Frontier Airlines ended 2014 at the top — of the heap for for the nation’s 12 largest airlines.
And moving into 2015, the company continued its descent into unpopularity by cutting in January. In March, traveler from the prior year, while a 65.2 percent on-time performance rate kept the airline in last place.
But Denver’s hometown airline was reeling from a 2014 move to turn itself into an ultra-low-cost carrier, for carry-on bags, nonalcoholic beverages and .
A turning point, at least in the popularity poll, came in May, when CEO . Siegel was behind the move to “unbundle,” as the company called the perkless, stripped-down fares.
At the time, Frontier president Barry Biffle said that the carrier’s costs were finally on track and “We’ve just got to finish the last part of our promise of ‘Low fares done right,’ which is to run a reliable airline.”
And between May and today, Frontier has shown improvement.
In August, the company ,” a $49 add-on plan to get many perks back, including the right to bring a carry-on bag (Frontier still charges everyone else $35 to $60 per bag.)
In September, its on-time rate of 85.8 percent improved 11.3 percent from August, coming in a smidge below the airline industry’s average on-time rate of 86.5 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
And a month after that, the company in year-over-year passenger complaints — and a 45.8 percent drop from the prior month.
While it hasn’t forsaken its ultra-low-cost strategy — it in July and it still charges to your kid — all that earlier cost cutting did have some impact: Frontier was the in the U.S. and the seventh in the world in June, according to Airline Weekly.
“We’ve made more money in the last 10 months than we’ve made in the previous 10 years combined,” The Denver Post in July.
Tamara Chuang: tchuang@denverpost.com or visit dpo.st/tamara
