airline opinion

[rm]

Frontier Airlines -- yay or nay?

Are they on time?
Is their customer service tolerable if shit goes wrong?
How onerous is the stopping in Wisconsin on the way to the West Coast?
Newer planes or other airlines' cast-offs repainted? (um, yeah, I care -- it has to do with the pressurization and my sinuses; newer planes mean less in-flight pain for me).

It's like a $200 difference on a trip for Patty and I, so I care, but if it's going to be hell, I'll just spend the money (I won't, for example, fly Spirit for cost savings).

Comments

[annaoj.livejournal.com]

I've only flown them from Columbus to Madison, so I don't know about east coast to west coast plane change issues. The planes have generally been newer, at least for the short haul routes. I've had good experiences with timeliness.

The reason I started flying Midwest (now Frontier) is that when there was bad weather in Madison on Memorial Day in 2006, the only people who got out that day were flying Midwest, which paid for cabs to take them to Milwaukee so they could get their connections.

(Edited to correct year)

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Are you stopping in Milwaukee? (That seems to be Frontier's hub.) It seems to be a sort of ancillary airport for a certain amount of traffic to Chicago, so a stopover there shouldn't be too onerous.

As to the airline, I have no idea, though I did spot that a recent ep of "Undercover Boss" starred the CEO of Frontier.

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

I've flown on them, but they were so blah I don't remember much about the experience. Very middle-of-the-road, nothing-to-see-here.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

It's been years since I flew Frontier, so my opinion may be out of date. They used to be a pretty good discount carrier to Denver.

Looking at SkyTrax airline quality ratings, I see they currently get three stars out of a possible five. http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/frontier.htm

For comparison's sake, three stars is about as good as it gets for US airlines. Only Jet Blue breaks into the 4-star rankings, and there are no US airlines in the 5-star list. American and United are also 3-star airlines.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Wow. I see Virgin America hasn't been "starred" yet, though it gets quite a large number of positive reviews.

If the reviews are anything to go by, Frontier's customer service looks to be OK when things go well: not so great when they go badly.

[wordswoman.livejournal.com]

They won my daughter's heart by giving her a warm chocolate-chip cookies on her flight.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

That's a holdover from Midwest airlines (Frontier took over their business in a merger), and yes...a good enough reason to fly either airline. :)

R? Frontier's fine. Nothing special, but I'd definitely fly them again.

(and Milwaukee's airport has a fantastic used book store, if you have time between flights)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Now Patty's gonna be pissed we're not getting off the plane!

I'm fascinated by an airport having a used bookshop.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Everything bethbethbeth said. Midwest Express our favorite airline - hope Frontier hasn't bollixed it up. Great love or the Milwaukee airport. MWExpress planes are awesome - 2 big leather seats on each side of the aisle. Dunno what planes they're using now, of course. But the website will usually tell you which plane is used for which flight.

[ckd]

I've only flown Frontier-as-Frontier once (MKE-BOS coming back from Wiscon; it was a Midwest ticket, but this was after Republic had bought both Midwest and Frontier and started integrating the two) but I've flown Midwest a couple of times. (Never to the West Coast, though.)

Stopping in Milwaukee is no worse than stopping in Chicago/Minneapolis/Detroit, and in fact better IMO since it's a smaller airport and therefore less annoying to change planes in.

The planes are newer A320-series and Embraer E-Jets. If you know the exact flights you're considering, I can tell you which aircraft you'd get.

IMO? For $200 difference I'd fly 'em even though I have VFF status on another airline. (For $50 I might not, because the possible upgrade would be worth that.)

[teaotter.livejournal.com]

I flew them for the first time recently from the East Coast to the West Coast. The seats were comfortable, fairly roomy, and the planes were fairly new, I think. They had the in-seat tv-things that I've been seeing lately, at least.

I don't know about the off-flight customer service (nothing went wrong on my flights personally).

They gave AJ free cheese curds, since it was the only thing on their in-flight menu that was likely to be gluten-free, once zie explained. And they handled a seating problem on one of my flights (not mine) easily and in a friendly manner. So their in-flight service was excellent, from my limited experience.

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Seconded - I'm quite happy with the airline.

The way the free cheese curds happened was this: I was going to buy cheese curds, but they were out of them once they got to me. I told them I wished they'd have taken "allergy holds" on their food items because I couldn't eat any other savory food items they were selling, and said that, while it was no humongous crisis, I was rather sad and would have liked some protein.

They managed to dig a packet of cheese curds out of some secret frozen cache and gave them to me for free even though I offered to pay. Total win.

[fightingwords.livejournal.com]

Nay. Don't do it. Just don't. If you won't fly Spirit, don't fly Frontier.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

No way, they're not even remotely in the same class!

[fightingwords.livejournal.com]

I used to fly both when completely broke during and immediately after college, and I never had a good experience with either airline. Horrible customer service, shitty flight times, and I always felt like I was only making it to my destination on a duct-taped wing and a prayer.

[mellacita.livejournal.com]

Speaking from significant experience: layovers on smaller carriers in smaller airports in the upper midwest during any part of the year in which snowstorms or thunderstorms are likely...is usually not worth the savings in fare. How many times per day does Frontier go to LA from Wisconsin (in the event of a cancellation or delay)? How many planes are they likely to be able to reroute in the event of weather disruptions? How many other carriers operate out of that airport they might switch you to in an emergency?

I have spent way too many nights sleeping on floors in smaller midwestern airports because they cancelled a flight or my connection was delayed and they had so few flights out of that particular airport that there were no others 'til the next day, or there were no seats on the few remaining that day. Something to keep in mind.

[rm.livejournal.com]

This would be over Labor Day weekend. Are there thunderstorms then? I don't even know!

[mellacita.livejournal.com]

It's peak storm season for tornados and severe thunderstorms, yeah. But those at their worst are not as disruptive as snow and ice. You'd maybe/probably? be okay. I have been stuck overnight in Columbus and Cleveland at that time of year due to thunderstorms in Chicago, though. But not often.

As for the plane age, most airlines describe their fleets on the websites, and when you shop for flights you can often see the description of the equipment. That and judicious application of google should tell you a lot about whether the plane itself is likely to give you trouble.

If you do fly with them, try flying earlier in the day, maybe? That way if there are disruptions there are more options later in the day.

[fightingwords.livejournal.com]

I have spent way too many nights sleeping on floors in smaller midwestern airports because they cancelled a flight or my connection was delayed and they had so few flights out of that particular airport that there were no others 'til the next day, or there were no seats on the few remaining that day.

Yes, that was my experience as well, flying back and forth to Chicago from New York.

[dangerpudding.livejournal.com]

I've had only really excellent experiences with Frontier. Customer service has always been great, I don't think they've ever delayed me badly or lost my luggage.

OTOH, they stopped doing their 3x weekly flight from my local airport to LAX, so I don't use them so much anymore. Shame - now I'm always on USAirways (or I drive 3 hours and spend more in gas then the fare difference).

I always thought of the planes as newer, but I'm the wrong person to ask about that, having grown up in small (and always old) planes and spent many hours in Twin Otters.

[4hour-ramona.livejournal.com]

what's wrong with wisconsin?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Out of the way for SF, not something I'm used to dealing with as a hub (usually it's Chicago or Atlanta).

[4hour-ramona.livejournal.com]

i'm just wondering what exactly the concern is - weather, internet connectivity, frat boys, what to do during the layover. i can speak to 3 of those.

it might not be out of the way at all, depending on the city you'll be flying into; milwaukee is about the same latitude as sf, madison and eau claire are even closer.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Honestly, and this is more of my weird -- my experience (which make be fluke, of course) is that there are certain flight routes that always have a FUCKTON of turbulence and make me really edgy (cross the Atlantic is almost never bad in my experience; crossing the Rockies is usually awful for about 30 minutes; the one flight I took to and from Minnesota SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME and the flight attendant was like "this route is just always really bumpy") so my super secret concern is whether it's one of those things that will likely provide me with more turbulence that I've come to expect from direct flights to the West Coast, which in my experience usually only bad for small parts of the trip (the exception being the horrifying flight to LA when I was on my to Australia, but all my other flights cross country (probably at least 2 dozen) have been unremarkable)).

Anyway, all of which seems SUPER NEUROTIC. And is.

[4hour-ramona.livejournal.com]

i can totally understand that - i used to fly nodak to ohio a lot and it was always turbulent, no matter what time of year or which flightpath we took.

i shake my fist at the jet stream.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

I don't know why a flight attendant would say that flights in or out of Minneapolis would be "always really bumpy". It can be rough if there is a bad storm at the time, but it's at ground level with no hills or mountains nearby. I fly in and out of here and rarely have problems on this end, other than interminable de-icing in the winter.

[stupid-drawings.livejournal.com]

In my experience, Frontier is pretty good about being on time, assuming you do not mind that you'll more than likely have a layover in Denver, their hub. Newer planes, but smaller. The service is fine.

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

This is all about Midwest. I don't know how much carryover there is to Frontier. I used to fly Midwest SFO-MKE a fair bit (it was my airline/route of choice), which sometimes stopped in Kansas City. (There were some SFO-MKE nonstops and others weren't. I think I changed in Kansas once.) It sounds like you're talking about the same setup--a stop rather than a layover/change. There was never time to get off the plane. Everyone got off, you wandered about the plane for a little while and the next lot of people got on. Basically I never had any problems. (I think American was the only other airline I've not had problems on flying from the Bay Area to Chicago. United was often disastrous and Southwest is chronically late, never mind some odd incidents with the staff.) MKE is actually a Midwest hub, it's just that the connections are all to places you've possibly never heard of or didn't know had airports. Oh, and you get cookies. And someone's mentioned the bookshop at MKE, though it's outside security, so there's really no way you'd get there.

[goseaward.livejournal.com]

When I flew Frontier, I had two very new planes (Chicago to Albuquerque, Denver to Chicago) and one older plane (Albuquerque to Denver). Pleasant experience, nothing particularly notable--we were a little delayed but not enough that I had to deal with customer service staff.

idk if this will speak to your sinus problems but they humidified the air they pumped into the new planes, at least while we were on the ground. I'm usually way too dry in public places, but I was totally fine for those plane rides.

[deusabscondidum.livejournal.com]

I've flown Frontier before, but it has been a few years since then. Nothing really stands out; it wasn't phenomenal, but it wasn't awful. Then again, I have had awful past experiences with United Airlines, so any airline that isn't as bad as they were does just fine in my book.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I took them in 2004 and they were at the time one of the best airlines I'd ever used. I have no more recent date, but they were excellent back then.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I generally like them. I buy the slightly more expensive ticket (the "classic") that gets me a free bag checked and free TV - even if I don't use the TV, saving the bag check price usually makes up for the extra ticket charge. You also get a 25% mileage bonus for their Frequent Flyer program. Customer service at Denver was not so good to me when I got screwed on a connection trying to get to my folks' for the holidays, but the phone people are generally good.

[lllvis.livejournal.com]

I haven't read other comments, but as I understand it, Frontier's fleet are leased new planes.

I have only flown them twice, but never encountered any problems with them.

Where in Wisconsin? I presume Milwaukee as Green Bay's airport doesn't have much to it. Billy Mitchell airport in Milwaukee is nice. IF you have the chance to get out and about in Milwaukee (in this weather? pfft!) there's a famous spot called The Safe House that's kinda fun...

[elements.livejournal.com]

I won't fly them, and consider them a step up from Spirit but really, what's that saying? I had to send people on a business trip on them once (only time-compatible option) and they didn't love it. Not necessarily miserable, but I have paid more not to fly them. Ditto Alaska Airlines, btw, should it ever come to a question of them. Apparently they are almost like Ryanair in terms of constant commercial solicitation bombardment.