Are you having nightmares about blizzards — even though it’s still officially summer?
Do you dread the thought of digging your car out of a snow drift, slipping on the ice and being forced to hole up in your house until the Memorial Day weekend?
DON'T MISS: Cruise fans may soon face an unpleasant new limit on exploring cities along the way
Well, don’t just sit there crying into your pumpkin spice latte. Book a flight to someplace warm and give those winter blues a swift kick in the caboose.
Frontier Airlines (ULCC) -) recently announced an expansion of winter service to domestic and international sun destinations. And to mark the occasion Frontier is offering fares as low as $39 to some locations.
The Denver-based ultra-low fare carrier said that the combination of new and returning nonstop service will start in November and December.
Cancun and Fort Myers received the largest portion of the new service, which included 14 routes — seven new and seven routes returning after the pandemic.
There is also a new service from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic’s capital Santo Domingo and returning service from Miami.
Start planning getaways now
Most of the routes link such cold-weather locations as Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis to hot spots in Florida and the Caribbean.
“We’re thrilled to expand our nonstop offerings across our network,” Daniel Shurz, the airline's senior vice president of commercial, Frontier Airlines, said in a statement.
“Along with more routes to Florida, new service to Mexico and the Dominican Republic is also on the horizon," he added. "As we get closer to winter, now is the time to start planning those tropical getaways."
And let’s not forget that Frontier recently launched a promotion called the Student Loan Mile Match, where people enter their existing student loan balances, and the airline matches it in Frontier Airlines Miles for 100 people.
"The larger the debt, the bigger the promotional mile payout, which can be used for free flights!" the airline said.
On the flip side, Frontier Airlines saw the highest rate of passenger complaints among U.S. carriers in 2022, a year that became one of the most disruptive for flyers on record, NBC News reported.
The airline registered more than 20 complaints for every 100,000 passengers who boarded its aircraft, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, compared with a national average of about six passenger complaints per 100,000.
Highest quarterly revenue
The number of complaints against all airlines — both American and foreign — jumped between 2021 and 2022 from 49,991 to 77,656, with grievances about U.S. airlines more than doubling on the year from 20,365 to 47,591.
And Frontier doesn't get much love from Trip Advisor or social media sites, to put it mildly.
Skytrax rates Frontier as a 3-star-low-cost airline, with 5 stars being the highest rating, and says that “Frontier Airlines works if you follow the baggage, check-in time rules carefully, although their handling of delays and cancellations can be very poor.”
The airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Frontier disclosed it recorded $1 million in total costs related to its failed merger with Spirit Airlines during the first six months of 2023, Aerotime Hub reported, which cited a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company’s second-quarter results show its highest post-pandemic earnings before tax in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic.
CEO Barry Biffle told analysts during the company’s second-quarter call in July that “needless to say, it's been an interesting few months since our last earnings call."
"All public attention was largely centered on the merger," he said, according to a transcript of the call. "Behind the scenes, we realized the highest quarterly revenue in history at $909 million, 43% above the comparable 2019 quarter, and a record ancillary revenue of $75 per passenger."
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