bigbuy

The problem is that IF Frontier was not in that market, the fare on AA/US would probably be much higher. I have noticed that fares out of ATL on routes that Frontier services, AA/US is priced to compete, and Delta is not, although they are lower than they would have been. For this reason alone, I fly Frontier and Spirit as much as possible to do my part to try to help keep them in the market. Cause we all know where those cheap fares on AA/US are headed if Spirit and Frontier abandon a route.

iahphx

No question that fares are generally MUCH more expensive on routes that Spirit and Frontier do not fly.

But it's a "problem of the commons." Perhaps you feel good about suffering on Spirit and Frontier (and flying both airlines definitely increases one's personal suffering), but it won't make any difference. Most people will choose not to suffer, and these Frontier/Spirit routes will be eliminated. I recommend flying the better airlines cheap while you can.

cheaptimesharetraveler

All of the airlines fly into ATL cheaply, so no need to book Frontier. Frontier is okay if you don't take a carry-on that needs an overhead bin, and if you don't mind paying for your checked bag. I know one person who had a bag slightly heavier than the allowed weight, which meant paying a premium for the bag.

Check the First Class availability via Kayak and see the deals on First Class to ATL. Of course we fly out of DEN, so maybe that is the difference. I have seen First Class seats for as low as $459 RT on Delta flying Sat-Sat. I will take that any time over flying on Frontier at $200 RT with bag fees, etc.

bigbuy

Well at 5'8", I really don't suffer too much, and always travel with bag under the seat as I will be doing tomorrow on Frontier. I think their new seats are just fine for short flights and since my home is ATL, anytime I can fly an airline other than Delta nonstop, I feel good about it. really really good

rtalk25

Spirit has done well including increases to several of it's stations, defying failure. It started on BWI-ORD with it announced seasonal. It did well that Spirit continued it through the winter, and even added a second frequency. That doesn't seem to be in path to be eliminated even though AA and WN offer a superior product.

Frontier might have operational issues e.g. limited fleet, and it might have made mistakes with poor route planning, more than it being an issue of product being disliked. It's almost the same product as Spirit.

Spirit has run into resistance in smaller markets like MCI, where it has cut routes. The market is likely not large enough for their model that needs a large low end demand, like some of the markets like ATL, PHL and ORD that originate in larger metropolitan areas. It's not different than Frontier that faced some struggles in MDT. Demand was soft even though Frontier had MDT-MCO while no better carrier operated it nonstop. I remember it was easy getting award tickets on MDT-MCO and low fares during March, when TTN-MCO and PHL-MCO weren't when there was overlap period of these routes. Thus, I wasn't surprised for F9 to shift away from it.

iahphx

I just remain amazed that you can have a successful business model that relies on tricking leisure travelers who don't know better, while also scaring off higher-paying biz travelers. It seems like a certain recipe for failure -- especially when the established airlines match your fares.

But Spirit suggests the model can work. At least for awhile, and at least in certain markets.

rtalk25

I don't know if it's totally about tricking leisure customers. Maybe some are but I think a lot know the system. Spirit can be great for people that decide to book last minute. It's totally not relevant for higher-paying biz travelers. It's like a Price Rite to a Whole Foods. Different customers being pulled into each store.

Say, a group of two is in DC. These pax hear about some event in Chicago, and decides the same week they want to fly from Chicago to DC. Spirit is selling a $63 fare on BWI-ORD this Thursday. Southwest and United is selling it for $217. In the summer, these numbers are even more spread apart.

Spirit in this case offers a low fare while the others aren't offering a low fare. It's not always being matched. I believe this works best from large markets as there is more crowd. Frontier tried MDT-MDW and it was a disaster. The flight also left Harrisburg early in the morning, making it difficult for Philly or Baltimore pax to even drive up to Harrisburg on the same day for the low fare out of MDT.

Spirit does offer connections too. From what I can see, pax on the PHL-ORD or ATL flight for example can connect onto LAX. I think this can help some onboard load factors, especially when PHL to LAX fares are high, and maybe the 1-stops on the preferred airlines are also high.

I do agree it's somewhat risky for Spirit and Frontier, but Spirit has stuck on PHL-DFW now for quite a bit and while I was a skeptic to it's choice of choosing DFW-PHL instead of DFW-ACY, it proved me wrong, and it's doing fine even when competing directly against US and US fare matching. Even as US merged with AA and AA had the brand power in Dallas, Spirit stayed on.

Jerseyguy

I don't know if you've ever booked a flight on Frontier bit they are very good about letting you know about fees, you have to say no to things like carry-ons checked bags and seats. When you say no a screen pops up telling you what saying no means and that fees could be higher at the airport. That being said people these days either don't pay attention or only see what they want to see. In addition to repairing and maintaining computers part time, I also work at a big box retailer as a Cashier to make ends meet. The things I've seen people do is amazing. One that is relevant in this case is that one of the self checkout lanes wasn't accepting cash because there was an issue. Even with 2 decent size signs AND a prompt that you had to say yes to, I still have several people dumbfounded, "I'm putting cash in but it's not taking it".

rsteinmetz70112

While there are some rough edges to Frontiers policies and their web site, they generally do a pretty good job of informing passengers. I even get emails explaining the fees. I check their twitter account and there seem to be fewer of these kind of "hidden fee" complaints and as noted above some of them are wrong and totally irrational. One guy a while ago refused to understand the difference between a free "personal item" and and q "carry on bag". Some people apparently believe that seat selection fees were mandatory or that they will be charged for water in flight.

iahphx

There's obviously a fine line between upselling and "trickery." When it comes to the seat selection fee, I think they cross it.

Otherwise, it's pretty obvious that the underlying strategy behind Frontier/Spirit is to entice folks with a low come-on fare, and then add on lots of ancillary fees. This isn't exactly a new marketing gimmick -- it's used in many retail situations.

I do think there's a market for "bad" cheap service, but only if the better airlines are willing to concede this market to Spirit/Frontier. If they're going to "harass" Spirit/Frontier with fare matching, I don't see how Spirit/Frontier can gain a toehold. Their product really does suck, and it's only worth flying if you can save real money. I don't see how the "math" works if you scare off all the customers who actually will pay more than the unit cost for the service.

rsteinmetz70112

Maybe I'm smater than the average passenger but I never understood the seat selection fee to be anything other than what it is and I've always paid it (even when traveling alone which is most of the time).

Having flown Frontier about 15 times in the last several months, I don't have any issues with their in flight product. I'm aware of the complaints about the seats but I'm not that concearned. Southwest's Evolve seats aren't much different.

rtalk25

I believe the aggressive fare matching is being spearheaded by AA, led really by pmUS.

When Spirit decided to go into DFW and make it a focus, the original AA was in bankruptcy and things were easier. WN also wasn't flying mid-long haul out of DAL.

Back in 2013, Spirit was flying ORD-FLL/MCO routes, but WN was not fare matching Spirit from MDW. WN's fares on MDW-FLL were rather high. Neither was UA or AA fare matching from ORD, and things were easier.

Also, Spirit chose alternate airports like LBE as it's Pittsburgh point of presence, where it kept a low profile. Pax also liked the easy walk to the gate and lower cost in parking. LBE's is actually free. ACY isn't free but it's still an easy to use airport. NK focused and makes MYR a destination, which none of the legacies or WN care about. It's FLL hub and international routes are also traffic that most of the legacies (including AA at MIA) probably ignored or weren't directly challenged to it.

Spirit operated (and still operates) DTW-LGA 2x daily, but at that time Spirit was the carrier one could go for affordable fares, while AA and DL were the carriers that were targeting corporate travelers. Regular people that weren't flying on business and had to pay their own money, would endure the Spirit product, over connecting in Chicago.

Things have changed certainly. The new AA has become aggressive against Spirit even on that route. I was seeing that AA is selling one-ways for $126 which was actually much cheaper than what the old AA would sell fares around. Spirit might have to alter it's strategy and drop a frequency in favor of an additional destination in order to maximize benefit of it's LGA slots, as some leisure passengers might be fine paying under $150 to fly AA.

Regarding seat selection, I think F9 and NK have it worse when competing against AA, because AA allows pax to select seats like they do, and unlike Southwest. And AA fares show up on 3rd party sites unlike Southwest so there isn't any more visibility to F9/NK's fares than AA's.

UA is participating in fare matching, on certain routes like ORD-MCO but my opinion is it's more a response, as it must when AA is fare matching.

DL's fares are almost always higher but it lowers it's fares when overall fares are lower.

DL still seems to be still ignoring NK on routes like DTW-MCO, a DL vs. NK only market for the nonstop. Southwest has seasonal Saturday service for the nonstop but I don't consider that as counting when it's only once a week. F9 will be competing against DL and NK this winter with a daily nonstop.

I have no idea if F9 and NK will succeed when competing against an aggressive AA, atleast in PHL. They have the fallback of using alternate airports. The same might not be true in ATL ORD, etc. but atleast those stations are mid-continent oriented that F9 and NK should coordinate connections through them, when fare matching is intense.

iahphx

Yeah, this is a very interesting dynamic. Doug Parker (and his right-hand man, Scott Kirby) have proven to be extremely successful competing against low fare carriers. They seem to have a carefully crafted strategy to drive them from their hubs -- or at least "persuade" them from expanding.

My guess is the strategy will work, because the only reason to fly Spirit/Frontier is if you really want to fly somewhere, but the cost is prohibitive on the "regular" airlines. If the savings aren't substantial, no one of sound mind would fly Spirit/Frontier.

I think Spirit/Frontier already operate at a huge disadvantage because they get almost none of the high paying business fares that "subsidize" the operation of the legacy carriers. So Spirit/Frontier already operate at a huge unit revenue disadvantage. Sure, they can operate at lower cost, but everyone has to buy airplanes and fuel. If the legacies prevent Spirit/Frontier from selling anything more than $49 fares, I don't see how they can cover their costs.

rsteinmetz70112

People keep saying that Frontier's Fares are unsustainable, but right now they are making money. That could change when they begin receiving and paying for the new planes they have on order but the increase in the fleet will also bring economies of scale. The people in charge must know that's coming and figured it out, this ain't their first rodeo.

rtalk25

I was looking at Frontier's winter schedule, and noticed that really the experimental flying makes a small percentage of Frontier's overall network.

The largest part of Frontier's network is DEN flying. I think AA is not very strong or in position to fare match a lot of routes between the Midwest and the West, like it can everything east of ORD using ORD, PHL or DCA-Florida. The other major % of Frontier's network is LAS and MCO flying. Many of those routes don't directly compete against AA.

To me, some route question marks are PHL-MIA and IAD-MCO. I noticed that IAD-ATL is being cut on March 16 which might indicate even further weakness on the IAD side. Southwest is operating IAD-ATL this winter season. This will leave F9 with one IAD flight, although it has three DCA-DEN flights with connections to the West.

Both JetBlue and AA have been pretty fare aggressive on DCA-MCO (and other DCA-Florida routes), that I don't know if F9's single IAD-MCO which is left has a chance.

Also, since IAD is a more expensive to operate and less liked airport between DCA and IAD, so F9 is even more disadvantaged. The IAD demographic doesn't really fit in with the F9 demographic, unless some pax are just choosing IAD flights over DCA ones for parking convenience at IAD if they live very close to IAD.

At PHL, the PHL-MIA flight might not do as well with AA and B6 (and WN) all competing for the PHL-So. Florida market this winter. During the winter, this is going to be driven more by PHL point of sale, rather than Miami-Dade Co. point of sale where operating from MIA was supposed to target. MIA has higher costs than FLL. I could see that route going "seasonal" (euphemistically for suspended) with an iffy chance of returning. Unlike Orlando which does well as a year-round market, South Florida demand tends to be more seasonal.

AA has been aggressive on ORD-ATL and PHL-ATL which might be why those ATL routes were suspended from F9. AA doesn't honor a 24-hour cancellation at no charge policy (unlike UA and other carriers) if one decides to cancel for a flight that is booked within 7 days. Southwest tends to fare very high for flights that are booked within 10 days - which provides opportunity for the ULCCs, but AA's faring practices make it more difficult. It's fare visibility (through third party sites) and allowing pax to select their seats also makes it attractive for those that might have gone with F9 or NK but not WN.

I wouldn't be surprised if PHL/TTN, CLE, CVG, IAD, etc are smaller spoke regions going forward. Even ATL and MIA. F9's decision to base a crew in MCO lends to me believe there will be more MCO flights, probably to existing F9 cities that have DEN service. It's LAS build up might also follow a similar pattern. F9 might still do well in ORD especially on ORD-West routes where AA doesn't dominate. AA has it's roles for connections and higher yielding O&D for longer routes, that it might not be able to fare match too much. The ORD originating market is still pretty big that there might be a lot of customers willing to put with a low end product. I can't say for certain because NK is there too, and fares on the better carriers have come down since on several of those routes.