Frontier Airlines - Carvana of The Skies?
Howard Lindzon
November 15, 2022
Good morning.
About five to six times a year I will tweet something that goes viral. It is NEVER related to stocks, markets or investing. Yesterday, I was sitting down in my Frontier Airlines middle seat and tweeted this:
I thought it was funny enough that after I typed it, I showed it to Ellen and she laughed (have a read of the whole thread here). Ellen does not use Twitter and went right back to scrolling Facebook.
My next tweet was funnier (to me), but the people of Twitter snubbed it:
It turns out that Frontier has nailed a demographic with their pricing/service/branding ('Cheap Bastards').
I can't imagine how they stay in business, this feels a bit like Carvana, but my wife was quite aware of the $50 one way airfares from san Diego to Phoenix.
As I boarded the plane it was like a scene out of a war torn border country as people were yelling and pleading with Frontier agents that their bag did indeed fit in the miniscule carry on bag measuring container.
I was prepared because Ellen had told me about the one small carry bag policy!
The customer is so well profiled as 'frugal' that the exit row seats were not purchased. The weight of the plane was such that Ellen and I volunteered to move forward and take the seats for free so the flight could take off.
The 48 minute flight went off without a hitch - other than the seat shrapnel in my left calf from the metal seat I was screwed into - and than I saw something that made me think Frontier was genius. The plane deboarded in 3 minutes.
Thank you Frontier.