Frontier Fail Part 3

Frontier Airlines got 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 changes.

Here is their letter, and they gave permission to publish it in full.

I’m sorry to hear about the negative experiences you have had with Frontier Airlines recently. I recently noticed the postings on your blog. Yes, we do appreciate the social media movement here at Frontier, though I’m not sure anybody anywhere completely understands it right now. However, with a very small staff here in Corporate Communications, it’s hard to keep up with every blog post about Frontier Airlines on a daily basis. As you can imagine, there have been a lot of posts in the last several months. And that doesn’t even include the mainstream media that we need to follow as well. We do the best we can to stay informed about the conversations taking place and try to take part when appropriate.

With regard to your specific issue on the standby policy, we did make every attempt to communicate the information to our EarlyReturns®. Members in an email separate from the mass distribution of the press release. In fact if memory serves, we had two separate communications to our ER members on the issue. I will be happy to work with you to make sure we have all of your updated information since it doesn’t appear you received that email informing our frequent fliers of the change. We certainly don’t like any of our customers to be surprised by changes, particularly those who have been so loyal to us over the years like you have.

We also do take customer feedback seriously, particularly when we start getting a lot of feedback around one particular issue, like our standby policy. We have heard loud and clear from our customers on this particular issue, and we believe we have a solution in place that we hope to launch before the end of the year. I can’t be more specific than that right now since there are still a lot of moving parts to it, but we do understand our loyal customers like you want to be treated fairly and need to feel that they have a choice in what they purchase.

Certainly these have been some very challenging times for Frontier and all the other airlines for that matter, but we understand you don’t expect us to be like all the airlines, so we do take your opinion seriously. Thank you for feeling passionate enough about our airline to go to such lengths to get a response. Even though the message isn’t positive, we appreciate the fact that you still care enough about us to share your opinions.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions, and we hope to see you in our airplanes again soon.

Cool. They get it. They are working hard in a rough spot. I can support that.

Fast forward a few weeks:

Starting today, Frontier customers looking to leave early or stay late on their day of travel will be met with a pleasant surprise. Instead of paying the fare difference for same-day schedule changes they can now confirm a seat, if available, on an alternate flight for a flat fee of $75.

Cool. Kinda.

I wouldn’t say “met with a pleasant surprise” when I have to pay 40% of my ticket price to fly out 4 hours earlier. Nice direction, but really, flying standby was a horrible thing to get rid of. Frontier should make this less than 10% of the ticket price if they had to charge. It also shouldn’t have to be done at the airport. If I am paying a hefty fee to fly standby, I shouldn’t have to make the commute to the airport for the chance to pay. Assent members should also be included in the free standby rights, just like Summit members.

Right direction. Let’s see if they get there. We can hope.