Based on my past experience buying a $15 ticket from ATL to Mia, they keep less than $10 on a $19 ticket.
The atl airport fee is $4.50 and the TSA fee is $5.60. I am sure there are other taxes/fees as well.

"Significantly improved their operational reliability" is actually the crux of the problem: It takes a while before you bounce back from a reputation of having problems (just ask Amtrak how long it takes for ridership to rebound after a Class I has an OTP meltdown) and Spirit has begun grasping that...but for the average traveler, a few horror stories goes a long way towards making saving $10 not seem worth the risk.

Frontier was the victim of a lot of "Hit Stories" when they changed their business model some were deserved, many were not.There was a lot of complaining about "how it used to be", and not much recognition of the fact that "how it used to be" was not financially viable.

I am perfectly happy to do my own research, make my own determinations and take advantage of other's ignorance and prejudice.

Southwest continues to live on the perception that they are the cheapest airline, which is not generally true. However there are other compelling reasons to fly them.

The Legacies continue to be affected by their past sins. I continue to avoid them because of their predatory pricing and current fee structure.

Everyone should make their own decisions.

First of all, I'm going to agree with the latter point.

As to Southwest, as you've indicated the question is rather more complicated (and comes down to which bundle of services you're looking at, when you're booking versus flying, and who actually serves your market and at what frequencies...WN with 3-4x daily flights may win out simply because Frontier has a clunky schedule).

Yeah, at $19, they're basically giving you the ticket for about $10 and hoping to make something from you on ancillary revenue. I think Frontier's cost per seat mile is a little more than 7 cents. While very low by industry standards, it still means that, for my 1200 mile trip, it costs them about $90 to fly every seat on that airplane (whether full or not). It's seems a very long way from $10 to $90 breakeven.

I would think that, perhaps, an ULCC could sell some seats on my route for $59 off-peak -- which would still be an incredible fare to fly 1200 miles -- and break even. I don't see how it makes sense to do any flying where you're going to discount down to $19. That just doesn't seem like a sustainable business model to me. If that's what it takes to fill the plane up, the route is just too marginal, or the competition too intense.

Meanwhile, they're training customers like me to only buy their tickets when they go to basically zero. That can't be good for business, either.

EDIT
Coincidentally, I just ran into an article that said "flash" airline sales are actually declining in number. I don't think they're subscribing to Frontier's marketing emails! :)

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...112-story.html

Can you buy Den deals at the airport? Because I just saw a fare from PHL to SAT for $98 roundtrip with $38 in CICs. Now of course if you buy at the airport your bag is $8 more normally or $13 during value season so unless you can just fit all your clothes in your personal item it becomes less worth it to purchase at the airport.

You cannot buy Discount Den fares or memberships at the airport.

then the shouldn't be allowed to charge the CIC if you can't avoid it

The whole buy-at-the-airport bit is the "TicketMaster model" where they act like you should pay EXTRA to buy over the internet rather than having to go to a physical location like an airport or box office. When both for Frontier and TicketMaster they're just not set up for it anyway, and it would be more expensive to hire employees, etc., if they were. It's cheaper for the companies to sell online, but rather than charging u less they look for an excuse to charge you more.

Both Frontier and Spirit Try to use sneaky mandatory fees (none worse than the CIC or "passenger usage fee") to try to build a base amount not subject to sales and that they hope to shield from fare competition. Legislatively they also want to go back to having all that HIDDEN, so that they could advertise a $0 fare and it could total out to $50 even before "extras" like bags. It would become one giant bait-and-switch, but you've got a long history all over the travel industry of advertising "bait" prices that don't reflect what the consumer actually pays.

Their model is to get you to pay fees for other things like seat assignments, baggage, and food and beverage aboard. I think the fare itself (aside from the aforementioned taxes and government fees) is almost meaningless.

Because of a flight time change and some courtesy vouchers, last weekend my daughter and I flew TPA-DEN-TPA for a grand total of $53 (total, not each). The two checked bags, however, cost $160. I even managed to snag us Stretch seats on the return by checking in very late.

I tend to think that the folks who are unsatisfied with Frontier don't understand what they're buying.

As I've mentioned in another Frontier thread, the "problem" with Frontier isn't the fees, it's the reliability. Everything is (more or less) OK until there are irregular ops and you get stranded. Like I had a more-than-satisfactory $19 flight to MSY and then got stranded there when they "forgot" to buy de-icing fluid for that station.

BTW, I think you're incorrect in thinking that the "fare doesn't matter." NOBODY will stay in business charging $19 for flights. You were very generous giving them $160 for your 2 checked bags. Most people -- especially after they fly Frontier once or twice -- won't do that (note that Spirit has suffered from declining ancillary revenue). The unanswered question is whether, over time, Frontier can keep their costs low enough to under-charge the majors. Given the very effective counter-tool of "basic economy," that's not a bet I would make, but we'll have to see. Investors are also skeptical: in the past year, Spirit's stock price is down 20%, while airlines like American are up 20%. That's signalling that something is not going well with the ultra low cost airline business model in the USA.