Occasionally, there are times where traditional hub-and-spoke flag carriers just don’t make sense. While Southwest offers lots of direct flights in point-to-point service from many airports throughout the US, Spirit, Frontier, and JetBlue have also added lots of options away from the hub flights. Some decry Frontier as a lesser carrier, but our experience was great, here’s why.
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What Was Our Route?
While Pittsburgh is our home base, Cleveland is just two hours away and offers alternative point-to-point operations that our PIT does not. From Pittsburgh to Fort Myers (RSW), just Southwest flies the route directly. Southwest opened this route with affordable options but as of late, this two-hour flight has climbed from $120/each way to nearly twice that amount and $400 is just too much for easy, direct flights to Florida.
We flew Cleveland to Fort Myers (RSW) on Frontier, leaving on a Friday morning at 9:35AM touching down in the Sunshine State just before noon. Our return was booked on Sunday night from Fort Myers at 7:15PM landing in Mistake By The Lake at 10PM, tucked in at home by 12:30AM.
Why Did We Fly It?
Allegiant flies Pittsburgh to Punta Gorda, about 45-50 minutes north of Fort Myers but they can’t be trusted. Their schedule is inconsistent and their equipment is reliably unreliable. Three out of the last four flights for friends or family members have been delayed 12 hours plus (in one case) or cancelled and rescheduled for more than a day later (the remaining two of three cases). I just can’t take the chance that my cheap flight will actually go, and that’s not worth the savings to me.
Flying an airline with which we hold status (American or United) would require a connection and would eat at least 5 hours in each direction in addition to being more expensive. That’s not worth it for a short weekend trip and we can do better.
Some options we have tried in the past have included flying the very convenient Jet Blue Pittsburgh-Fort Lauderdale route (also departing the morning and returning in the evening). It adds a 2.5 hour drive once landed in Florida and prior to departure but it eliminates the connection and often a lot of cost. We have done the same on Southwest to Orlando, American direct to Miami, Southwest to Tampa (all with approximately 2-3 hour drive to Fort Myers).
Michael O’Leary of Ryan Air used to say
“passengers will fly from somewhere to nowhere or nowhere to somewhere but not nowhere to nowhere”
What he meant was that passengers from Pittsburgh might drive to Latrobe, PA and fly Spirit to Fort Myers, but they won’t drive to Latrobe, and drive from Punta Gorda when they arrive. He’s right. Before we were looking at our situation as either paying a premium to fly from home to where we were going, or taking on a 2-3 hour drive once we land but avoiding the connections and saving some money. But once we found out about Cleveland’s direct flight to Fort Myers, it made so much more sense to just fly direct from there and eat the two hours before and following our flights getting home to Pittsburgh, instead of driving to Fort Myers.
The Price Was Right
Combined, the three of us flew for $378. All-in. I mentioned in another post that we are fortunate not to have to pack anything of substance when we fly to Fort Myers because we leave our belongings at my parents house. That’s not to be confused with travel-cacheing, but it does allow us to avoid the onerous extras on Frontier flights that others might not be able to avoid.
Still, $378 (before I cleared out my Capital One Venture ‘miles’ because I’m not intending to continue my business with them) is still a great deal and cheaper than Southwest wanted for just one roundtrip, let alone all three. Our net costs were less than $330 after I cleared my Venture account.
In fact, roundtrips out of Pittsburgh generally are north of the $300 mark on a weekend for a single ticket to just about anywhere, including the discount destinations. For us, it really was a no-brainer and if we needed to add-on comfort aspects in order to make the journey more tolerable, our low initial price left us the budget to make that happen.
What Was So Great About It?
The service we received was pleasant. Our check-in agent at CLE was kind, welcoming and helpful. Our FAs on board were engaged and seemed to generally like their jobs. It reminded me of Southwest FAs a few years ago. One was very sweet to our daughter, another was joking with me, even the gate agent was full of personality. I hate to say it, but having one seems to be a differentiator in today’s current domestic airline environment.
The flight was on-time in departure and arrived early. Boarding was slightly early and wrapped 15 minutes before it should have. We pushed back several minutes ahead of schedule and therefore landed early too. There were 188 passengers onboard our A321 which was very new and held more than 230 pax. It felt wide open though it was clearly quite full. Part of this was due to the carry-on restrictions, the other part was the plane was 20% empty (though other carriers would be overload at 188 seats).
The equipment was new and reliable and that shouldn’t be too much to ask for, but it really is.
We weren’t harassed for our bag sizes or extras we declined. We weren’t even asked to put our items into a bag sizer though it was near us at checkin – I don’t know if we would have passed if we did. RyanAir is a little stronger-handed and confrontational, though I don’t mind flying RyanAir for short, cheap flights around Europe. EasyJet and Air Asia are a little more expensive but are pleasant to deal with. We found Frontier to be an excellent value for money.
Have you flown Frontier lately? Have you had an experience more like this family’s or like ours?
I flew Frontier out of CLE a couple years back to ORD (they’ve since ended the route, unfortunately). The fare was only $38, and I took a backpack to avoid the fees. I had the same experience as you on the outbound – friendly check in agent, friendly FAs, and even a good gate agent. I checked in online late on the return and got a bulkhead seat (assigned at the airport). On the way back, the gate agents visibly looked like they hated their jobs, hated ORD, and my sheer presence in the gate area felt unwelcome, but everything else was fine.
Ironically, I find myself driving to PIT from Cleveland for flights more often than not because they’re cheaper and have fewer stops (not to mention better lounges now).
Gino, it appears the grass is always greener on the other side. Agents in both CLE and RSW were excellent. I am sitting on the plane ready to push back now and the staff has been awesome. PIT does have a Priority Pass lounge now and has had an old US Airways lounge now a very dated American Admiral’s Club – if either of those are better than the lounges in CLE, it’s time to just hang out at the Starbucks instead.
Speaking for friends of the family who fly Frontier several times a year, they love it. All three of their kids attend collage in cities serviced by a direct Frontier flight and the prices are good enough that the parents visit frequently and the kids came home often for family events and longer holiday weekends.
As mentioned, they gladly accept the slightly longer drive times from home in exchange for the direct flights at a good price.
It’s a combination of inexpensive flights and the direct option. We have paid about $130 more/person to fly American in the past when we all had status, sometimes upgrades would clear and sometimes they wouldn’t but the extra time we get back by going direct is worth it. The money we save is icing on the cake.
I am sure it is only a matter of time before we have a bad experience with the service, but for now we really couldn’t be happier with what we received for the money.
I had to chuckle at your example, because I face the same conundrum heading to RSW from here. NK files nonstop only seasonally, so it’s often $100+ cheaper roundtrip to go to FLL/MCO/PBI/TPA and drive the rest of the way. I often do so since the extra cost really adds up for two (now three).
I haven’t flown Frontier since the rebranding as a ULCC. Seems like the general idea is for F9 to be the easyJet as Spirit is to Ryanair, though I’ve heard decidedly mixed reviews. I’ve generally heard positive reviews about the staff and on-board experience, but lack of reliability seems to be a real issue.
Their reliability has been great for us, it’s Allegiant that we dodge. Every employee we have encountered has been really sweet and they haven’t sweated us about our backpacks which are heavier and hold more than most people’s rollaboard. The flight schedules could be a challenge certainly. I agree that Spirit had the same antagonistic approach with their customers that RyanAir had, but I think that Frontier is more along the lines of the new RyanAir which still tries to get every last dime but does so with a smile on their face.
We live in COS and frequently fly Frontier. My husband is military so we get free bags and the system seems to automatically seat you together when you have “child” tickets – so little out of pocket for fees. We’ve taken Frontier to PHX, MCO and a few other locations because the price was right.
Knock on wood, we haven’t had any horrible experiences with exception to one long delay (3 hours due to equipment).
Free bags for members of the military is a great program! For our family, it makes quick weekend trips an easy decision.
That’s a great point about people not being willing to fly nowhere to nowhere. No matter how cheap it is.
Speaking of Allegient they are the one US carrier that I strongly advise people not to fly on the grounds of safety. While things have quieted down lately the number of emergency landings that they have indicates a larger problem. Accidents in aviation are always a chain of events and so far that chain hasn’t come together at Allegiant. But when you keep lining the links up with emergency after emergency it becomes a matter of time before something goes badly wrong.
There was a string of events a couple of years ago where Allegiant planes were flying with too little fuel, landing at the wrong airports, etc. that really made me question their culture of safety as well. I haven’t been inside the organization and have no personal knowledge of their safety program but they are of course in compliance with the FAA. I just won’t fly them personally and it sounds like you won’t either.