Frontier Airlines, Stuck In A Money-Losing Slump, Is Dumping Change Fees And Making Other Moves

Frontier Airlines, which has struggled more than other U.S. carriers to recover from the pandemic, says it is eliminating change fees on some tickets and creating four fare classes to boost its appeal to more travelers.

The Denver-based airline said the changes taking effect Friday would make buying a ticket less complicated.

Frontier, like rivals Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air, advertises low fares but tacks on more fees than the larger carriers. Consumers pick from a menu of extras that increase the final price they pay — often by a significant amount.

The budget carriers have struggled, however, as big airlines created their own no-frills tickets to lure away the most cost-conscious travelers.

Frontier is switching to four fare classes, which it calls basic, economy, premium and business. Those in “basic” will still have to pay extra for things like bringing a carry-on bag, selecting a particular seat and changing or canceling a reservation.

But change fees will be eliminated for passengers in the other three groups, who will also be able to buy extras such as seat selection and bringing a carry-on bag in bundles instead of singly.

Frontier also said it is bringing back phone support for customers within 24 hours of their flight.

CEO Barry Biffle called the announcement “the beginning of a new era for Frontier.”

Frontier has not earned a full-year profit since 2019, and it has lost about $400 million since then and failed in an attempt to merge with Spirit.

AP

KnowDelay.Com Predicts Flight Problems 3 Days In Advance

Contributed by Rob Lovitt

KnowDelay.com

Now out of beta, KnowDelay.com crunches weather, airline and airport data to predict weather-related flight delays up to three days in advance.

Everybody talks about the weather, but Geoff Murray is trying to do something about it – or at least what it does to frequent fliers.

Just out of beta, his brainchild, KnowDelay.com, promises to alert travelers of weather-related flight delays up to three days before takeoff.

“Weather delays are the most stubborn and intractable delays because oftentimes it can take travelers a day or more to get out,” said Murray. “But if you can say three days in advance, don’t connect over airport XYZ, change your flight and connect over airport ABC, you may be able to avoid the problem.”

The seed for the project was planted a decade ago when Murray worked as a commercial pilot flying day-trips out of Chicago O’Hare. On multiple occasions, he found himself stuck at his destination overnight due to bad weather back home.

“I was a senior pilot and I didn’t want to fly on days when there were going to be delays,” he told NBC News. “I came up with a very rudimentary system of looking at the newspaper three days ahead of time and saying, ‘Should I trade out of my trip on Sunday for one on Monday because Sunday looks like there’s going to be rain showers, thunderstorms, whatever.”

Fast-forward to today and that rudimentary system has evolved to factor in major advances in meteorology, years of on-time performance data and a better understanding of how individual airports handle bad weather.

According to Murray, bad weather accounts for almost half of the 20 percent of flights that experience delays in the U.S., with truly bad weather causing delays of an hour or more about 6 percent of the time.

“Most airports operate just fine most of the time,” he said.

When those other times threaten, KnowDelay users can view a map with colored dots — red, yellow and green — and a slider that lets them see forecasted delays over the next 72 hours. Red means there’s 60-percent chance of a 60-minute weather delay; yellow equals a 40-percent chance of a 30-minute delay, and green means a 6-percent chance of delay.

During two years of beta testing, says Murray, the site has accurately predicted 90 percent of weather-related delays. It now covers 37 U.S. airports, including major hubs and other destinations that are typically affected by bad weather.

The site is clearly best suited for business travelers, elite mileage-plan members and others who can afford to change flights on short notice or do so without a fee. To facilitate such changes, the site lets users track specific itineraries over time and suggests alternative routes when red circles start to blossom.

Leisure travelers, on the other hand, may see red for another reason: Changing flights on short notice is almost always a pricey proposition, especially as major airlines, including United, Delta and American have recently increased their change fees for domestic flights to $200, on top of any fare changes.

Even so, advance information is always a good thing when things might go bad and KnowDelay is clearly part of a larger trend in which the travel industry is taking advantage of technology to anticipate travelers’ needs.

Airlines, for example, have developed increasingly sophisticated systems that automatically reaccommodate travelers when flights get canceled and online travel agencies are making suggestions based on people’s location, booking history and even the type of device they use.

“Predictive technology, in the sense of let me deliver something to you that I’ve figured out that you want or need at that moment, is where the whole industry is going,” said Norm Rose, president of Travel Technology Consulting Inc.

According to Rose, it’s all part of Big Data and the move toward “smart services.”

“You’ll be on your mobile device and you’ll get a message that says, ‘Hey, we know you’re in this meeting; we know that the traffic to the airport is bad, and we know that you’re flight is on time,” he told NBC News. “You’re not going to make it so here are three alternatives to rebook your flight.”