Articles tagged “frontier airlines”

Airline IPOs used to be rare, but Frontier now is the second airline in as many months to say it's going public. This is in the midst of the worst crisis the industry has faced in a century. For investors, that spells opportunity.

Airlines are reverting to old strategies, like so-called tag flights, to try to maintain service in an era of depressed demand. It is not a panacea, but it might help them conserve cash for a bit longer.

Ultra-low-cost carriers have gotten a raw deal from the U.S. governments bailout. There's no good reason these airlines should be forced to fly so many flights when demand is near zero.

In the past two months, travelers have bought roughly 100 million points and miles a day, on average. That's good news for cash-strapped airlines and hotels. They're using promotions to transform potentially costly refunds for canceled travel into less costly miles and points.

Airlines know passengers care about the environment, so they're all ready with talking points to provide their sustainability bonafides. But many are changing little about their strategies.

Not long ago, all discount airlines needed to compete was cheap fares. But times change, and with legacy airlines poaching some of their customers, more ultra-low-cost carriers are taking loyalty seriously.

This is how competition should work. American, Delta, and United have been poaching customers from discount airlines with their no-frills basic economy fares. Frontier doesn't like that, so it has come up with a new passenger-friendly policy to try to sway potential passengers.

U.S. airline strikes are extremely rare because of government regulations designed to prevent them. For that reason, there's no guarantee Frontier's pilots will receive the permission they seek. But remember the last major U.S. pilot strike? It was in 2010, at Spirit Airlines, when it was controlled by Indigo Partners. The same private equity firm now owns Frontier.

Passengers should cheer news that Volaris and Frontier will codeshare, as it should help Americans visit many more Mexican destinations at cheap prices. But will Volaris and Frontier cooperate enough to make the process seamless for passengers? We'll soon find out.