Ultra low cost carriers in the United States have been struggling financially, given how consumer demand has evolved. There’s lots of talk of how premium travel demand is strong, and that’s something ultra low cost carriers have struggled to capitalize on. That’s something they’re slowly but surely trying to change.
Continue reading: Frontier Airlines’ Intriguing New UpFront Plus Seating
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
If, as per the picture, you can't lift up the armrests, that takes some of the value out of having an empty middle seat.
This is a lazy effort to compete with Spirit's Big Front Seat, and it will either fall flat (at best) or create onboard chaos (at worst). I predict there will be plenty of people who try to "self-upgrade" to these "blocked" middle seats for various reasons - they have an emotional support golden retriever who needs the extra room, etc. Americans are not used to seeing this European style business class.
It is the front row. Front row seats have fixed armrests because the tray tables are stowed there. The second row should have movable armrests.
Those seats look awful. I flew Frontier, once. Never again.
Still amazed how few people know what that "diamond" shape does to the brain (which is why you see it EVERYWHERE in society), especially on plane seats.
No one ever asks why there are so few other designs to be used on plane seats.
Anyway, this is a smart move by Frontier.
"It almost seems like Frontier is trying to copy Spirit Airlines’ Big Front Seat concept, except without the cost of actually reconfiguring jets."
Seems? That's exactly what they're doing!
Are they just rebranding stretch seats as UpFront Seats or are they actually swapping out existing seats for a nicer seat with more padding and somehow increasing pitch?
Your still getting a seat that is akin to a public bench. But the occasional IFE continues consisting of a couple morbidly obese passengers in wife beaters and daisy dukes swinging at each other.
Big front seats is similar to old domestic first without catering. This product is still a park bench with a middle seat blocked.
No, exact same (uncomfortable, thin, non reclining) seats. Yeah No. Been there once, never again
LOL Will America welcome the intra European blocked middle seat 'premium class' concept?. This would be a disaster if attempted by other carriers. They should stay on their lane, this isn't a very good idea for a ULCC. Go truly big or go home.
Right, but that's literally half of the all the UpFront Plus seats on the plane.
Aa a Diamond I selfishly hope this fails. Objectively I can't see them selling it much on leisure routes that didn't sell the front seats much as is. And getting alot of complaints from elites that paid alot of money to get stretch seating that's no longer there. I can't take my kids to exit row. Truly if they don't reverse it or atleast allow us to sit in them if not booked closer to boarding, I can't see using them anymore and letting it all go.
Flew Frontier once years ago after being rebooked on it when my UA flight got cancelled. Never again.
Never flown Ryanair and never will. Tried EasyJet and Southwest a couple of times. Never again.
Legacy carriers are pretty bad but still feel like a picnic compared to the ULCCs.
With the ever shrinking price gap between F / J and Y on legacy carriers, there is really no need to even have status on any of them.
I only have one data point, but on a flight I was considering a couple of weeks ago, they wanted $117 for extra legroom seating. Now on the same route they want 117 on UpFront and 58 on extra legroom. That’s still too expensive for either in comparison to what AA charges on the same route, but it does make extra legroom a better value to buy ahead.
Agree with Ben on how this may be problematic with Elites. The biggest weakness ULCCs have is the inability to leverage loyalty and this materially hurts that even more.
That said, this seems to align F9 with their fellow Indigo carriers that do similar things, such as Volaris.
My experience is limited but when I bought the Business Bundle for 2 roundtrip tickets they did not have the Upfront Seats available for the 2 flights. Ended up canceling the tickets within the 24hour period. I would be careful booking with them for these seats until they work out the bugs in the booking system.
I recently picked it, but only because it came with the most expensive bundle. I was pricing flights including a checked bag. A checked bag was $55, and the most expensive bundle was $89.
I couldn't see myself paying much at all for that seat. But, it works out that the legroom/empty middle cost less than $30. This flight was less than $15 more than the cheapest option on another carrier, while still being at a nice time.