The lack of carry-on bags is achieving their goal, though. People stowing carry-ons and trying to find room for them slows down boarding. By making the cost of a carry-on higher than checking a bag, most people will check a bag, thus speeding up boarding and allowing for shorter turns at each airport.

Frontier's clientele -- which, on average, seems to consist of a high proportion of infrequent flyers -- probably does check bags more frequently than "frequent flyers" at other airlines check bags. That said, checked bags aren't a lot cheaper. Does Frontier even have a fixed bag fee these days? On my last Frontier trip, it was $40 for a carry-on and $42 for a checked bag. Obviously, the checked bag only makes sense if you're going to carrying all your worldly possessions with you or you're smart enough to consolidate your entire party's belongings into one ginormous bag instead of multiple carry-ons. In any event, it's obvious that Frontier's sky-high carry-on fee greatly discourages people from bringing carry-ons. I agree this is good for everyone else who's just bringing a backpack -- there's always tons of room because there are so few full-sized carry-ons -- but I think it's a screwball way to do business.

I will second jebr's observation that flights to Las Vegas have a fair amount of onboard sales, mainly alcohol, to "get in the mood" for Sin City ahead of time. I have seen this no matter the departing airport; Cleveland, Akron-Canton, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Columbus, all of which I've flown out of on either Frontier or Spirit.

iahphx... I agree the baggage fees are out of sight on F9 and NK; I think you are absolutely right that both would do better with lower baggage fees to encourage higher utilization. If all of their customers were like el cheapo me there is no way they could survive.

I still have people ask me after all of these years of flying both NK and F9 if I feel safe, because they just can't believe that planes can be properly maintained AND fly people for $28 roundtrip.

Coming back to this after I've flown F9 now.

In all honesty, other than the livery on the outside of the planes, some of the brands offered on-board, and Spirit's Big Front Seat, there is really nothing differentiating the experience/cabins on F9, NK, and G4. They are all perfectly reasonable for the cost & risks and really you'd only pick one over the other depending on the routes they fly/where you want to go.

Also as a side note, at least the night I flew F9 out of Denver, they only policed your free carry-on if it had wheels to make sure you paid for it, otherwise despite the ads around the terminal warning you about your backpack size they never made anyone thrown their non-wheeled bag into the sizers. There was a family traveling that argued over not paying to bring their stroller and over carry-on on board but seeing them later board I'm assuming they eventually paid up lol.

I do not believe it is as safe to fly Frontier as it is to fly, say, American. In an emergency, would you trust Frontier flight attendants to do the "right" things? For all their faults, I know the major airline flight attendants are better trained and more professional. I also suspect that the major airline pilots get better training and have more experience.

That said, flying Frontier is perfectly safe. Air travel is crazy safe these days. You don't need to have the BEST crews. So the difference isn't material. So even if it is not as safe flying Frontier as it is flying American, I will still fly Frontier if it is significantly cheaper. Just like I'll rent a Nissan Sentra if it's half the price of an Altima. The Altima is safer. The Sentra is safe.

I've written about this before. It is generally not a good idea to bring a baby wheeled suitcase on Frontier or Spirit. There's something about wheels that makes them want to throw them into the sizer. On both Frontier and Spirit, I've had to abandon suitcases (old cheapo kids wheelies) at the gate because they didn't "fit" the sizer. On Spirit, it was a couple of years ago. At the time, they had an oddball carry-on suitcase size, and they had published their new sizes (the ones they use today) that were going to become effective in about 2 weeks. My carry-on was 100% complaint with the new rules, but missed the old rules by about an inch. The gate agent didn't care. On Frontier, my suitcase was complaint, but one of the wheels stuck out by less than half an inch. She also didn't care. Just bring a backpack. Nobody cares.

The one airline I'd be wary of right now is Allegiant because of that 60 minutes story summarized in this article:

https://www.tampabay.com/live-covera...allegiant-air/

Here's a brief segment from 60 minutes overtime:


I'm not sure i agree with AA being safer considering how bad the morale is over there currently. F9 was having some issues with slowdowns before but I have to say that the flight attendants at f9 seem to in a better mood than than ones ive flown with in the past on legacy airlines.

I would not be particularly worried about "morale" at AA or any other major USA airline. USA airline crews tend, by nature, to be a bit grumpy and burnt out. But they generally have good training and would know what to do in an emergency. Frontier crews are trained, but it isn't hard to figure out that it's harder to become an AA flight attendant than it is to become a Frontier flight attendant. That's just reality. If there was an inflight emergency, I would much rather it be on an AA flight than a Frontier flight. Just like I'd rather have an experienced surgeon from a prestigious hospital operate on me than a newbie from Podunk General.. I don't think it matters much, but I'm not blind to the reality.

You do know Allegiant, unlike other airlines, has retired their fleet of MD80s? They are currently moving up the list of top airlines (see: Wall Street Journal annual analysis), whereas American's operations are solidly in last place. But hey, YMMV.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedJust a reality check: AA is currently the number 2 airline in the USA for operational reliability (cancelled flights and on-time). DL is number one. AA's 2019 ops just look bad due to an illegal work slowdown by their mechanics last spring/summer. After a judge ordered them back to work last summer -- and indicated that they might owe AA tens of millions of dollars in damages -- AA has been quite reliable to fly on.

I can't say that I keep up with the changes in the industry. That 60 minutes piece is going to be stuck in my head so they would need to do a lot of publicity to make me change my mind. Fortunately they aren't a realistic option for me bc Rockford is far from me and ORD is only 20 mins from me

A lot of those issues stemmed from their MD-80 fleet (but not all). I'm a private pilot myself and did not fly Allegiant after a different incident I read about in LAS. This incident, had the failure occurred perhaps 30 seconds later, likely would have resulted in all on board perishing. It's a very similar situation to Alaska 261. It seems that Allegiant had a very bad stretch over a year or so where constant issues were arising. I haven't flown them since, but I wouldn't hesitate to anymore as the FAA looked into their maintenance practices heavily. Don't let the "new" airbus fleet fool you though as about 12% of their fleet is around 20 years old still despite being all Airbus A319/A320.

I don't think F9, NK, or G4 are unsafe, or that one is safer than the other. Maybe perceptually they are though.

I ended up watching the "Air Disasters" or similar show on that Alaska flight. That had to been one of the worst ways to crash that I've seen on those programs.

As bad as it was, it was rather amazing how long the pilots maintained control of the aircraft. A fully deflected stuck control surface on an aircraft is probably one of those most difficult challenges a flight crew could ever face. I read the movie Flight was influenced by this accident, and you can definitely tell from the accident scene in it.

Nonetheless, that Allegiant incident did not get nearly the amount of press that I think it should have as I believe that was truly the closest they've come to an accident.

Same. I've been in the left seat of 50+ year-old trainers on and off since 1995 and spent nearly as much time training with Civil Air Patrol, and Allegiant absolutely terrifies me. Unfortunately, they're the only carrier with direct flights between SFB and TRI, so I fly them more often than I'd like. At least the newer A320s don't literally have visible duct tape like like old MD-80s did. That's at least somewhat more comforting.

I believe Spirit is better for network connectivity.

If I choose a route like PHL-MSY, I see that Frontier offers less than daily service in March.
For example,
3/14 0 nonstop flights
3/15 1 nonstop flight
3/16 0 nonstop flights
3/17 1 nonstop flight

On the days, it has a nonstop, it's the only option available.

Spirit is less than daily but every day there are at least 2 1-stops.

For example,
3/16 1 nonstop flight available that day, but there are 2 1-stop flight (connect in FLL) available as a fallback in case flight is cancelled or you miss your flight.

There was once a time when I couldn't clear security on time and missed a DFW-PHL nonstop. The Spirit agent put me on a DFW-ATL-PHL ticket that left a little later at no charge.

I've noticed with Frontier, it's all or nothing, or some really out of the way connect in DEN option, but Spirit has connections typically available as well at PHL.