by Gary Leff on March 12, 2024
Frontier Airlines, which is struggling financially (as is ultra low cost Spirit Airlines), is trying a number of new things. They’ve just announced an intra-Europe style business class offering that they call UpFront Plus seating.
The first two rows of the aircraft, which already come with extra legroom, will also allow for blocked middle seats. Pricing will “start” at $49.
Starting today, customers can upgrade to UpFront Plus seating for flights departing on or after April 10, 2024, by reserving seats on the Frontier mobile app or at FlyFrontier.com. As a special introductory offer, UpFront Plus seating upgrades will be available starting at only $49 per passenger, per flight segment for travel between April 10 and April 30, 2024, when purchased by March 20, 2024*.
Within Europe business class is usually a blocked middle seat as well as upgraded catering. Frontier is promising only that passengers get ‘served first’ by virtue of being in one of the first two rows. This product will have more legroom than British Airways Club Europe.
British Airways Club Europe
With most airlines, customers can buy an extra seat which will generally mean an empty middle seat, by paying whatever is the current fare. Almost nobody does this, and airlines don’t make it easy. PlusGrade offered a tool for airlines to upsell passengers this during the pandemic, yet strangely it didn’t take off. (Their tool would allow for booking as many extra seats as you want, all part of the purchase path.)
Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle used to be a top executive at Spirit, and has shared the story of how Spirit started offering its business class-ish Big Front Seat. They just didn’t want to spend the money to remove first class seats from planes: “We literally were so broke that we didn’t have the $3 million that it would take to actually get rid of it.”
Spirit Airlines Big Front Seat
Here Frontier won’t be removing seats or reconfiguring aircraft. They’re simply selling customers more than one seat on the aircraft. As long as they price it properly, it’s a win (extra revenue). What’s more, since they’re blocking the middle, they effectively sell that extra middle seat to two passengers – the one at the window and the one at the aisle in each of the first two rows. More airlines should do this.
Having an empty middle seat next to you is probably the biggest difference in any coach experience. I’d do this in a heartbeat at competitive pricing. However I generally don’t fly Frontier because they do not offer inflight internet.
More From View from the Wing
Source link : https://viewfromthewing.com/frontier-airlines-adding-european-style-business-class/
Author :
Publish date : 2024-03-12 07:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
