pwm2txlhopper wrote:

I was looking forward to Frontier starting PWM in a few weeks. I wanted to try them out to get to California. However, the itinaries completely suck.

PWM-DEN arrived around 9pm, and then there's a ten hour layover in the middle of the night for connections to the West Coast. Total travel times to a lot of West Coast connections were like 18-20 hours! Coming east bound from the west coast, the timing of the flights was no better.

What was the logic for starting this flight if travelers can't make easy connections to the rest of their network? Isn't this pretty much making this flight dependent on being filled by traverlets only going to/from DEN.

Do any of their other new routes have such crappy travel times that using them is a waste of time to save $100

Lots of F9 routes have crappy connection times. I don't think F9 wants a lot of connections and prefer the O&D traffic. They lean more toward G4's model, but still allow some connections as they happen to fit in.

I think the more abysmal thing is F9's ontime performance. I was looking at F9's PNS-DEN flight and it's been late by 1-3 hours every single flight for the past two weeks.

FlyPNS1 wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

I was looking forward to Frontier starting PWM in a few weeks. I wanted to try them out to get to California. However, the itinaries completely suck.

PWM-DEN arrived around 9pm, and then there's a ten hour layover in the middle of the night for connections to the West Coast. Total travel times to a lot of West Coast connections were like 18-20 hours! Coming east bound from the west coast, the timing of the flights was no better.

What was the logic for starting this flight if travelers can't make easy connections to the rest of their network? Isn't this pretty much making this flight dependent on being filled by traverlets only going to/from DEN.

Do any of their other new routes have such crappy travel times that using them is a waste of time to save $100

Lots of F9 routes have crappy connection times. I don't think F9 wants a lot of connections and prefer the O&D traffic. They lean more toward G4's model, but still allow some connections as they happen to fit in.

I think the more abysmal thing is F9's ontime performance. I was looking at F9's PNS-DEN flight and it's been late by 1-3 hours every single flight for the past two weeks.

Isn't F9 actively trying to build a connections-based hub at RDU? Their whole strategy there seems to be as a connection point for travelers going from the northeast to points in the south / southwest and Caribbean .

Frontier Airlines Q3 Seats Growth/Decline
Denver DEN--1,168,580--3%
Orlando MCO--487,360--3%
Las Vegas LAS--342,120-- (-7%)
Philadelphia PHL--260,210--39%
Austin AUS--229,800--176%
Cincinnati CVG--185,990--(-8%)
Chicago ORD--173,760--(-5%)
Atlanta ATL--172,460--11%
Raleigh-Durham RDU--160,620--176%
Cleveland CLE--149,790--(-37%)

Frontier14 wrote:

F9 has a slew of new planes arriving next year (2019). The 18-20 new frames will fly somewhere, north-south in winter and east-west in summer with probably more that a few exceptions thrown in offset any predictability factors. Look for some more of the pre-2014 schedules to re-appear come next summer, maybe BTR.

Frontier 14

'North-south in winter, east-west in summer' is Mariner's first law of Frontier network planning.

Midwestindy wrote:

Frontier Airlines Q3 Seats Growth/Decline
Denver DEN--1,168,580--3%
Orlando MCO--487,360--3%
Las Vegas LAS--342,120-- (-7%)
Philadelphia PHL--260,210--39%
Austin AUS--229,800--176%
Cincinnati CVG--185,990--(-8%)
Chicago ORD--173,760--(-5%)
Atlanta ATL--172,460--11%
Raleigh-Durham RDU--160,620--176%
Cleveland CLE--149,790--(-37%)

AUS / RDU are short term growth for the summer ..... they wont sustain that.

Word from a pilot is the operation is a mess right now. 7 aircraft out for non-routine maintenance (so that would be in addition to one's out for heavy checks). On-time hovering around 40% last few days. And more than 2/3 of the fleet with MEL write-ups.

Now that said, as I mentioned to him, there's this pilot dispute going on - and plenty of MEL's can be attributed to pilots. But for 7 additional aircraft grounded, if he's on with his stats, that's bad.

n7371f wrote:

Word from a pilot is the operation is a mess right now. 7 aircraft out for non-routine maintenance (so that would be in addition to one's out for heavy checks). On-time hovering around 40% last few days. And more than 2/3 of the fleet with MEL write-ups.

Now that said, as I mentioned to him, there's this pilot dispute going on - and plenty of MEL's can be attributed to pilots. But for 7 additional aircraft grounded, if he's on with his stats, that's bad.

Not to mention they didn't have a very successful Q1

-Frontier’s profits declined y/y, its operating margin in Q1 2017 was seven points higher at 14% compared to Q1 2018. Although revenues rose 17% y/y on a scheduled ASM capacity increase of 21% (according to Diio Mi schedule data), operating costs ballooned 27%. Only Alaska saw a steeper y/y decline in Q1 operating margins.

-According to figures released last week by U.S. DOT, F9’s Q1 operating margin was just 7%, which was worse than Spirit and JetBlue.

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

I was looking forward to Frontier starting PWM in a few weeks. I wanted to try them out to get to California. However, the itinaries completely suck...Do any of their other new routes have such crappy travel times that using them is a waste of time to save $100

The choice is offered to you before you book, the short connections (sometimes) and the long connections (more usually) - it's up to you whether you accept them or not.

It isn't rocket science.

mariner

mariner wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

I was looking forward to Frontier starting PWM in a few weeks. I wanted to try them out to get to California. However, the itinaries completely suck...Do any of their other new routes have such crappy travel times that using them is a waste of time to save $100

The choice is offered to you before you book, the short connections (sometimes) and the long connections (more usually) - it's up to you whether you accept them or not.

It isn't rocket science.

mariner

Thank you for telling me what I already know. No kidding. Thats why I won't be booking. I've never seen an itinerary on any other airline with a 12 hour middle of the night layover, and the connecting flight on the same reservation leaving the next day. Essentially leaving the passengers stuck in a closed down terminal all night.

Just don't see the logic of this flight when connections aren't realistic. Are there really enough people flying PWM-DEN to reliably fill an A321 three days per week? Seems like the chances for the success of this flight would be much greater if people could realistically connect in DEN.

Wanted to know how many other flights they have like this to smaller cities. Flights that are essentially dependent on O/D passengers, as connections aren't feasible.

The connections offered on F9 especially out of DEN should carry more of a caution than they do, it is extremely deceptive in some cases to those who may not pay too close attention to things like that compared to people like us. If an airline will put a little "!" next to a 45 min connection time or changing of terminals, they should do something similar for a 20 hour layover in DEN. or at least create a DEN stopover package to sell :p

Buffalomatt1027 wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Frontier Airlines Q3 Seats Growth/Decline
Denver DEN--1,168,580--3%
Orlando MCO--487,360--3%
Las Vegas LAS--342,120-- (-7%)
Philadelphia PHL--260,210--39%
Austin AUS--229,800--176%
Cincinnati CVG--185,990--(-8%)
Chicago ORD--173,760--(-5%)
Atlanta ATL--172,460--11%
Raleigh-Durham RDU--160,620--176%
Cleveland CLE--149,790--(-37%)

AUS / RDU are short term growth for the summer ..... they wont sustain that.

I’d like to respectfully disagree with you on that. AUS and RDU are fast-growing cities with booming population, and with the exception of a few odd routes that I don’t have confidence in, I feel like they’re here to stay for F9, even though lots of routes will be seasonal.

Fex180 wrote:

FlyPNS1 wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

I was looking forward to Frontier starting PWM in a few weeks. I wanted to try them out to get to California. However, the itinaries completely suck.

PWM-DEN arrived around 9pm, and then there's a ten hour layover in the middle of the night for connections to the West Coast. Total travel times to a lot of West Coast connections were like 18-20 hours! Coming east bound from the west coast, the timing of the flights was no better.

What was the logic for starting this flight if travelers can't make easy connections to the rest of their network? Isn't this pretty much making this flight dependent on being filled by traverlets only going to/from DEN.

Do any of their other new routes have such crappy travel times that using them is a waste of time to save $100

Lots of F9 routes have crappy connection times. I don't think F9 wants a lot of connections and prefer the O&D traffic. They lean more toward G4's model, but still allow some connections as they happen to fit in.

I think the more abysmal thing is F9's ontime performance. I was looking at F9's PNS-DEN flight and it's been late by 1-3 hours every single flight for the past two weeks.

Isn't F9 actively trying to build a connections-based hub at RDU? Their whole strategy there seems to be as a connection point for travelers going from the northeast to points in the south / southwest and Caribbean .

Sort of. As has been mentioned before, F9 doesn’t really do connections that well, but they do have lots of same-plane and flight number routes going through RDU. Some examples I’ve seen are LAS-RDU-SJU, BUF-RDU-SJU, and PVD-RDU-MCO.

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

Are there really enough people flying PWM-DEN to reliably fill an A321 three days per week? Seems like the chances for the success of this flight would be much greater if people could realistically connect in DEN.

What dates/markets are you looking at? I see there are flights PWM-DEN-LAX/LAS/SFO with one hour connects in DEN. SAN doesn't have a good connection, but those others are the top 3 west markets. SEA also works. Hopefully that's enough connections to reliably help fill the flights. The reverse might be more of a problem with a 6am DEN-PWM.

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

mariner wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

I was looking forward to Frontier starting PWM in a few weeks. I wanted to try them out to get to California. However, the itinaries completely suck...Do any of their other new routes have such crappy travel times that using them is a waste of time to save $100

The choice is offered to you before you book, the short connections (sometimes) and the long connections (more usually) - it's up to you whether you accept them or not.

It isn't rocket science.

mariner

Thank you for telling me what I already know. No kidding. Thats why I won't be booking. I've never seen an itinerary on any other airline with a 12 hour middle of the night layover, and the connecting flight on the same reservation leaving the next day. Essentially leaving the passengers stuck in a closed down terminal all night.

Just don't see the logic of this flight when connections aren't realistic. Are there really enough people flying PWM-DEN to reliably fill an A321 three days per week? Seems like the chances for the success of this flight would be much greater if people could realistically connect in DEN.

Wanted to know how many other flights they have like this to smaller cities. Flights that are essentially dependent on O/D passengers, as connections aren't feasible.

Filling an A321 shoudn't be a problem considering that they are using an A320 on the PWM-DEN route.

Also, there are some decent connections available (in terms of layover time, not in terms of time of the day) The PWM flight arrives in DEN at 9pm, and flights departing to LAX, SFO, LAS, SEA, and PDX all leave between 10pm and 10:20pm (SLC and ABQ (on Tu/Th/Su)/ ONT (Mo/We/Fr/Sa) have departures that leave during this window as well, but do not have arrivals into DEN early enough to connect to the PWM outbound), meaning a layover of 1 hr-1 hr 20 min in DEN. Eastbound connections back to PWM are possible with layovers in DEN of less than 2 hours as well, although they take place at highly undesirable times of the day. Flights from LAX, SFO, SEA, LAS, and PDX all arrive in DEN between 4am and 4:30am, with the departure to PWM leaving at 6:10am. Like I said, extremely undesirable and obnoxious times of the day, but also not 12 hr layovers in DEN.

It appears that they have actually built a little set of connecting banks in DEN based around this schedule. Flights from a lot of their small eastern destination arriving in DEN in the evening, flights to the five western destinations mentioned above, which I would imagine are probably five of the most popular destinations people are looking to connect to, departing around 10pm, arrivals from those western destinations arriving around 4am-4:30am, and departures to the small eastern destinations leaving around 6am. It is most definitely not an ideal setup, given that they are all at horrid times of the day, and only a few destinations are available to connect to (SAN, PHX, SNA and SLC seem to be the biggest destinations for which reasonable layovers are not available).

RL757PVD wrote:

The connections offered on F9 especially out of DEN should carry more of a caution than they do, it is extremely deceptive in some cases to those who may not pay too close attention to things like that compared to people like us. If an airline will put a little "!" next to a 45 min connection time or changing of terminals, they should do something similar for a 20 hour layover in DEN. or at least create a DEN stopover package to sell :p

They have a popup appear warning you of connections that are longer than 6 hours, and you have to check a box acknowledging that you understand that you will have a long connection before it lets you move onto the next page.

phluser wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

Are there really enough people flying PWM-DEN to reliably fill an A321 three days per week? Seems like the chances for the success of this flight would be much greater if people could realistically connect in DEN.

What dates/markets are you looking at? I see there are flights PWM-DEN-LAX/LAS/SFO with one hour connects in DEN. SAN doesn't have a good connection, but those others are the top 3 west markets. SEA also works. Hopefully that's enough connections to reliably help fill the flights. The reverse might be more of a problem with a 6am DEN-PWM.

PDX also works with those connections, and layover times in DEN shouldn't be a problem given that all 5 of those destinations (LAS, LAX, PDX, SEA, SFO) have arrivals in DEN between 4am and 4:30am, meaning a connection of 90 minutes or so before the departure to PWM

phluser wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

Are there really enough people flying PWM-DEN to reliably fill an A321 three days per week? Seems like the chances for the success of this flight would be much greater if people could realistically connect in DEN.

What dates/markets are you looking at? I see there are flights PWM-DEN-LAX/LAS/SFO with one hour connects in DEN. SAN doesn't have a good connection, but those others are the top 3 west markets. SEA also works. Hopefully that's enough connections to reliably help fill the flights. The reverse might be more of a problem with a 6am DEN-PWM.

i'm doing exactly this. PWM - LAX in July and connection times at DEN are very reasonable both ways, no more than an hour at DEN (albeit at obnoxious times of day) Departing PWM at 6:25 EDT and arriving at LAX at 11:30 PDT seems very reasonable to me, and it looks like F9 isn't having trouble selling seats on PWM-DEN so clearly people don't mind the odd connection times.

Fex180 wrote:

it looks like F9 isn't having trouble selling seats on PWM-DEN so clearly people don't mind the odd connection times.

Until the data is available, we don't know LFs, but I can see that one way fares seem significantly less on the DEN-PWM leg relative to PWM-DEN. DEN-PWM might have to rely on DEN based originating passengers heading to Maine than connections from the west coast back home assuming PWM is home. I wonder what LFs will be in after Labor Day-mid Nov.

I quickly looked at 10/14 - 10/17 338.00 rt PWM-DEN-LAX 630pm arrive at LAX at 1130pm 1 hour layover in DEN
return is a redeye...1259am lv lax arrive PWM 1230pm 1 and half hour layover in DEN. So I don't know the days were searched that resulted in a 10 hour layover.

phluser wrote:

Fex180 wrote:

it looks like F9 isn't having trouble selling seats on PWM-DEN so clearly people don't mind the odd connection times.

Until the data is available, we don't know LFs, but I can see that one way fares seem significantly less on the DEN-PWM leg relative to PWM-DEN. DEN-PWM might have to rely on DEN based originating passengers heading to Maine than connections from the west coast back home assuming PWM is home. I wonder what LFs will be in after Labor Day-mid Nov.

I was only going on the seat maps available on the F9 site, which I know isn't a great indicator of actual LF. Would be interesting to see if they could keep demand through the winter, since Maine is a fairly popular ski destination.

Midwestindy wrote:

n7371f wrote:

Word from a pilot is the operation is a mess right now. 7 aircraft out for non-routine maintenance (so that would be in addition to one's out for heavy checks). On-time hovering around 40% last few days. And more than 2/3 of the fleet with MEL write-ups.

Now that said, as I mentioned to him, there's this pilot dispute going on - and plenty of MEL's can be attributed to pilots. But for 7 additional aircraft grounded, if he's on with his stats, that's bad.

Not to mention they didn't have a very successful Q1

-Frontier’s profits declined y/y, its operating margin in Q1 2017 was seven points higher at 14% compared to Q1 2018. Although revenues rose 17% y/y on a scheduled ASM capacity increase of 21% (according to Diio Mi schedule data), operating costs ballooned 27%. Only Alaska saw a steeper y/y decline in Q1 operating margins.

-According to figures released last week by U.S. DOT, F9’s Q1 operating margin was just 7%, which was worse than Spirit and JetBlue.

That’s still much better than aa and ua. And better than Alaska. The whole industry is making less money.

Concourse A seems quite busy with late night F9 departures between 9:00 and midnight. Clearly F9 wants to work the assets over night.

717atOGG wrote:

Buffalomatt1027 wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Frontier Airlines Q3 Seats Growth/Decline
Denver DEN--1,168,580--3%
Orlando MCO--487,360--3%
Las Vegas LAS--342,120-- (-7%)
Philadelphia PHL--260,210--39%
Austin AUS--229,800--176%
Cincinnati CVG--185,990--(-8%)
Chicago ORD--173,760--(-5%)
Atlanta ATL--172,460--11%
Raleigh-Durham RDU--160,620--176%
Cleveland CLE--149,790--(-37%)

AUS / RDU are short term growth for the summer ..... they wont sustain that.

I’d like to respectfully disagree with you on that. AUS and RDU are fast-growing cities with booming population, and with the exception of a few odd routes that I don’t have confidence in, I feel like they’re here to stay for F9, even though lots of routes will be seasonal.

I dont think that F9 will ever leave AUS or RDU completely ..... i am just saying its sort term growth will be short lived with a bunch of seasonal routes.

Fex180 wrote:

phluser wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

Are there really enough people flying PWM-DEN to reliably fill an A321 three days per week? Seems like the chances for the success of this flight would be much greater if people could realistically connect in DEN.

What dates/markets are you looking at? I see there are flights PWM-DEN-LAX/LAS/SFO with one hour connects in DEN. SAN doesn't have a good connection, but those others are the top 3 west markets. SEA also works. Hopefully that's enough connections to reliably help fill the flights. The reverse might be more of a problem with a 6am DEN-PWM.

i'm doing exactly this. PWM - LAX in July and connection times at DEN are very reasonable both ways, no more than an hour at DEN (albeit at obnoxious times of day) Departing PWM at 6:25 EDT and arriving at LAX at 11:30 PDT seems very reasonable to me, and it looks like F9 isn't having trouble selling seats on PWM-DEN so clearly people don't mind the odd connection times.

That's a risky connection. Last flight of the day, so if anything goes wrong or there's any delay on the incoming flight to DEN, be prepared to spend the night in then DEN airport, or shell out a couple hundred bucks for a hotel for nine hour night.

I just booked PWM-LAX-PWM for my dates with DL for $320. I'd rather not risk spending the night in an airport when a delay occurs withnFrontier and I miss the connecting flight.

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

Fex180 wrote:

phluser wrote:

What dates/markets are you looking at? I see there are flights PWM-DEN-LAX/LAS/SFO with one hour connects in DEN. SAN doesn't have a good connection, but those others are the top 3 west markets. SEA also works. Hopefully that's enough connections to reliably help fill the flights. The reverse might be more of a problem with a 6am DEN-PWM.

i'm doing exactly this. PWM - LAX in July and connection times at DEN are very reasonable both ways, no more than an hour at DEN (albeit at obnoxious times of day) Departing PWM at 6:25 EDT and arriving at LAX at 11:30 PDT seems very reasonable to me, and it looks like F9 isn't having trouble selling seats on PWM-DEN so clearly people don't mind the odd connection times.

That's a risky connection. Last flight of the day, so if anything goes wrong or there's any delay on the incoming flight to DEN, be prepared to spend the night in then DEN airport, or shell out a couple hundred bucks for a hotel for nine hour night.

No reason to EVER pay that kindof rate if overnighting near DEN airport. Hop on hotwire, plenty of good hotels under $75 (all in,...hotwire fees and taxes included, opaque booking, you control the filter for Price location amenities quality and reviews) hotels with free airport shuttles. Holiday inns, courtyards, hyatt place quality. If you're stranded you shouldn't care where you sleep.. probably not going to get the airport Westin but you don't need that. I've done airport hot wire in Denver tons of times

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

I just booked PWM-LAX-PWM for my dates with DL for $320. I'd rather not risk spending the night in an airport when a delay occurs withnFrontier and I miss the connecting flight.

Frontier is not designed for people who can afford to fly Delta. Read what Bill Franke said when he bought the airline.

mariner

Mentioned in "The Rest of New England" thread, but Frontier is upgrading DEN-PWM to 4x weekly for August (Tues-Thurs-Fri-Sun) With the Friday run using an A319. Good indication of strong demand.

Fex180 wrote:

Mentioned in "The Rest of New England" thread, but Frontier is upgrading DEN-PWM to 4x weekly for August (Tues-Thurs-Fri-Sun) With the Friday run using an A319. Good indication of strong demand.

I wish this flight success, however, I can't believe there's enough demand to continuously fill an Airbus with mostly O/D people going to/from DEN from PWM. Perhaps in peak summer season, but that's it. Especially when roundtrips are only $320, before add on fees.

mariner wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

I just booked PWM-LAX-PWM for my dates with DL for $320. I'd rather not risk spending the night in an airport when a delay occurs withnFrontier and I miss the connecting flight.

O
Frontier is not designed for people who can afford to fly Delta. Read what Bill Franke said when he bought the airline.

mariner

I'm not that familiar with Frontier. However, when I heard they were introducing DEN-PWM, I assumed reliable and conveinently timed connections to their west coast network would be available to attract more passengers and fill empty seats.

I usually fly DL or SW, however I'll fly ULCC's when the time and prices are right. In this case, my roundtrip on DL was only about $30 more than if I'd booked Frontier PWM-DEN-LAX and risked a tight late night connection. If I paid for an assigned seat and checked bags, Frontier would have been more than my DL ticket.

I won't pay for an ULCC with limited flights when the total fare and charges is going to be about the same or more than one of the majors

LovePrunesAnet wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

Fex180 wrote:

i'm doing exactly this. PWM - LAX in July and connection times at DEN are very reasonable both ways, no more than an hour at DEN (albeit at obnoxious times of day) Departing PWM at 6:25 EDT and arriving at LAX at 11:30 PDT seems very reasonable to me, and it looks like F9 isn't having trouble selling seats on PWM-DEN so clearly people don't mind the odd connection times.

That's a risky connection. Last flight of the day, so if anything goes wrong or there's any delay on the incoming flight to DEN, be prepared to spend the night in then DEN airport, or shell out a couple hundred bucks for a hotel for nine hour night.

No reason to EVER pay that kindof rate if overnighting near DEN airport. Hop on hotwire, plenty of good hotels under $75 (all in,...hotwire fees and taxes included, opaque booking, you control the filter for Price location amenities quality and reviews) hotels with free airport shuttles. Holiday inns, courtyards, hyatt place quality. If you're stranded you shouldn't care where you sleep.. probably not going to get the airport Westin but you don't need that. I've done airport hot wire in Denver tons of times

I was just using $200 as an example. I don't know the DEN hotel market. $100, $200, whatever. Additional costs to price of your low fare ticket you bought because it was saving you $100

I use Hotwire secret deals, too. However, third party bookings can be a gamble. Especially after 7pm at night when hotels are getting ready to do their night audit and might be full, but somehow Hotwire or the third party site doesn't get the message and sells you the room. You get there late at night after a ride from then airport, only to find they don't have a room and they are walking you somewhere else.

Just a gamble I'd rather not take on a last flight of the night option, when for the same price, I could fly on one of the majors, Jet Blue, Southwest, with better times, daily flights, and less risk of being stranded overnight or a couple days until the next flight.

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

I won't pay for an ULCC with limited flights when the total fare and charges is going to be about the same or more than one of the majors

I got that message about three posts ago!

The world goes on.

mariner

I'm still shocked the MEM/PHL nonstop is still on bookable till the end of the current booking window. That was a dart (even as a MEM fanboy) that I thought was very out of left field. I still think it gets canned soon and would book a flight in Oct or Nov for fear of that. Gives me hope to see some more oddball routes from MEM, bring on San Diego. SAN didn't last long for TUL or OKC

Looking at Google Flights, it appears that lots of the new AUS routes that were originally seasonal have been extended to the end of the schedule. A few of these routes that have been extended include ABQ, CHS, BUF, CMH, PDX, JAX, and more. Even though the schedule hasn't been extended past November yet, it's a good sign that lots of the darts thrown towards AUS for this summer have stuck around for the fall.

ISP-ATL and ISP-SJU isn't showing up on Frontier's website past the second week of August.
I can see why they're stopping SJU, even if it's just seasonal. The route should have never been at daily IMO, more like 4x or 3x weekly.
But why ISP-ATL? From what I've seen/heard, the planes on that route are frequently full or close to it. I know passenger amounts don't mean anything, but I'm still very surprised and confused as to why they're chopping that route.

Frontier's operation right now is a mess.

Once again, today, a laundry list of cancellations: 32 for Friday & Saturday morning as of 11:00pm EDT. That's 8% of scheduled departures. And of those that operated, 32% were 15+ late.

The numbers for the past 7 days are similarly awful. 22 cancels Thursday, 44% 15+ late. Wednesday was much better only 9 scrubs. But if you go back even further the numbers get ugly again.

What's up? I'm hearing the usual combo: back-up MEL's catching up; not enough hands on fixing planes; crew shortages; and, of course, the Indigo/Biffle management style stretching the system way too thin. Regardless of what, the ops numbers are awful. Have to believe its actually costing F9 more $ than running a good ops.

Meanwhile Spirit, long mocked for its operation, just 3 cancels Friday.

WNflyer1523 wrote:

ISP-ATL and ISP-SJU isn't showing up on Frontier's website past the second week of August.
I can see why they're stopping SJU, even if it's just seasonal. The route should have never been at daily IMO, more like 4x or 3x weekly.
But why ISP-ATL? From what I've seen/heard, the planes on that route are frequently full or close to it. I know passenger amounts don't mean anything, but I'm still very surprised and confused as to why they're chopping that route.

I'd be surprised if they're ending ISP-SJU (even though they might have ruined their chance to succeed, given the short lead time and large equipment), and I share your sentiment about frequency. A 4X weekly A320 would have been more appropriate, compared to a daily A321. I expected them to do well on ISP-SJU, given the large Puerto Rican population in NYC and SJU being one of the more stable stations for F9.

As for ISP-ATL, I didn't think we'd see that one going away either. With the exception of some Florida routes, ISP seems to have not done that well for F9, since they've dropped MSP, DTW, ATL, and SJU now, and MIA and RSW were either axed or made seasonal.

n7371f wrote:

Frontier's operation right now is a mess.

Once again, today, a laundry list of cancellations: 32 for Friday & Saturday morning as of 11:00pm EDT. That's 8% of scheduled departures. And of those that operated, 32% were 15+ late.

The numbers for the past 7 days are similarly awful. 22 cancels Thursday, 44% 15+ late. Wednesday was much better only 9 scrubs. But if you go back even further the numbers get ugly again.

What's up? I'm hearing the usual combo: back-up MEL's catching up; not enough hands on fixing planes; crew shortages; and, of course, the Indigo/Biffle management style stretching the system way too thin. Regardless of what, the ops numbers are awful. Have to believe its actually costing F9 more $ than running a good ops.

Meanwhile Spirit, long mocked for its operation, just 3 cancels Friday.

Just curious where you get information like this from? Is there a website or something?

717atOGG wrote:

As for ISP-ATL, I didn't think we'd see that one going away either. With the exception of some Florida routes, ISP seems to have not done that well for F9, since they've dropped MSP, DTW, ATL, and SJU now, and MIA and RSW were either axed or made seasonal.

Except for Florida, ISP hasn't done very well for any airline, and even ISP-Florida can be dodgy.

mariner

717atOGG wrote:

WNflyer1523 wrote:

ISP-ATL and ISP-SJU isn't showing up on Frontier's website past the second week of August.
I can see why they're stopping SJU, even if it's just seasonal. The route should have never been at daily IMO, more like 4x or 3x weekly.
But why ISP-ATL? From what I've seen/heard, the planes on that route are frequently full or close to it. I know passenger amounts don't mean anything, but I'm still very surprised and confused as to why they're chopping that route.

I'd be surprised if they're ending ISP-SJU (even though they might have ruined their chance to succeed, given the short lead time and large equipment), and I share your sentiment about frequency. A 4X weekly A320 would have been more appropriate, compared to a daily A321. I expected them to do well on ISP-SJU, given the large Puerto Rican population in NYC and SJU being one of the more stable stations for F9.

As for ISP-ATL, I didn't think we'd see that one going away either. With the exception of some Florida routes, ISP seems to have not done that well for F9, since they've dropped MSP, DTW, ATL, and SJU now, and MIA and RSW were either axed or made seasonal.

ISP-MIA/RSW are both intended to be seasonal and will be returning in November.
Just to correct, ISP-SJU is flown on an A320, not an A321. There’s also a decent Puerto Rican population on LI as well. Hopefully soon we’ll see if this is a seasonal cut or permanent.

rph99 wrote:

Just curious where you get information like this from? Is there a website or something?

This is one source -- not positive it's what the OP used but it's a handy source for current and recent days:

https://flightaware.com/

If you choose Cancellations from the Live Flight Tracking pulldown menu you can get a summary by carrier or airport. Clicking on the airline name hyperlink (or airport name if you choose that list) will show you the detail.

n7371f wrote:

Frontier's operation right now is a mess.

Once again, today, a laundry list of cancellations: 32 for Friday & Saturday morning as of 11:00pm EDT. That's 8% of scheduled departures. And of those that operated, 32% were 15+ late.

The numbers for the past 7 days are similarly awful. 22 cancels Thursday, 44% 15+ late. Wednesday was much better only 9 scrubs. But if you go back even further the numbers get ugly again.

What's up? I'm hearing the usual combo: back-up MEL's catching up; not enough hands on fixing planes; crew shortages; and, of course, the Indigo/Biffle management style stretching the system way too thin. Regardless of what, the ops numbers are awful. Have to believe its actually costing F9 more $ than running a good ops.

Meanwhile Spirit, long mocked for its operation, just 3 cancels Friday.

Frontier is having significant operational problems due to more than usual aircraft mechanical issues (with insufficient reserves available). This has resulted in flights not only being cancelled, but a high number of operating flights arriving and departing late. Addi these circumstances together and another major issue is created which is flight crew schedules becoming chaotic. This has resulted in flight crew members timing out (not being legal to fly). Unfortunately, it is not an efficient operation at F9 currently. All indications point to the system operations as being too shallow on resources, across the board, to meet the operational needs of the airline.

Frontier 14

Frontier14 wrote:

n7371f wrote:

Frontier's operation right now is a mess.

Once again, today, a laundry list of cancellations: 32 for Friday & Saturday morning as of 11:00pm EDT. That's 8% of scheduled departures. And of those that operated, 32% were 15+ late.

The numbers for the past 7 days are similarly awful. 22 cancels Thursday, 44% 15+ late. Wednesday was much better only 9 scrubs. But if you go back even further the numbers get ugly again.

What's up? I'm hearing the usual combo: back-up MEL's catching up; not enough hands on fixing planes; crew shortages; and, of course, the Indigo/Biffle management style stretching the system way too thin. Regardless of what, the ops numbers are awful. Have to believe its actually costing F9 more $ than running a good ops.

Meanwhile Spirit, long mocked for its operation, just 3 cancels Friday.

Frontier is having significant operational problems due to more than usual aircraft mechanical issues (with insufficient reserves available). This has resulted in flights not only being cancelled, but a high number of operating flights arriving and departing late. Addi these circumstances together and another major issue is created which is flight crew schedules becoming chaotic. This has resulted in flight crew members timing out (not being legal to fly). Unfortunately, it is not an efficient operation at F9 currently. All indications point to the system operations as being too shallow on resources, across the board, to meet the operational needs of the airline.

Frontier 14

Does this explain why a bunch of Frontier's flights from the west coast to DEN are red-eye flights? Here are some examples that I'm referring to:
SEA-DEN: 12:55 AM - 4:35 AM
PDX-DEN: 12:55 AM - 4:32 AM
SFO-DEN: 12:59 AM - 4:25 AM
LAX-DEN: 12:59 AM - 4:29 AM

I'm sorry, but I don't know who would ever want to travel on these types of flights. I'm sure that there are perfectly valid reasons for scheduling them at these times. But from an ordinary customer/passenger point of view, this makes absolutely no sense at all.

knope2001 wrote:

rph99 wrote:

Just curious where you get information like this from? Is there a website or something?

This is one source -- not positive it's what the OP used but it's a handy source for current and recent days:

https://flightaware.com/

If you choose Cancellations from the Live Flight Tracking pulldown menu you can get a summary by carrier or airport. Clicking on the airline name hyperlink (or airport name if you choose that list) will show you the detail.

All daily canceled flights can be found from flightaware at this link:
https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled

FA9295 wrote:

Frontier14 wrote:

n7371f wrote:

Frontier's operation right now is a mess.

Once again, today, a laundry list of cancellations: 32 for Friday & Saturday morning as of 11:00pm EDT. That's 8% of scheduled departures. And of those that operated, 32% were 15+ late.

The numbers for the past 7 days are similarly awful. 22 cancels Thursday, 44% 15+ late. Wednesday was much better only 9 scrubs. But if you go back even further the numbers get ugly again.

What's up? I'm hearing the usual combo: back-up MEL's catching up; not enough hands on fixing planes; crew shortages; and, of course, the Indigo/Biffle management style stretching the system way too thin. Regardless of what, the ops numbers are awful. Have to believe its actually costing F9 more $ than running a good ops.

Meanwhile Spirit, long mocked for its operation, just 3 cancels Friday.

Frontier is having significant operational problems due to more than usual aircraft mechanical issues (with insufficient reserves available). This has resulted in flights not only being cancelled, but a high number of operating flights arriving and departing late. Addi these circumstances together and another major issue is created which is flight crew schedules becoming chaotic. This has resulted in flight crew members timing out (not being legal to fly). Unfortunately, it is not an efficient operation at F9 currently. All indications point to the system operations as being too shallow on resources, across the board, to meet the operational needs of the airline.

Frontier 14

Does this explain why a bunch of Frontier's flights from the west coast to DEN are red-eye flights? Here are some examples that I'm referring to:
SEA-DEN: 12:55 AM - 4:35 AM
PDX-DEN: 12:55 AM - 4:32 AM
SFO-DEN: 12:59 AM - 4:25 AM
LAX-DEN: 12:59 AM - 4:29 AM

I'm sorry, but I don't know who would ever want to travel on these types of flights. I'm sure that there are perfectly valid reasons for scheduling them at these times. But from an ordinary customer/passenger point of view, this makes absolutely no sense at all.

I think that there are plenty of people who are willing to fly at odd times of the day if it means they can do so cheaply. I’ve taken the 1:30am LAS-DEN flight 5 or 6 tines now and it’s been full every time. I also took the SFO-DEN red eye last week and it was full as well. The LAS-DEN red eye was even recently upgauged to an A321 after running for several months on an A320, adding almost 50 seats a days for this particular flight, and I’d assume the upguage was done due to demand for the flight. There are certainly people who would not willing to take flights at this time of the day, but there also plenty who would (especially when one-way tickets can be had for as little as $20).

Frontier14 wrote:

n7371f wrote:

Frontier's operation right now is a mess.

Once again, today, a laundry list of cancellations: 32 for Friday & Saturday morning as of 11:00pm EDT. That's 8% of scheduled departures. And of those that operated, 32% were 15+ late.

The numbers for the past 7 days are similarly awful. 22 cancels Thursday, 44% 15+ late. Wednesday was much better only 9 scrubs. But if you go back even further the numbers get ugly again.

What's up? I'm hearing the usual combo: back-up MEL's catching up; not enough hands on fixing planes; crew shortages; and, of course, the Indigo/Biffle management style stretching the system way too thin. Regardless of what, the ops numbers are awful. Have to believe its actually costing F9 more $ than running a good ops.

Meanwhile Spirit, long mocked for its operation, just 3 cancels Friday.

Frontier is having significant operational problems due to more than usual aircraft mechanical issues (with insufficient reserves available). This has resulted in flights not only being cancelled, but a high number of operating flights arriving and departing late. Addi these circumstances together and another major issue is created which is flight crew schedules becoming chaotic. This has resulted in flight crew members timing out (not being legal to fly). Unfortunately, it is not an efficient operation at F9 currently. All indications point to the system operations as being too shallow on resources, across the board, to meet the operational needs of the airline.

Frontier 14

I’d agree that F9 seems to be stretching themselves way too thin. The way they have flights and planes scheduled leaves them with absolutely no breathing room, and they don’t have enough reserves for when things like unexpected maintenance issues arise, leading to large delays and cancellations when things like that happen. Things will hopefully improve when the deliveries from that massive aircraft order they placed a few months ago starting rolling in in the coming months in years. Their current strategy of rapid expansion is simply not going to work without having the resources to back it up.

FA9295 wrote:

LAX-DEN: 12:59 AM - 4:29 AM

I'm sorry, but I don't know who would ever want to travel on these types of flights. I'm sure that there are perfectly valid reasons for scheduling them at these times. But from an ordinary customer/passenger point of view, this makes absolutely no sense at all.

Have you tried catching a 12:59 PM flight out of LAX lately? A lack of traffic on the way to LAX and lack of lines once at the airport makes departure times like this *very* attractive to savvy Angeleno travelers. This West Hollywood resident takes redeye flights whenever possible. It just makes getting to and through the airport so much easier. No rideshare surge pricing. No missed (or barely missed) flights due to wildly unpredictable traffic and lines for check in, security, etc. No airport congestion delaying departures.

This is not good news for ISP... it seems that every time this airport looks to be turning the corner... something like this happens time and time again. Now there is hardly any service during the months of Aug & Sept w/ the ending of ATL, SJU, MSP, DTW, MYR as well the temporary stoppage of PBI. Any ideas of why this airport can't keep it's good karma going.

Wasn’t there an airline (Eastern?), many years ago, that had a red eye hub in Kansas City (I think) with very low fares and connections at like 4am? Would something like that work today, with an LCC?

Frontier 14[/quote]
Does this explain why a bunch of Frontier's flights from the west coast to DEN are red-eye flights? Here are some examples that I'm referring to:
SEA-DEN: 12:55 AM - 4:35 AM
PDX-DEN: 12:55 AM - 4:32 AM
SFO-DEN: 12:59 AM - 4:25 AM
LAX-DEN: 12:59 AM - 4:29 AM

I'm sorry, but I don't know who would ever want to travel on these types of flights. I'm sure that there are perfectly valid reasons for scheduling them at these times. But from an ordinary customer/passenger point of view, this makes absolutely no sense at all.[/quote]

I used to fly from LAX to MSP on the red eye. I got a full day in at school, slept on the plane and spent the whole next day with friends back home in MSP. I worked for RC back in the day, we had guys fly to LAX the first flight out of MSP, then take the red eye home. Spent the day at the beach etc.

AirFiero wrote:

Wasn’t there an airline (Eastern?), many years ago, that had a red eye hub in Kansas City (I think) with very low fares and connections at like 4am? Would something like that work today, with an LCC?

F9 has something like this going on in DEN right now. Arrivals from a lot of eastern destinations in the evening, departures to LAS, LAX, SFO, SEA, and PDX, (as well as SLC, and ONT (on M/W/F/Sa) and ABQ (on Tu/Th/Su)) between 10-10:30pm, those flights turn and fly the aforementioned redeyes back to DEN, and eastern departures between 6-8am

It's all about aircraft utilization and driving lower costs. A plane isn't making $ unless it's flying. And Daniel Schurz & his team clearly believe there is an untapped market of people who will choose to fly these kind of flights. A counter question might be: would having 2 of these flights RON and get maintenance prevent what's going on right now?

It's also a culprit in their operational meltdown.

sunking737 wrote:

Frontier 14

Does this explain why a bunch of Frontier's flights from the west coast to DEN are red-eye flights? Here are some examples that I'm referring to:
SEA-DEN: 12:55 AM - 4:35 AM
PDX-DEN: 12:55 AM - 4:32 AM
SFO-DEN: 12:59 AM - 4:25 AM
LAX-DEN: 12:59 AM - 4:29 AM

I'm sorry, but I don't know who would ever want to travel on these types of flights. I'm sure that there are perfectly valid reasons for scheduling them at these times. But from an ordinary customer/passenger point of view, this makes absolutely no sense at all.[/quote]

I used to fly from LAX to MSP on the red eye. I got a full day in at school, slept on the plane and spent the whole next day with friends back home in MSP. I worked for RC back in the day, we had guys fly to LAX the first flight out of MSP, then take the red eye home. Spent the day at the beach etc.[/quote]