Frontier Airlines made a major announcement on Tuesday that the low-cost carrier would be adding first-class style seating in 2025, along with a host of other benefits for frequent flyer members. However, it doesn't sound like the customer experience is going to be improved for the average budget traveler.
Speaking with Reuters about the upcoming premium changes, Frontier CEO Barry Biffle criticized a recent U.S. Senate report that said Frontier and Spirit paid gate agents incentives of $10 for catching passengers who attempted to avoid paying for carry-on baggage. The report found that both airlines paid $26 million to employees between 2022 and 2023 to catch customers allegedly not following bag policies. Often, those passengers would be forced to pay a bag fee or miss their flight.
"These are shoplifters. These are people that are stealing," Biffle said. "It's not equitable to everyone who follows the rules."
Biffle also commended President-elect Donald Trump's laissez faire regulatory approach that he believes will benefit the industry. Comparatively, the U.S. Department of Transportation under the Biden administration announced new rules earlier this year that would force airlines to pay refunds to customers.
"There's also going to be kind of an unshackling," he explained. "We're going to focus on things that matter, like safety, and stop worrying about regulating prices and regulating experiences."
The U.S. Transportation Department recently ranked Frontier ninth out of 10 major airlines for on-time arrivals in an August Air Travel Consumer Report and eighth in highest rates of canceled flights. It found that the airline was on time just 65 percent of the time across the 80 airports it serves.
"There's a percentage of our customers willing to pay more for comfort. These are affluent leisure customers who want a first-class seat," Biffle noted of the upcoming changes. "This is really our answer. We can produce the cheapest coach seat, but we can also produce the cheapest first-class seat as well."
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/nBpx1wL
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