed to see a new website today? So far, it's the same old one.

I think Frontier pulled the April fools joke on us...

Either wishful thinking on someone's part or just taking longer than anticipated.

Will this be like the originally announced roll-out of Wi-Fi, which was supposed to have occurred by end of 2010, and is now scheduled for sometime this quarter?

When the new site is good to go, will there be a notice that there may be some temporary loss of functionality during the switchover?

Wondering the same thing myself.

I do cut them slack with the website because (unless I'm mistaken) they didn't make a public statement that 4/1 was the new website rollout date. They may have simply missed an internal date which someone communicated to the outside world. And other than people like us who follow things as closely as we do, nobody notices or especially cares. And it's much better to fix issues before rollout than put your customer through a disasterous rollout.

There are other things, like the wifi, that I don't think they deserve any slack on. Doesn't matter what your business is nor what the new circumstances are...when you make a clear representation in public, you've either got to hit the date or publicly modify the expectation. It's not just the wi-fi either, but that's a big one because it was communicated multiple times and places.

Certainly we're probably among the most critical because we watch so closely. How many people noticed Bedford's comment awhile back that in March there would be a whole new Frontier rolled out to Milwaukee? And how many remember that now? Probably not too many. Well, March has passed and there's nothing new yet. But for those of us who noticed and remember, it's a black mark against them.

They need to do a better job about not making public statements (especially with dates) if they're not committed to hitting them. And when they do make something public, they must do a better job at resetting those expectations when they know something's going to miss.

I don't think the website falls into this realm because they didn't promise it. But we're months past on the wifi and there's not a peep about it.

Maybe I'll ask on Twitter -- they are usually good about cutting through BS.

The April 1 date was tweeted by @FrontierCare
Knope, saw your tweet..you really gave them hell! ;)

Ahh...I didn't know where it came from. Then I hope it's close...


Uh oh...I didn't think it was that bad, but now I'm thinking I was too crabby. I shouldn't tweet from work where everything is crabby as of late.

I didn't look to see if there was a reply yet.

Could this recent issue be one of the reasons Wi-Fi inauguration is running late? Though not Boeing aircraft, could this be a Gogo problem?

http://bit.ly/ia4JuF

The last I heard was that the system was going through government testing for approval.

Knope, I don't see any reply, yet. But, I do see that they will have a presence at Miller Park on Tuesday...giveaways, perhaps?

Update, per tweet from @FrontierCare:

They really seem to be having problems meeting project schedules.

I agree with knope; they really should post updates, if they are clearly not close to meeting announced dates for upcoming changes that have been promoted. It would provide some sort of credibility.

Yikes. I write software for a living and I can see missing a few weeks here and there if things came up but mid-year could mean July/August. A 3 month delay means something major went wrong (really bad estimates, changing vendors midway through, maybe really cool new features?). I realize it is a complicated site and all but managing reservations should not be a big deal.

I really do like what I've seen in terms of the social media people at F9, and hopefully this particular event leads them to (a) be careful about being unnecessarily specific (b) be wary about information they get, and (c) keep their followers update on things which are not happening as once thought. I *do* think they generally do a great job and am very glad they are there. I view this as some honing of skills to be even better.

As for the website delay...well...a delay is much better than putting a train wreck website out there. But there are some notable deficiencies that should be cleaned up sooner rather than later. I'll live with having to call to change a seat assignment for now if the alternative is a new website which is a step backwards. If they had not publicized a rollout date, the delay wouldn't look as bad, but it is good to know that improvements are on the way. Maybe a happy medium would be to tweet that "a new website with increased functionality is in the works...stay tuned for more" or something similar?

I hope the people responsible for the new F9 website are paying attention to the customer wrath being unleashed at Southwest. Some of it is in conjunction with Rapid Rewards II unhappiness, but the site is being trashed heavily, too.

Ok. Just have to step in a little bit here to bring down some expectations with the new site and ruin some rumors. :D

First of all, with the new site, and with the amount of time that is given to work on it there won't be many changes to major functionality, like introducing the ability to modify your seat assignment. That would take a lot of time and resources which an airline like Frontier doesn't have. Also, we wouldn't call it a "new" site, its considered to be more of a "refresh" to the homepage and a couple of other things. Most of the changes were on the homepage which will look totally different.

Second, the "refresh" went live on the date it was supposed to...on plan. But was only broadcast to a certain percentage of visitors, so there are people out there that have used the new homepage and seen the new look. Right now it's down now and we're looking at the information we collected. We're just doing some live testing. We don't want to release a new look to 100% of the population right away. That's how you get slaughtered. We're trying to do this the right way.

As for the wifi, I don't think there are any issues with installing the wifi or the wifi in the general. I think it has more to do with other people cutting in line. I'll do my best for you guys to see what kind of announcement or things that I would be able to say in relation to that. We definitely need to improve on the bad news communication front to help with expectation.

Also, I think I saw something about painting planes in this thread. I believe a couple of things relate to this, limited fleet, limited money and not knowing if the plane is going to be sold soon, these situations make it hard to paint planes or know if they should paint them. I would love it if they all got painted before summer. Especially with some of those spares floating around. I also would love to see a E35 get painted. The E90s were moving pretty fast through at one point where we had about 5 painted in a month?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40168621@N07/5503558262/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/planes/5526964390/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rrichard38/5455761163/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/twinflight/5526328633/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/twinflight/5551145069/

That's most of what I have to say, hope I didn't spill anyone's coffee.

J

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.

New website feature for checking "today's prices," brings up calendar with fares posted on dates. The functionality is similar to what some other carriers offer. This is a nice addition to the F9 site.

https://www.frontierairlines.com/Calendar.aspx?

The feature provides a very quick look at fares for months out, all displayed in a full-month's calendar view.

P.S. This link is only going to work for the connections that are allowed to see the new website.

- J

I got to see the new site once, but never again. Anyway to direct link or allow those from FT access to the new site?

I can see the new website from my office computer but not from my home computer.

FYI, I was on with Customer Relations for an unrelated issue and asked when the new web design would be fully rolled out. She said it was scheduled to be done by the end of May but that it didn't look like they were going to make the deadline. So, sometime in June was her guess.

I am presently in the Los Angeles area. I am seeing the old site.

In Milwaukee, I can see the new site.

I cannot view the new website today, though I've been able to see it for weeks; only the old homepage opens today.

I hate that I have to click "More Flight Options" to search for a One-way Flight.

I also guess that it was too much to ask to get a smaller, easier to load Mobile Site for things like flight checking?

Actually...you can leave the return date blank and it will search for a one way flight. Might be nice if they had a little message by the return date box that said something like "leave blank for one way". But if you're someone like me who prices one-ways a lot, once you know this trick this is nicer than the old site where you had to click a "one way" button.

Hey thanks that's good to know! A lot of sites if you do this will give you some error message along the lines of "you need to select a return date"

New mobile site coming soon, according to @FrontierCare: