You don't often expect to see the words “frontier” and “business travel” used in the same sentence, but this airline has made a small but useful move in that area. In fact, what we do for business travelers can also benefit leisure travelers.
I think most people would agree that Frontier is an airline that targets leisure travelers. I'm not exactly saying that because of the product. After all, there are useful elite frequent flyer programs that offer lucrative freebies. It also has great interior products with plenty of legroom. If you don't get upgrades with other airlines, Frontier isn't a bad choice if you fly when you need to.
The big problem for Frontier is schedule. I fly on a lot of routes, but not very often.
After all, the airline has 361 routes on its roster as of June, more than half of which don't fly daily, according to Cirium data. Less than 13% of routes have more than one flight per day. This is not very good for a business traveler's schedule. Case in point…Delta Airlines operates less than 5% of its flights daily within North America and the Caribbean, but just under half of its routes operate at least 3 of its flights each day. .
That being said, Frontier does have planes that depart at specific times. And I can't imagine any business traveler (or anyone in their right mind) taking this ticket, no matter how cheap…
…There are many flights that operate during times when the average person would fly. And if Frontier happens to be operating flights when business travelers need to fly, they should try to get them on board.
Frontier recognized this and created simpler, business-friendly fares that corporate travelers could actually book easily. We call this BizFare.
BizFare can only be booked through travel agents using global distribution systems (GDS) such as Amadeus, Saber, and Travelport. Why on earth would Frontier recommend his use of GDS when no one else does? No. But the company knows that many business travelers need to book through agencies that use his GDS, so it thinks it would be better to introduce something more convenient and profitable to its system. .
Frontier currently sells tickets through GDS, but only the base fare without accessories and at a slightly higher price than on its own website. For example, if I really hate it and want to buy a ticket for a May 18 flight from Los Angeles to Dallas, the base fare is $138.98 if I book directly. It's $143.98 on Saber.
This is for travelers who search solely by price through Expedia or other online travel agents, but once purchased, they must be added directly in Frontier. If you are a business traveler, you need to buy accessories, so you have to go to two places to make that happen. And corporate travel policies don't always make it easy. For that reason (and other reasons such as reliability issues), most corporate agents tend to ignore Frontier as a viable option and don't even think about pricing if it appears on a GDS. I understand.
Knowing this, Frontier thought it would be a good idea to create bundled fares that could be sold on GDS to corporate travelers who didn't need to worry about incidental costs. BizFares comes with many features:
This was well built. Checked baggage is not included as business travelers often do not require checked baggage. (If you want to add them, you can add them after the fact, but the price is probably not high enough to do so.) This includes seats with extra legroom (which no longer It seems to be called “premium” rather than stretch) and comes with early boarding. There are no change fees, and same-day confirmation and standby are also free. Plus, you can earn extra miles.
The closest thing to this on Frontier's own website is to purchase a base price of $138.98 and add on a standard seat, now commonly referred to as “Bundle 1,” for $110. What happened to The Works and The Parks? It's so boring right now… — and pay an extra $9 to get a seat with extra legroom. All told, we think it will come out to $257.98.
If you go back to GDS and look at BizFares, you'll get even better deals. The way Frontier does this is by reserving two fare classes for BizFare: C and J. These classes are usually booked as business class on other airlines.
C fares are cheap and J fares are expensive. In this case, the C fare is just $223.96, a savings of over $30 compared to booking directly, and also includes the ability to make free changes on the day of travel, which is not included in Bundle 1. While this may not be useful in most of Frontier's markets, there are some markets where it may be useful. Still, it's $30 cheaper and a good way to see it all.
J fares are of little value if C fares are not available. On this market it's $433.96. There aren't many cases where it's worth buying, but if you can pay the full bus fare, you might be able to get away with it. It seems more like a fishing expedition, where if you catch one fish, it's worth dropping a line into the water.
However, Frontier is trying to make people wary of this product with strange pricing. In practice, it doesn't seem like a faithful template is being followed. I visited different markets on different dates and the results were far-reaching.
Frontier Biz fare comparison
For some reason, the Philadelphia-Vegas market didn't have J fares, only C. Also, Phoenix-Vegas was a last minute search, so C was not available.
In most markets, the BizFare option was cheaper than bundling directly with Frontier. Dallas/Fort Worth-San Juan was an exception, as was Trenton-Orlando. In other markets, the differences were minimal. For example, from Phoenix to Cincinnati, BizFare costs $3.02 less. In other locations, the difference was larger, such as Cleveland-Punta Cana, where BizFare saved you $81.
I did consider building this directly in Frontier by stringing everything together without using bundles, but note that it was much more expensive overall. The only time it makes sense is if someone doesn't need a carry-on or doesn't care about pre-selecting seats. But comparisons are still necessary.
All in all, I think what Frontier is doing here is smart. The company knows that there are business travelers who would fly if it were easy enough. So Frontier ensured that he had two fare classes and included everything a business traveler would need and more.
The “more” part is probably the key here. Because Frontier can tell you what a deal it is to buy this without realizing that you may not need everything in the bundle.
It's still not seamless. To book this, travelers must visit Frontier's website to select their seats. But not having to pay removes a huge friction that prevents business travelers from doing this today. Implementing something like this is quick and easy, and clearly the airline just wanted to get something to market quickly. After all, the company has significant revenue problems that it needs to fix.
After the initial rollout, I waited a bit to see if there were any promotional fares on the market, but I still don't understand the pricing at all. Maybe airlines are just trying a lot of things and seeing what sticks. No doubt fares will change, so it's always a good idea to compare booking direct with BizFare, but this is a welcome addition to a market that should bring at least some benefit to Frontier.
And the frontier isn't over yet. It also announced that it would block the middle seats in the first two rows and create a European-style business class for those who request a room. Creating that product costs nothing. Earnings he could only lose four. But if Frontier succeeds in attracting more business travelers, it could easily pay for itself.
Frontier just needs to improve its operations. Once that happens, it becomes a really viable option.
