FrontierFail Part 2

I wrote negatively about Frontier Airlines a few days ago.  They really are my favorite airline, and in a large way, it was an experiment to see what the social media presence of Frontier was.

In short, they have none.

Before you call my a whining hater (which I now have a website dedicated to me being an official hater, and I think it is hilarious) think of this:

frontierfail

(check out zero people hanging out for the last 10 minutes of boarding on the second flight that I was not allowed to fly standby on.)

Your sick at the airport, show up with someone, and are told of a new policy that you were not aware of that will cause you a 6 hour wait.  Ways to deal with this:

  1. State the policy, apologize and explain the full policy
  2. State the policy, and attack the customer for not knowing

There is such a quick and easy way to fix the situation, and it is openness and honesty.  I put out some reach online, perhaps they would make good on the situation there.

In the end the two employees rudeness (they could have smiled and said that the policy is not by them, and that would have been fine.) cost their airline $2k in future travel costs.  Perhaps more.  Made someone that is a passionate fan passionate enough to put up a website aggregating all the negative comments.

So what should Frontier have done?

  1. Get to know what these things called blogs are.  The reporters sure have figured them out (I received two calls from two decent sized papers looking for quotes). I’m not saying they should have special treatment, but look at the comments on this tread, they could have been stopped with a quick ‘we are here and we are listening comment.’
  2. Get on Twitter.  The whole thing could have been diffused with a tweet.  A tweet.  Kinda sounds pathetic but it would have worked.
  3. Communicated this to their customers in an open and honest way.

We still love you but please get your act togeter.  Love, your customers (or at least one of them).


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11 responses to “FrontierFail Part 2”

  1. Jeremy Avatar
    Jeremy

    The part that aggravated me more than the policy switch was http://bkite.com/02baQ“target=”_blank”>The Lie Well, that and the other lie, the one that says "We're doing this because it's become hard to estimate what size airplane to use" instead of the truth, "We can charge you for this, up to and including the price of another ticket!" Hooray hidden costs. Jeremy

  2. Aron Avatar
    Aron

    So what should Frontier of done?

    1. I've been reading your blog recently and live in Denver and like your enthusiasm for startups. But, I’m not sure your point that they should treat you specially because you have a blog and can make them(the company, Frontier) hurt and not do a damn thing individually to the employees making your life miserable for the moment you dealt with them, I doubt they read your blog or care what you think. I’m guessing that having a blog makes you feel empowered or maybe entitled to good service, but like the rest of us you have to suffer through the experience and maybe get some online revenge later. But, I have to ask you: Do you really expect Frontier to have these things in place just to make your life better and the pain less for you personally at the expense of other things that would benefit many more people? Would you rather have a tweet or have a pillow or peanuts on the flight or even a safe flight?

    2. Most companies are in the dark ages with technology, airlines included, so no they are not going to use your favorite new technology to make your life simpler just because it would make you and .00001% of the population’s life better. Just because your friends use twitter doesn’t mean that much of the population does, at least yet.

    3. Now this point I give you and really this is what you are trying to get across I’m sure. Yes, kindness and honesty go along way to soothing hurt feelings and good or better relations in the future. So, if this is what you wanted, why didn’t you ask for it directly when dealing with the rude employees?

    I hope this doesn’t come across as mean. I am really just curious why you think what you do.

  3. andrewhyde Avatar
    andrewhyde

    1. I've said on this blog before “Is the sustainability of this new age of social media reliant on high fivers and finger pointers?” I think it is. When things happen, I write about them, positive or negative (I hope mostly positive though). I would like to see them solve the problem for everyone.

    2. There is no reason for a company to be in the dark ages with tech or social media. Most of their ticket sales go through their website, yet they don't want to respond to a blogger? Check out @comcastcares if you think that nobody uses twitter.

    3. I did, several times.

    You didn't come across as mean, thanks for the comment!

  4. Aron Avatar
    Aron

    Thanks Andrew. Keep up the good work…

  5. Ted Dziuba Avatar

    Originality. Fail.

    So Frontier lags on the social media front. They, like most other airlines, are reeling from the last six month's gas prices and, NOW, a stagnant global economy is wringing the rest of the life outta them. I am sure they are thinking about blogging and twittering, but they are probably more focused on surviving the next year first.

    And while Frontier might be lagging on the 2.0 front, come on….u know you love having DirecTV available to you when you fly and getting free flights for only 20k miles.

    I wonder if the corporate guys at Frontier laugh when they are reading TechCrunch and wonder where the business model is for Web 2.0 companies? I wonder if they considered Twittering you about the policy change……but Twitter was down 🙂

  6. Aaron Avatar
    Aaron

    I just got an email confirmation after buying tickets on F9 and it clearly states that any changes made to my itinerary may result in an additional charge…

  7. Aaron Avatar
    Aaron

    I just got an email confirmation after buying tickets on F9 and it clearly states that any changes made to my itinerary may result in an additional charge…

  8. Aaron Avatar
    Aaron

    I just got an email confirmation after buying tickets on F9 and it clearly states that any changes made to my itinerary may result in an additional charge…

  9. […] back to me a few weeks ago (meant to post it sooner, but travel has been tough).   I wrote a few posts and launched Frontier Fail in a response to some of their policy […]

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