Frontier Airlines review: Flight service/customer service

Let me begin by saying I’ve been flying nearly weekly for over 35 years and this experience with Frontier Airlines ranks at the top of poor encounters with travel. The level of customer service failed at every step of the way.

I have been in contact with Frontier Customer Service through e-mail since they report they have no ability to discuss by phone. Multiple e-mails respond with the same canned response all while telling me what a valued Customer I am.

I booked a one-way flight #1553 through my travel agency on the evening of Tuesday 10/17/23. There was a change in travel plans and this flight fit the timeline I was looking for…and though I routinely fly American or Delta, I figured “how bad could it be?” for a quick hop from Atlanta to Dallas?

When I arrived to the Atlanta airport at approximately 4:15 PM on 10/18/23 I went directly to the Frontier counter to check in. I was told to use the APP. When I said I hadn’t downloaded it and just wanted to get checked in…I was told over and over to just use the App “to save me money” and was being directed to pretty much just go away. When I could see I was getting nowhere, I gave up and went to find a place to sit down and download the APP. I got it done finally and found my flight and then noticed there was a $63 charge to bring on my carry-on bag. OK...whatever….so I paid for that and it accepted the payment after I went through adding all my credit card info. But then I noticed I also needed to pay for a seat assignment and when I tried to do that it just kept going in circles and never let me do it. But I saw I could go to the gate and get an assignment…which isn’t unusual on other airlines so off I went through security and to ride the train to terminal E. Which BTW was a little tricky to figure out since the APP didn’t tell me which terminal or gate.

When I got to the gate, they were finishing up a previous Delta flight. When the Frontier crew arrived, I was the 2nd person at the counter. I spoke to the gentleman there (who turned out later to be the Supervisor). He told me their system was down and that I should check in on the APP. I told him it wasn’t working and he asked for my phone and tried it also. He couldn’t get it to work either and handed it back to me telling me they would check me in manually and no problem…I’d get a seat. He told me to just line up at the end of the line after folks with seat assignments boarded. So I waited.

When it was time to board…I did as instructed and waited in line. The system was still down apparently and the gentleman checking people in was scratching them off a piece of paper. The Supervisor was talking to him and keeping a count of open seats and I heard several times there were plenty of seats...no problem. The Supervisor had all of us with no seat assignments get out of the line and stand in front of the counter telling us “no problem”…we’ll all get on board. By now there are at least 7-8 folks with the same issue saying the APP hadn’t let them check in. There are now also about 5 young lady Frontier employees and one man at the counter in addition to the Supervisor. All of them are just standing around complaining about their hours and how they weren’t working any O/T etc. Not one was interacting with this group of customers. Finally, the Supervisor and one lady decided to try my phone as well as another customer’s with no success to use the APP to check in.

About this time all of the passengers with seat assignments had gone through the door to board the plane along with the gentleman working the gate. The Supervisor also went down the walkway to the plane. The crowd of us just stood around the counter watching the clock tick down. Eventually the Supervisor and the Gate Agent came back through the door all shocked and surprised we were all still there! He looked at the ladies at the counter and said “I thought they were already sent down!”.

Nope.

Now we see the plane backing away from the gate. He frantically tries to call someone….but as we all know…planes don’t return to the gate after departure.

Now we’re all asking as to what we’re supposed to do. They told us to head to the train, ride all the way back and go back through security and go back to the check in counter (where I started at 4 hours earlier!). So we do.

When I got to the counter…the same bald headed guy was still there who didn’t want to help me in the first place….but there was also another useless counter agent who couldn’t do anything it seems and definitely wasn’t interested…and finally another Supervisor came over. He was polite (as was the first one at the gate)…but told us there were no more flights out, they could maybe try to do something for the next day if their system was up….but we needed to use the APP. Again…we showed them our phones and how it wasn’t working. One lady asked about putting us on another airline and he explained Frontier doesn’t do that (like all other airlines) and started handing out business cards for us to apply for refunds. That’s it….see ya later. He offered no other assistance or alternative resources.

So I ended up contacting my travel agency and purchasing another one-way, last minute ticket on Delta and didn’t arrive home until after 2:30 AM.

At a bare minimum, I expect Frontier to refund the cost of my ticket, the added baggage fees and my travel agency cost.

As you can see, this experience was terrible and hopefully not indicative of a normal day at Frontier Airlines…but with the level of service and interest exhibited by the employees I dealt with, I can’t imagine it’s too much out of the ordinary.. Maybe it’s just at this Atlanta location. We can hope so.

Please let me know if you need anymore information from me and what the proposed resolution will be. So far the e-mail responses keep telling me they have no record of me boarding the plane and it wasn't delayed over 3 hours. Obviously no comprehension of what I've sent them. If I had boarded the plane we wouldn't be having any of these conversations.

Thank you,

JIM

PS- this pic is the last Supervisor in the story. The guy who I talked to in the very beginning of all of this is pictured in the extreme left of the pic at the end of the line.

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