Every day, Frontier Airlines employees perform an elaborate dance to keep flights arriving on time.
The main stage is Denver International Airport. Key roles are played by customer service agents, ramp workers, aircraft cleaners, flight attendants, pilots and load planners.
At Frontier, there are typically 30 to 40 minutes to “turn” an aircraft – the time between when an airplane arrives and when it departs again. What happens in that window of time is a highly choreographed exercise that is repeated more than a hundred times daily by Frontier at DIA.
Boarding passengers is just one part of the equation – the plane must be cleaned, catered and fueled, with baggage and cargo unloaded and loaded. At stake is the airline’s credibility with customers, particularly business travelers. Delays measured in minutes can cost thousands of dollars. A delay of 76 to 90 minutes on a 132-seat Airbus 319 – one of the aircraft types Frontier uses – can cost $110 per minute, according to the Air Transport Association. The cost of a one-hour delay for one seat is $50. A cancellation costs $9,900 total.
And here’s the catch: Anything from snowstorms to aircraft mechanical problems to unruly passengers can trip up performance. Frontier managers hold a weekly review meeting, affectionately called “The Whopper,” where every department head must explain any delay attributed to their department.
And there are two major competitors at DIA more than happy to take Frontier’s business: United and its discount operation Ted, as well as discount giant Southwest, which is set to launch service here Jan. 3.
Frontier ranked second among 20 reporting airlines nationally for on-time arrival rates in the third quarter, with 85.7 percent on time; Southwest was seventh (79.3 percent); and United was eighth (78.8 percent).
To understand how an airline tries to stay on time and on budget, The Denver Post spent one typically busy day with key operations of Frontier at headquarters and at DIA.
