I was forced to use Frontier Airlines this last week. I had never heard of them let alone used them. Unfortunately I had to be somewhere fast and all of my normal airline choices couldn’t get me there because they were booked up. So I had to go with Frontier, I am sure someone in accounting was happy because they were listed as the cheapest to get there (Cross country and back for like $400 with booking occurring about 12 hours before flying).
I had to find them in Detroit Metro airport which sucks when you are in a hurry and have little time to prepare and plus there are two whole completely separate terminals… Anyway, I found them, checked in (only 3 people in line – uh oh!) manually where I actually talked to a person at a counter.
I fully expected to get on a plane that had chickens running around and bailing wire and duct tape and no one spoke American. As we went to board, the ticket lady took my ticket and manually tore off the end (didn’t insert anything into any computer reader or anything like that) and manually inspected it and me and then waved me on. I then notice the plane, a gorgeous shiney Airbus 318 with little baby foxes painted on the tail. I was like, wow, that looks nice from here and being an animal liker kind of person was impressed with the animal painting.
I get on the plane and sit in 2D. I was surprised when I was assigned 2D, especially since I had asked for an exit row or bulk head aisle seat. Anyway, 2D was an aisle seat, but wasn’t a bulkhead or exit row. However I didn’t notice right off because I was sitting in what normally would be first class part of the plane but there was no first class. The whole thing was coach. I thought that is interesting. Then I noticed that the plane was so new that the seats weren’t worn out and the buttons were hard to push because they hadn’t been broken in yet. The stewardess controlled all of the lights with a computer screen (I had a great view from the front of the plane) and everything was very brand new which was quite exciting since most of the planes I tend to fly on with Northwest, United, American, Delta, etc all seem to be 20+ years old. Oh yeah, the seats all had little video screens and I was able to watch direct TV ($5) or watch pay-per-view movies ($8) if I wanted. And…. free headphones to do so… Best of all, the TV had a channel to show you where the heck you were, how high you were, and how fast you were going. So none of this, good god, this is taking forever, I wonder where we are? Plus the geek in me loved knowing I was doing 537 MPH at 28,037 feet…
Even though I was not in an exit row or bulkhead seat my legs weren’t up under my chin which was very nice, I still would have liked an exit row or bulkhead though.
I connected through Denver on a puddle jumper that was actually run by Horizon. That was a more beat up older plane but again, the flight wasn’t too bad, the pilot and crew were pretty good.
Going back, identical experience, small Horizon puddle jumper, great stewardesses and a funny co-pilot who together kept us entertained. I was very eager to see the plane used for return as I didn’t figure I would get a nice new plane again unless it was the same one I flew on before. Nope, different 318, Owls on the tail… again brand new though. This time I had exit row for both my return flights. Very nice, I had enough room to open up the laptop and actually work away on it until the battery died… whoops, need to remember to dim the screen when I am not plugged in for long periods of time.
Anyway, all of that to say that if I have to go somewhere and going through Denver[1] isn’t a problem in me getting there, I will almost certainly take Frontier to go. Companies like Northwest and Delta need to look at Frontier and figure out what they are doing because the Frontier roundtrip was less than half the cost of the Northwest and Delta flights and were booked solid and were on new planes with great crews and they aren’t in Bankruptcy. I wish Frontier used Detroit as a hub because I could just take them anywhere I needed to go then.
joe
[1] It looks like Frontier planes always have Denver as one of the endpoints of every flight.
Up here in Canada we have an airline called WestJet that was known as a ‘No Frills’ airline. I have flown with them a few times in the past few years and the crew is always funny & they offer light snacks at no charge as well. However when I flew with them last month they actually had a hookup to satellite TV as well as the same kind of channel that you described – all of this was free to.
It sure makes the trips more bearable.