Frontier's pulldown of east-west flying
 

I had heard that Frontier was reducing some of its east-west flying this winter, but I have not seen a detailed analysis of the cutbacks. I did just see on wikipedia that Frontier will no longer fly PHL-DEN as of January 15. That surprises me, since they had already pulled down PHL-LAS. Denver is the heart of Frontier's east-west network, and they're now basically abandoning east-west flying from Philly -- even though it's a major station for them.

How much of this type of thing is going on elsewhere in the Frontier system? Are they reducing their focus to just being a north-south vacation airline?

Frontier has never been open about why it eliminates certain routes. My guess is Frontier is trying to become more of a hub and spoke airline to improve operations as stated in the recent earnings call, and elimination of these longhauls may be part of the strategy.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/464...all-transcript

It's part of their long term strategy.

Spirit is leaving Denver after January 9, 2024 so this could get interesting for Denver-based flyers if F9 also deemphasizes DEN flying again. I seem to recall they did this before and then ended up building DEN flying back up. Between the ULCCs, Spirit, Frontier, Southwest, and United there has been a lot of capacity growth in DEN which I imagine hasn't helped fares and profitability.

Seems extremely unlikely they fully de emphasize DEN but a lot of the east west routes don't make sense as it is. I looked at that PHL route and it was all red eyes and one stops in Orlando. Not really ideal options and for a leisure airline to maintain that route made little sense. I don't think they want to back off DEN though because they got a nice share of the gate expansion bump so they don't want to lose total slots.

I don't know if any other East Coast routes from DEN have been eliminated. I looked at DCA, and they're maintaining a robust schedule (which I think is quite valuable to them as they have those perimeter rule-busting slots). Surprised to see the DEN-PHL route disappear in mid-January. If nothing else, that should be a major seasonal ski route that time of year.

DCA-DEN is probably one of frontiers most valuable assets because of the slots and perimeter rule. There's no way they'd cut the 3x daily trips unless they got a kings ransom.

CMH-DEN and DSM-DEN getting axed in early January
TYS-DEN, MEM-DEN, and BWI-DEN all getting cut in mid January
CLE-DEN, XNA-DEN, and CID-DEN getting axed for a month from mid January to mid February
ATL-DEN being downshifted from 2x to 1x daily in mid Jan.
BNA-DEN going from 7x-4x weekly for about a month from mid Jan to mid Feb
HOU-DEN being downshifted from 7x to 4x weekly in mid Jan
LIT-DEN going from 3x to 2x weekly after 1/9

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch more. We'll probably see a few more changes as it looks like Frontier is getting ready to extend their schedule out to 6/24/24.

They sure don't seem to be valuing network connectivity. Honestly, it's a really bad idea to make a Frontier connection because if things go wrong, they could go very wrong for the passenger -- like getting stranded in DEN.

Tbh. I haven't found Denver to be that bad of a connection point. It's been far better than the Atlanta station.

I'm kind of surprised that Frontier doesn't seem to try and bank their flights somewhat out of Denver considering the gates they have access to (in terms of numbers and proximity to one another)

The problem is if something does go wrong. Does Frontier have an effective policy for missed connections? I would think it could get dicey, especially during busy travel times.

Yes, their policy is to put you on the next F9 flight to your destination. You may be waiting hours or days for that flight depending on the destination and availability.

I second avoiding Atlanta until they get their act together. Traveled through there last week and we waited almost an hour for a gate and then a bit longer for an agent to drive the jetway (our flight was three hours late). This seemed to be a common occurrence from watching other aircraft hold short of the gate. Good thing we had a six hour planned connection (reduced to three by the delay). They are working with their ground handler to improve operations at the station but it still needs some work.

Going to Puerto Rico through Atlanta this week.on a fairly short connection. We will see how it goes but we have some backup options via PHL and MCO.

Let's say I'm flying at Christmas time and due to either operational delays or bad weather I miss a connection. Frontier has no available seats for 3 days or more. Do they do nothing else to help? Obviously, hanging around the airport in a city where you had no intention of being for days hoping for a standby seat isn't much of an option.

You can take a refund for the flight and purchase a ticket on another airline (better to have a pre-booked backup flight you can cancel) or wait for the next available seat on a Frontier flight. If you are lucky, they will have another flight on the same day. If not, you could be waiting until the next day or longer for routes they don't serve frequently or if they are sold out.

Darn, not good. Wonder if the planes are being repurposed for other DEN-based routed or moved elsewhere in the network? Guessing mostly the latter.

Frontier has more frequencies to DCA than United. We actually chose F9 to DCA based on *schedule* last month (and cost. But not just cost.)