A note from the Administrator

We've all felt this frustration.  We've all wanted to do this.  But this woman stepped over the line, and is probably facing arrest and being charged with assault.  But yeah, we all understand what drove her to do it.

Read the story and see the video 

My family of 5 just had a Frontier nightmare. Months after having booked the tickets, Frontier automatically changed the schedule of our RT flight from BWI to DEN to far less desirable flights -- twice -- requiring me to call in and wrangle acceptable alternative schedules, in the end increasing my lodging costs and changing the schedule of our trip. 

Next, at the gate for the outbound flight, my disabled wife with a walker was checking her walker for special assistance and they charged her $100 for a second bag/purse, and promptly charged another $100 to my minor daughter when she walked up to assist my wife. These ‘second bags’ could easily have been stuffed into their primary bags but there was no option offered, other than to not board the plane. When this happened, I was already on the plane with the other two children and unaware. These incidents were only the precursors to the main damages. 

Before the flight back from Denver, a known bug in the app caused us to be unable to check in using the app as email prompts suggested (users are referred from the web site to the native mobile app for check in; each of our flights were presented in the app as one giant oneway flight with a 317 hour layover in Denver, so check-in had not been possible only for the outbound departure). Because check in appears in the app to be done, we proceeded (no bags to check) to the gate to resolve this, only to be turned around at TSA for not having boarding passes in the app. Because one of the children was too young to have ID, TSA could not permit us to go forward to the gate for paper boarding passes, so we returned to Frontier ticketing, where the agent printed us paper boarding passes saying “99” for seat #s. 

Understanding that time was now tight, I asked if there was a call ahead or other services given my wife having a walker and the agent said ’no.’ We then hurried as fast as we could through TSA again but were too slow getting through a second time. We returned to Frontier ticketing after missing the 20 minute cutoff. Then they offered replacement flights at great schedule inconvenience for an additional $228 per passenger. 

Upon getting home, I filed a complaint with Frontier and got a defensive message that ludicrously offered to enroll my 5 family members in their loyalty program and award us 5,000 points (~$50) each. Enrolling in a Frontier loyalty program was the last thing to come to mind after fielding two schedule changes, taking $200 in surprise fees at the gate while seeking assistive services, and incurring an extra $1,300 in airfare after falling into the mire created by the bugs in the app and failure of agents to take any remedial actions as this was unfolding.

 

I am a disabled individual that uses a motorized wheelchair who had a problem flying with Frontier Airlines out of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, GA.  My wife and I were flying to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on May 17th, 2024, on flight F9 2174, scheduled to depart Atlanta at 3:04pm. The flight was booked on March 1st, 2024.  At the time of booking, I indicated that I had my own wheelchair and did not need further assistance.

Upon arrival at the airport, we were running late due to issues with finding an open parking lot.  After clearing security before 2pm, we checked and saw that our gate was E-2.  If you are not familiar with Hartsfield-Jackson, that is all the way at the end of the furthest domestic terminal.  When we arrived at the gate, a flight was boarding, but it wasn’t ours.  We were told that the gate had been changed to T-16, which was at the end of the terminal closest to security.  Before leaving terminal E, we stopped at the airport’s information desk and confirmed that our gate had been changed to T-16.  We make a mad dash across the airport to terminal T, only to get down to gate T-16 to find it empty and nothing about our flight.  We asked an airport employee and was told that the gate had been changed back to E-2!!  We received no notification from Frontier of the initial gate change to T-16, and I received an email at 3:58pm about the change back to E-2.  The email notifying me about the flight being delayed from 3:04pm until 3:51pm was not received until 5:07pm!

It was at this time, due to 2 mad rushes across the airport, that the battery in my wheelchair died.  My wife found an airport employee who called for wheelchair assistance.  A supervisor showed up and confirmed that our gate was indeed E-2 now.  However, he said he had no one available to push me back to E-2, and our choices were to either miss the flight or try and make it, with me stopping to charge up every gate or so as my battery ran out again.  My wife made another mad dash across the airport to gate E-2 to explain the situation to the gate agent and to try and get them to hold the door.  By the time I made it to terminal E, but not down to the gate, the flight had left, and the gate agent told my wife that it was our fault because we had not “checked in with wheelchair assistance” when we arrived at the airport.  When she flat out told the agent that he had made up that rule, his reply was “it’s on the ticket”.  Unfortunately, we did not get the name of the wheelchair supervisor or the gate agent.

We found an area to sit, and I got in a chat with a Frontier support agent. During this chat, I was told that we had been marked as a no-show, and even after telling the agent what happened, we were told that he could only make a one-time exception and rebook our flight with no change fee.  However, the earliest that they could get us to Ft. Lauderdale was the following morning, after spending the night in the Cleveland (?) airport.  Since we were traveling to celebrate my parent’s 65th wedding anniversary, that flight was not going to work.  The only choices we had at that time were to do nothing, which would also cancel the return flight, or cancel (at no charge) the flight to Ft. Lauderdale so that our return flight would still be useable. Having no real choice, we had Frontier cancel the flight, and found a flight on Delta that got us into Ft. Lauderdale that evening.

When returning to Atlanta on Sunday, May 19th, per the instructions of the Frontier gate agent in Atlanta, we checked in with wheelchair assistance, and when the person on duty looked at me strangely as I sat there in my personal motorized wheelchair, we told her the story of our flight from Atlanta. At this point in time, she started laughing.  After she stopped, she then took us over to the Frontier ticket counter, where we repeated our story for two Frontier ticket agents, who also laughed and then told us that there is no such rule.

I have sent a complaint to the USDOT, Frontier Airlines and Hartsfield-Jackson Airport