iahphx

I still don't understand Frontier's business model. When you offer an erratic schedule -- when your potential customers can't fly when they want to -- you're going to generate lower unit revenue. A failure to offer at least daily flights seems like a recipe to attract only the most flexible (and lowest paying) customers. Like this winter, Frontier is going to fly from AA's hub in PHL to both MIA and PBI. They only fly these routes in peak times, and abandon them when it's not winter. But, even in winter, they're flying to MIA 5x a week and to PBI 3x. How does 3x service -- THREE FLIGHTS A WEEK -- work for anybody? Wouldn't Frontier be better to just pick one of those airports (probably MIA) and offer daily service?

NationalChamps2015

I think you need to take your situation out of this, and realize Frontier is capitalizing on flying during peak flying times, during peak times of the week. Frontier does everything possible to make a route profitable. 3x a week might not work for you, but it does work for a lot of other people who are vacationing.

bajrbajr

Maybe they don't have enough aircraft available to run all the routes every day.
Maybe its a choice of offering MIA 7x, or PBI 7x, or splitting the aircraft usage between the two cities.

iahphx

It's certainly a VERY unorthodox business strategy. It's Airline Management 101 that you need to offer frequent service (usually at least 3x per day) to attract business travellers who pay more for their tickets and place on a premium on being able to fly when they want/need to.

Obviously, Frontier's leisure-base is more flexible than that. But very, very few leisure travellers have TOTAL flexibility. They have to be back at work. Their kids have to go to school. They have other things going on in their life, even if they're retirees. You definitely are going to lose lots of customers when you fly a major route only 3x a week. And a lot of the passengers who will still fly you even if it's inconvenient will require a very, very low fare to "change their plans" to accommodate an inconvenient schedule (kind of like how late night and very early morning flights sell for less).

guv1976

How does Frontier's profitability compare to that of other U.S. airlines?

RustyC

Re: OP. Even more nonsensical IMO is that they basically have a hub in DEN, but for a major potential feeder market like ATL it's all but useless because there's only one flight a day to DEN and it arrives around 11 p.m.!

So just about any connection will require an overnight in DEN, and probably just an 8-9 hour one, so many people would sleep in the airport. Or just be put off by the whole thing.

I think they could support 2-3 ATL-DENs a day and vice-versa and fill them up easily, especially if they could make the connections convenient. Instead they use the aircraft to fly places like BHM or CHS. If they had VIABLE connections to/from ATL that weren't such a PITA they could be competing mainly with DL on some of them, and easily undercut the fare while still making money.

iahphx

This is so obviously "stupid" that they must think that DL would totally attack them if they tried to build connections. Frankly, that's a risk they should be taking: otherwise, why have a hub?

BTW, their now solo PHL-DEN flight arrives at 11:43 pm. Same silliness. I see the flight from PHL does shift this winter to a late afternoon arrival. The ATL-DEN flight doesn't seem to shift.

And, yet, they don't seem to be going broke, even though they seem to manage their schedule poorly.

rsteinmetz70112

I've heard Frontier had a plan to take over a number of gates in ATL that Southwest was giving up after the Airtran merger. The story was Delta bolcked them and Frontier scaled back their plans fot Atlanta.

liberty805

Frontier's erratic schedule can certainly work. I'll fly the PHL-MIA route several times each winter, but since I work for myself, and online, I can plan my travel around when Frontier has flights. And I've taken advantage of the late night arrival in Denver with the early morning connection and joined the dozens of people trying to get 7-8 hours of sleep in the Denver airport. Not necessarily fun, but when you've got the time and you can save over $100, it's not too bad.

iahphx

I would suggest that you're not a typical pax -- much less a DESIRABLE pax for an airline. I assume you only fly Frontier when it's dirt cheap? I know that's when I fly them. But even I'm limited by their "wacky" schedule. Like their wacky MIA-PHL flight doesn't start back up until mid-November -- so half the year they don't even have flights in that market. BTW, this creates the odd situation where flights to Florida are cheaper in peak-season than off-season because there's more competition!

BrlDsguise

I can't get over that Frontier offers flights between TTN - JAX and PHL - JAX on the same three mornings.

iahphx

I agree that doesn't make a lot of sense, but does flying TTN-JAX make any sense in the first place? I don't get the impression that there's that much demand from the Northeast to Florida once you get north of Orlando. I would think the service from PHL (competing against AA) would sop up whatever demand there is.

That said, Frontier continues its strategy of random less-than-everyday flying. Every time I fly them (which is usually every few months, when I give them some ridiculously small amount of money), I always think "this is not a viable business." Just from the schedule and the clientele, I know their yields are low. Yet, they're still flying, and we have some (old) gov't filings which would suggest they make some money. Considering they have to buy the same planes and the same fuel, I don't know how they do it.

iansltx

Let's say there are 300 pax per week that would fly a route at $200 R/T in each direction. That's once-daily CR7 territory, if you're the only one flying the route people will live with once-daily because the alternative is spending three more hours en route. This isn'y hypothetical...AUS-RDU on Delta is such a route.

Now, Frontier's smallest plane holds 150 passengers. Obviously they can't fill that much plane with pax every day. But if *they* are the only nonstop on a given day, they'll show up in OTAs for a given day (and their pricing will be better enough that people will see them), they have a good shot at getting people to either book them if their travel plans are flexible ("oh, we can spend $80 less if we change our plans by one day"). Or at worst they get one leg of the trip. With unit costs that are miles lower than running a daily RJ, and revenues that after ancillary costs (a carry-on is $35 on a $20 fare, just like on a $150 one) aren't *that* much lower, even if they're only getting 250 passengers each way on a 2x weekly schedule they're viable. As an added bonus, that leaves five days per week where they can put that plane elsewhere, which is handy because by all accounts the airline would like more planes than it has.

And, yes, Frontier used to fly AUS-RDU. They dropped it after Delta moved in because the route is too thin to support two airlines at this point. Why compete on a thin route when you can skim traffic off of AUS-SLC instead?

As for the crappy connecting opportunities, Spirit is about the only ULCC in the entire world that really cares about connecting opportunities at this point. Connections are expensive, and if you can fill your planes with O&D traffic (who are paying $30 for a checked bag for a single segment) then there's no reason to dilute revenue with a butt that has to sit in two seats in order to complete their flight. You don't need loyalty if your planes are full. Heck, you don't *want* too much loyalty because Elite 20K gets you a $35 carry-on per segment for free and people will use that benefit every time.

Yep, building an airline to skim traffic off of Kayak searches from non-loyal leisure travelers looks extremely different than if you're AA/UA/DL/WN. And that's fine...says someone who has more loyalty to nonstops than a given airline, doesn't live in a hub for anyone, and flew Frontier for the first time in over a year last Tuesday.

beyondhere

I think that route makes sense, given the distance. JAX also is a gateway for some of the eastern area like St. Augustine and Daytona Beach area. BHM (which it did from PHL) less an attraction. Suprisingly, PHL-PNS is resuming. Apparently, TTN pulls well from northern/central NJ too, and a lot of NJ residents retire in Florida because of taxes and weather. Probably it shouldn't fly PHL-JAX and TTN-JAX on the same days of the week unless both are 1x daily (or 5-6x weekly) at different times of day. In general, marginal leisure markets at PHL with TTN at same time somewhat conflicts, but it seems Frontier doesn't want to concede the ULCC market at PHL to Spirit.

I don't know if you think highly of Spirit from a business as it knows what it's doing, while critical of Frontier, but I don't feel that ULCC flights to lesser destinations have to be from BWI only. BWI has JAX from Spirit, and it's not challenged. The last time I checked the Philadelphia MSA was larger than the adjacent Baltimore MSA. Not everyone from NoVA is going up to BWI to head back south, so it's rather arbitrarily unfair to say BWI is for all of the larger Washington CSA in all cases. I think Spirit is overconfident with BWI with it's daily BWI-RDU ( an easily drive-able route) that intends on offering. We'll see.

iahphx

Assuming Spirit and Frontier attract virtually no high-yielding biz traffic (I think that's right -- the only real business travel they'd get is from small, poorer entrepreneurs spending their own money), I would think they have to fill their planes with leisure travelers (including friends and family travel). How many routes are there where there are enough leisure travellers to fill a A320? That's the rub from Frontier and Spirit. I always thought that Sprit's business model was based on tricking pax into thinking they were getting a cheapo fare, and then hit them with unexpected extras. They seem to have realized that business model has a limited shelf life, as they've transitioned to being a more responsible -- and reliable -- airline. I still think there are only so many routes where this works. My experience -- a few dozen flights now -- is that most upper middle class and above travellers will NOT fly budget airlines in the USA. And that, my guess, is where the money is in air travel. So not only does Spirit and Frontier have to attract bunches of leisure travellers, they have to attract lower income travellers willing to fly their very basic service. I simply do not believe that, over time, the Spirits and Frontiers of the world can keep their costs low enough to offer cheap enough fares so that their customers will tolerate the sucky service. This is especially true when the majors fight back with Basic Economy fares -- especially those that provide a free carry-on. But we'll have to see. There are many investors on Wall St. who disagree with me.