Frontier Airlines is one of the few companies that actually comes up with ways to make the customer experience even worse. On August 1, 2023, Frontier announced on Twitter that they would start closing the counters for check-in and bag drop 60 minutes before flight departure instead of 45 minutes:
Important info for your next flight. 👇
— Frontier Airlines (@FlyFrontier) August 2, 2023
Starting August 16th, all Frontier ticket counters will close for check-in and bag drop 60 minutes (previously 45 minutes) prior to your flight departure. We continue to be committed to getting you and your bags to your destination… pic.twitter.com/8SBbcVqHse
The reactions are what you’d expect:
Ferdinand Ortiz @FerdinandOrtiz8
Wow! How about before making changes you check the staff. I just recently traveled out of cleveland where you only have to check in counter only. I arrived at 9am for 1157 flight and didnt get my laugage checked in till 1110. Didnt get through security till 1120. How will thatwor
Jessica Lauren @laurenbutters84
But you’ll make sure agents at the boarding gates charge people for their correctly fitting carry on bags right?
K. Edwards @however7
We continue to be committed to squeezing every last penny out of our customers’ pockets while cutting staff to the barest minimum.
Maddison @MaddisonTheCat
Seriously? Are you trying to make passengers hate you even more?!?!? I have 2 more flights with you & then I’m done. No more. Any other airlines but frontier. Decent customer service is dead. (Notice I didn’t even say great or excellent. My expectations aren’t exactly high)
Douglas Kirkpatrick @Kirk_Doug
Flew Frontier recently. While I did save some money and found the airline not to be as bad as advertised, there were a few issues. This new change hits on one. Arrived over two hours early. Found a very long check-in line staffed by very rude agents. Work on fixing that, first!
Why are they doing this?
While they are going to pretend that this is somehow going to improve something for the customer, we all know that’s nonsense. While there are a few theories floating around out there, I think this is to make it easier for the counter agents to get over to the gate. One of the many ways airlines Frontier saves money is by having the counter agents do double duty as gate agents, especially at small airports. It’ll be interesting to see how this actually works for all of the passengers that don’t get the message and what their recourse is if they think it’s still 45 minutes.
Bring a carry on at your own risk?
2023 has been a pretty bad year for Frontier so I guess they figure “why not pile on?”. A few months ago, NBC News reported that Frontier received more complaints than any other airline, 20 out of every 100,000 passengers. The national average is 6 out of every 100,000 passengers. The runner-up was Spirit Airlines with half as many complaints.
About a month after that report, SFGate reported on several people taking to TikTok to report that Frontier is charging people for bags even though they clearly fit in the bag sizer. To make matters worse, paying for a bag at the gate costs $99! I’ve long suspected that the gate agents receive a commission for this and sure enough, Frontier admitted that this is indeed the case. This explains why you can carry the exact same bag on several flights without issue and then all of a sudden run into a problem. Some gate agents have absolutely no ethics and will do everything they can to make some money.
Sure enough, a passenger told SFGate what I’ve seen the few times I’ve flown Frontier. This passenger explained that one gate agent made everyone use the bag sizer and tried to get a lot of people to pay to bring a bag on even though it fit. A lot of people just paid it so as to not cause an issue. I think these gate agents know that most people don’t want to cause a scene and would rather just get on the plane.
It gets worse
As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, Fox 35 Orlando reported that the DOT has found that Frontier involuntarily bumps passengers more than any other airline. In fact, they bump people 8 times more than the next-closest airline! The people interviewed for the story reported that there is no customer service and no direction when this happened to them. This is not a shock since the airline pretty did away with their customer service phone number in 2022 (although they may have partially reinstated it after complaints).
Should you fly Frontier?
That’s a personal decision but if you are going to fly a low cost carrier, you may be better off with Spirit Airlines or something else since it seems like Frontier is purposely trying to make things even worse.