A reader was refused check-in by Frontier Airlines in Raleigh when they were trying to fly to Boston. They report showing up at the airport counter 50 minutes prior to departure, thinking that’s plenty since they have CLEAR for security and didn’t expect more than 5 minutes to the gate.
There were three things they weren’t expecting.
- Frontier’s check-in rules that require you to arrive at least one hour before departure (they booked through an online travel agency and didn’t know to look for this)
- That Frontier charges extra for a printed boarding pass at the airport
- And that Frontier staff are… a little different than what you find at most airlines. They don’t exude the usual professionalism other airlines expect.
The couldn’t use a kiosk and were told they had to check in at the counter. Initially the agents were happy to help – for a $25 fee. He pushed back, “I’ve never experienced that and they said it’s on their website. I said I wouldn’t have known to look at the website.”
Reaching for his credit card, he mutters under his breath that he’s “never flying this shitty airline again.” Big mistake. The agent helping him shut down, and refused to print a boarding pass. They even threatened to ban him from the airline, to help him keep his promise not to fly Frontier again. Police were called.
Ultimately the airport police arrived and they were extremely polite and professional. I ask them In private if I am being ridiculous And they both nodded their heads empathetically that I was not.
Most interesting to me is that they said this is not going to be the last incident – probably not even the last incident today with Frontier Airlines.
Now he’s stuck with a Frontier ticket he wasn’t allowed to use, and a new $500 charge for a flight on JetBlue 90 minutes later.
It’s interesting they were initially willing to check him in, since officially their policy is to cut off check-in 60 minutes prior to departure. So things started off well! I suspect these agents are so used to customer behavior going off the rails that they are a bit hair-trigger themselves. And Frontier staff do seem more informal anyway!
The passenger reports that he called Indigo Partners which owns Frontier Airlines: “They had a customer service person who works on higher level issues Call me. that person Was incredibly empathetic and professional, and he is looking into this and trying to resolve it.”
Frontier plays games. I flew them once, had a terrible experience, and decided to book a different airline for the return leg. They’re welcome to ban me.
I have no doubt this was frustrating for your reader, but I have to say… they aren’t coming across as particularly sympathetic here.
An aggressive comment when an agent is seemingly bending the rules for you after you miss the clear check-in cut off is not going to end well.
passengers must know that Low Cost Carriers are looking for any revenue they can find. Boarding pass, changing seats, baggage charges etc. To try to ban a passenger for being upset at surprize charges (not everyone spends 30 minutes combing through websites) is a terrible reflection on senior management, CEO and the Board of Directors at Frontier. They probably should not be in the people transportation business.
Very unprofessional but it’s what I’ve come to expect.
The fatigue is getting real for everyone.
I think a moral here is that when using someone else it’s a good idea to double check things. Recently I was at a check-in counter and at the next one over a man was refused a ticket to Colombia because he didn’t have an e-visa. He said his travel agent hadn’t told him he needed one. If he was a U.S. citizen he was probably right, but it doesn’t hurt to be certain. Things can get messed up; I once almost missed a trip to China as a guest of their government because somebody reversed my first and last names. I took the time to confirm the trip with the airline and they caught it, so Beijing was able to straighten it out.
The abuse of police calls by airline customer service agents and flight attendants for non-legitimate reasons needs to stop. There should be a per-event fine for any airline that calls the police for a non-safety, purely commercial dispute reason. Fine severity should be escalating in frequency (e.g. $1000 for the first time in a given year, $2000 for the second, etc). The police are given special state-given license of removal with the threat of force to protect the public from danger, not to act as airline “enforcers” when they are refusing to provide services for which customers have paid.
Frontier reports a quarterly loss and a drop off in bookings.
Has Frontier figured out that they may run out of customers to whom they give a terrible first time experience and who will never fly them again?
There are way too many awful experiences on Frontier which are far beyond just their fee model.
If he agreed to pay the $25 fee, just check him in
Spirit and Allegiant seem to be more professional than Frontier. The basic rule has to be try to fly on a regular airline (Big 4 plus Alaska and JetBlue) if possible. If those don’t work, then consider Spirit, Allegiant, Avelo but avoid Frontier. Do I have that right?
If you just show the actual footage of the employees of Frontier in 2025 and put a logo on it that says something like “Hood Rat Airlines” it would pass for an over-the-top parody on an SNL-type show in 1995.
Never flown or tried to book with Frontier. I have flown Spirit a few times. I have found their flight attendants and counter agents to be courteous, friendly, and professional. I have also never witnessed any arguments or physical alterations during these times.
I live in Denver. They have so many flights and others don’t that sometimes I have no choice. The airline is absolutely the worst. I can tell you stories but I would run out of room. I absolutely hate them. They are a downside of living in this area.
Friends don’t let friends fly Frontier Airlines.
I have banned Frontier Airlines and put them on my Never Fly list.
Another potential passenger who didn’t read the terms of his ticket as well as the requirements of the check in. I do not have a lot of sympathy for the passenger. Sort of penny wise and pound foolish. $25 for late check in should have been an easy yes. The only thing the agent didn’t do was charge an extra $50 for the snotty remark if the check in was still wanted. As it is, the passenger had to recover his trip for $500 on another airline. I wonder if he made any snotty remarks over there. Getting an education isn’t cheap.
Frontier customer service is awful. Stories like this is why the Frontier is struggling to fill up their airplanes. They just lost another $40 million in the 1st quarter of 2025. People absolutely hate flying them. CEO Barry Biffle wants to cut here and cut there to improve profitability but the one thing he never looks at is improving customer service and firing nasty customer service agents like this nasty person in the article. If Frontier does not address this issue, it will be the demise of Frontier for sure. It’s not worth it to fly them to save maybe $50, it’s truly not. You have to hold your breath when you fly them in hopes you’ll avoid nightmares like this one
I’m currently fighting with Frontier (and will never fly them again) after I was involuntarily bumped in favor of someone who had paid more for their ticket. After waiting three hours at the airport I was offered a flight over ten hours later for only $200 more. My ‘compensation’ they offered was a $10 meal voucher. Legally I’m entitled to several hundred dollars but think this may end up in small claims court. NEVER FLY FRONTIER!
We need a passenger bill of rights and a set of laws that ban unreasonable airline charges. My proposal:
-Airlines cannot charge additional fees to check-in, print boarding passes, board the aircraft, or for onboard water.
-An airline shall not call police when passengers complain or disparage the airline. This is their right.
-Airlines shall maintain adequate staffing at checkin counters. Lines longer than 15 minutes to clear are subject to fine.
-The aircraft door closes at departure time. Passengers cannot be denied boarding if they arrive at the gate prior to this time. The airline can recommend, but not enforce, earlier boarding times.
My story is even is even weirder allmoay a fraud like ripoff
I had booked a flight from San Juan too Santo Domingo
I arrived an hour an half before departute at the ticket counter
for the boarding pass,,, when i was asked for the e-ticket visa required bty the dominican authorities,, i remembered i forgot too fill out the form on the phone, the Lady on the ticket counter right away said you are not going to make the flight and she could rebook at no charge on the next flight which would have been next day,,, i told her not to worry but the internet situacion was bad instead of 4 minutes too fill out the form it took me allmost an half hour,,,, abd the ticket counter lady said they charge 10 dollars too help … Any way i got in done liitle did i know thet day was really busy. so i left the counter an hour before the sheduled
security took a while and once i was at the gate accordimg too boarding pass… there was noo plane… i fllaggeed down Frontier staff but theiy did not give me gate number saying the plane closes its door twenty minutes before departure i would be too late… So i could not finf the gate thinking the flight had allready left so i went back to the ticket counter…. there they told me they could rebook for 75 for the next day….. so the trip instead of 180 cost me with xtra 80 Uber and the 75 rebooking fee 310 dollars… when i finally left the airport forty minutes after i left the gate area i saw on a screen that my original flight had not even departed yet .
pretty shure if this was not a setup,,, it was l caused by the non helping attitude of Frontier Staff at the airport…… I learned my lesson better pay a little morere wiith Jet blue next time
The Passenger was rude and insulting, and he’s surprised that the airline employees responded in kind. You reap what you sow. Stop acting like an entitled ashore and you’ll find people are nicer to you. No sympathy.
@Aaron — 100%. We need a passenger bill of rights that also includes things like compensation for excessive delays under the airline’s control, like EU261 or Canada’s APPR, though Congress would probably have to legislate it, which I don’t expect to happen anytime soon.
@drrichard — Well said. Moral here is definitely to double-check policies, especially if you don’t regularly fly the airline or route, arrive early, be patient, kind to others, expect games, power trips, unruly fellow passengers, and try not to lose our cool, because when things don’t go well there’s often little recourse, other than maybe a partial refund, sometimes after many weeks and months of trying and credit card disputes. Good luck out there everyone!
I’m sure he paid less than $100 for the ticket and was happy at that time. Serves him right to pay $500 for another flight. The rules for these cheap tickets are clearly written on Frontier website and everyone knows that. Maybe he should take the bus next time.
@Carl
They all have the same employees. They all work for contractors with the exception of Spirit in Fort Lauderdale and Sun Country in Minneapolis. At some stations, they work a Frontier flight and then go change clothes and work a Spirit flight.
A couple years ago I purchased a round trip ticket from Las Vegas to Cleveland. My experience was so bad after arriving 2 hours late in Cleveland, I threw away my return ticket. I purchased a new ticket from SWA. I would not fly Frontier again even if they gave me a free ticket!
Frontier issues $1,000 vouchers for Voluntary Denied Boarding, but when you try to book a flight using the voucher two weeks later, the voucher is worth $5. If your flight is $50, Frontier will charge you $5 for the flight and $45 for taxes and fees (most Frontier vouchers don’t cover taxes and fees). The voucher is worth $5 and the $45 comes out of your pocket. Frontier will keep the rest of the $950 because most of their vouchers are one time use.
@Aaron and @1990. You should both run airlines and see what your on time performance is allowing passengers gets to get on the plane at departure time. If they get on at departure they still have to walk the jetway, shuffle down the isle, put their stuff either in overhead or under seat, find seat and unless on the aisle have other passengers get up to let you get to your seat, then sit down and buckle up, it’s another 5-10 minutes. ALL airlines close the doors 10-15 minutes prior to scheduled take off time. There is also a lot of paperwork that needs to be printed and prepared once the last passenger is checked in, seat counts etc. Given all this you’ll be the first to complain of the flight always being late,
Follow the rules, I flew nearly 50 Frontier flight segments on their Go Wild pass and have had no problems. A couple delayed and cancelled flights, but all airlines have those. Just had a delayed flight that hampered my plans, so called customer service and they promptly refunded both the outgoing and return flight, no hassle. So to say they have unreasonable or terrible customer service is not true.
I lost any sympathy for this guy when he said he was never flying this shifty airline again.
It truly baffles my mind how people get upset with others doing their jobs!! You as the passenger should have done your research on the airline that you are flying! It is public knowledge that Frontier CLOSES the ticket counter 1 hour prior to departure. Also it is stated on their website that there is an ADDITIONAL charge to check in at the counter!! There are many things listed on the website that you should know PRIOR to flying them!! Had you not gone to an unnecessary third party site to book and done your flight research you would have known that. All airlines request that you be at the airport 2 HOURS PRIOR to departure. While the Frontier “agents”, who are employed through a temp agency, are clueless as to how REAL AIRLINE procedures work, in this case they were correct. Even though they have ZERO professionalism and lack tact, he is purely at fault.
Thanks for the heads up. I will put them on my No-Fly list. A 60 minute rule is a money grab by a cheap-o airline. If the plane door is closed I know I can’t get on the plane. What is the point of this artificial timeline? To grab money and nothing else.
Trust me when I say this – if you have to be anywhere at a particular day/time, DO NOT FLY FRONTIER ! They are notorious for just canceling flights, leaving you stranded and then you have a return flight they care nothing about.
@EG in OC — Nice cop-out. No one needs to literally ‘run an airline’ to support passenger rights legislation. See the EU and Canada. Such rules do not bankrupt airlines; rather, they encourage more reliable service to avoid penalties. We deserve better. 4-6 hour delays over staffing or maintenance issues should result in compensation by the airline to affected passengers. This isn’t about mere 30 minute delays because of a thunderstorm. Wake up.
Let me assist those of you who haven’t thought this through. If you make a rule that a 3:15pm flight can’t close doors before 3:15pm, the airlines will simply change the departure time for that and all other flights earlier by 15 minutes. The new 3pm flight will depart about the same time as the old 3:15pm flight, arriving, on average, at the same time as before. This ain’t rocket surgery.
Further, want to have a mandatory compensation schedule for delays: no problem. It will get built into the airfare. If a flight experiences a delay requiring $300 in compensation 10% of the time, you would very well expect airfare to increase by $30 plus (the $30 = 10%×$300, the plus pays for the additional costs of processing claims). You’ve forced airlines to offer “insurance” with a ticket sale. The cost of the ticket goes up by the cost of insurance. Force used cars come with a warranty? The price goes up. This is Econ 101 difficulty.
Many times there booking website does not work properly,,, so you have too book treough 3 party… but would you trust a company who cant keep
their booking platform operational … maintaining their flight operations and aircraft.????
Better avoid them or better have the government shut em down.
@Dave W. — Sounds like a deal. Speaking of deal, Ryanair operates under EU261 all the time with dirt-cheap fares (admittedly, you get what you pay for, expect Spirit, but worse), yet they aren’t bankrupt. They get insurance for this as a company; those premiums don’t add much at all to any ticket. And private insurance for us isn’t good enough as most terms require delays of more than 72 hours or 50% of your total trip. So, once again, your silly objections fall flat here. And, I hope, once the actual ‘common sense’ people (perhaps, ‘better’ sense) return to power in the USA, they really ought to include what should have been bipartisan legislation on this topic. Call it US261, or whatever, just get it done!
I work at the airport and tell people all day long you couldn’t pay me to fly frontier.
I’ve seen this and absolute joy when they get to tell a passenger they have to pay more (and more) to get onto the flight.
I have enjoyed flying for 25 years, I have been flying for 50 years. The pleasure of flying disappeared a long time ago. This is the bottom of the barrel for customer service. I have watched all of the airlines operations deteriorate from what was once a great thing to being the worst managed industry in the US.
I have enjoyed flying for 25 years, I have been flying for 50 years. The pleasure of flying disappeared a long time ago. This is the bottom of the barrel for customer service. With the mismanagement of all the a the US airlines expect the bottom to become the norm.
As I’ve said many times, who would work for the worst airline, ie the worst employer in the airline industry? Who would work for an airline that is regarded as the last choice and is hated by so many?
You see who would work there in this video, the very worst people with no customer service skills, who laugh at their customers and taunt them.
In a fast food restaurant these two would be fired, at frontier this is rewarded behavior.
Rocket surgery, a combination of brain surgery and rocket science. I like it. I suppose that a new job opening will be for rocket surgeon. Can a job description for a jet surgeon be far behind?
Stupid people hitch a ride on the flatbed of a chicken truck and wonder why at the end there’s chick poop all over their clothes.
I love Frontier!! Lowest rates out of Utah and no one is close. As long as you have your is together, they are awesome. It was like $75 ROUND TRIP to fly to AZ.
So happy Frontier left EGE. They discovered in a short time that nobody wants to fly them, no matter how low the price.
I looked at a cheap Frontier fare but by the time I added a bag, seat selection (travelling with others) and got a final price it was not much better than advanced purchase big 3 airlines from that airport. The conditions (boarding pass, timing, terminal location, changes, cancellation, etc) exclusions (meal/snack, drinks, assistance, etc) and customer feedback like this made my choice obvious. For all that, be a wise traveler and always read the small print, especially on LCC’s. You makes a choice and you pays the price – then the fun begins. The $25 assisted checkin late fee will be there somewhere. If you escalate with some gate staff, you can expect reducing cooperation. On board, you better do exactly what you are told!
The point of closing the flight 60min before is
– less staff to admin the weight and balance of the aircraft, confirm fuel, etc
– less staff to load the bags on the aircraft, get stowed and closed
– some greater ability to sell no-show seats and/or promote to better seating
– more likely passengers get to the gate in time
– much more likely the aircraft will be closed up and ready for departure on time
Its certainly not for customer service. Its to reduce costs.
WOW IF FRONTIER DOESN’T FIRE ALL THESE EMPLOYEES ON THIS VIDEO THEY NEED TO BE SUED. I HAVE 150,000 MILES ON FRONTIER THAT WILL NOW THROW AWAY. I WILL NEVER FLY THIS AIRLINE AGAIN
Here is the CEO of Frontier. I start complaining with him
barry.biffle@flyfrontier.com
I stopped flying Frontier when they refused to honor their refund policy. Watched later in Denver as 10 agents showed up when boarding started, telling people everything was oversized and they need to pay $100 to keep it in the cabin. It’s abusive.
We fly Frontier all the time and never had the issues described here. But we know the rules amd always book directly through the airline. Sure I’ve had some less than friendly check in agents and FAs aren’t super friendly once in a while but I’ve had that on United and America’s and people get what they deserve when they fly discount and don’t know the rules.
@EG inOC — Frontier can offer tremendous value to people like you who have reasonable expectations and know the airline’s rules and limitations. Few critics realize it, but these days Frontier does a surprisingly good job getting people where they need to go at a reasonable price. The problem is their customer service is generally poor and there are many traps for the unwary: especially infrequent customers who buy tickets from online travel agencies.
Frontier needs to fire them , unprofessional is putting it mildly. If Frontier doesn’t cut ties, then air travelers do not fly with them. They use second hand planes anyways.