Frontier Airlines, known for its cheap fares and fees for everything from carrying a backpack to buying in-flight drinks, is making a deal for the wallets of wealthy travelers. The discount airline will introduce first-class seats on its planes, the company announced Tuesday, part of a broader trend of low-cost carriers increasing flight options.
To install the new first class seats, Frontier will ditch the first two rows of three-by-three economy seats in its current fleet and retrofit larger two-by-two row chairs in the front of the aircraft. The airline will start offering the seats at the end of 2025.
Along with the new seats, Frontier will revamp its loyalty program so that customers can exchange miles for waived baggage fees and seat upgrades. It will also divide you offer free seat upgrades for gold level members and above and free companion tickets for platinum and diamond level members.
“We’ve listened to customers and they want more—more premium options, such as first-class seats, available seat upgrades, more free travel for their travel companions and the ability to use miles on more than just an airline ticket,” Frontier CEO Barry Biffle said in a statement. press release.
Changes come after revision of its price structure announced earlier this year, in which the airline introduced four different booking options – from the cheapest basic to the more expensive business – and dropped change and cancellation fees for three of those options.
Other discount airlines have made similar changes to appeal to them revenge-spending travelers willing to spend on the trip, such as Spirit Airlines blocking the middle seat for customers traveling within Europe, i Southwest Airlines expanding the legroom and the abolition of the chaotic model of choosing your own seat.
After the pandemic, “there’s a clear trend toward more premiums,” Southwest CEO Robert Jordan said he said Associated Press last month. “Premium is kind of self-defined – whether it’s extra legroom, first class in Europe, whatever it is – but there’s a growing desire for premium, something a little bit better.”
Biffle expects Frontier’s latest premium brought in revenue of $250 million in 2026 and more than $500 million in 2028.
The view from the cheap seats
The appeal of low-cost carriers to wealthier travelers is ultimately an attempt to break free from a cash-strapped financial model. Despite what American airlines have seen record trips in 2024, discount carriers did not record a significant return. Spirit Airlines, USA seventh largest airline by passengers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November due to rising fuel and labor costs that have squeezed profit margins across the sector. While that may mean one less competitor for Frontier, it didn’t fare much better, he reported in October earnings $935 million in revenue, but only $26 million in net income.
Moreover, large legacy carriers like Delta and American Airlines eat the lunch of their cheap counterparts, since they already have the ability to hand out better perks to those who can afford it: Delta will Shake Shake offer with its first-class flights starting this month, for example. But to take advantage of last-minute travelers and vengeful spendthrifts, so do airlines extended routes to tourist hotspots, and more capacity meant more empty seats to fill and lower airfares to attract travelers to fill those seats.
Discount airlines that copy this strategy, combining better benefits and reduced fares, often end up higher ticket prices for long-haul customers, which could undermine the reputation of low-cost carriers for being, well, low-cost. It’s a calculated risk for low-cost airlines that can’t afford to lose more money.
“You can’t, if you’re at the lower end of the industry food chain, continue to post losses,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in earnings call in July, “especially given the state of demand we’ve seen over the last few years.”
