Originally Posted by
FriendlyPilot
I agree with this. There are a lot of people that need wifi when they travel. My wife works in venture capital and she lives on email. No way she would ever fly an airline that didn't have internet on a flight longer than an hour. Same with first class. She's always in first if its available because she pulls out the laptop and she's in her email the entire flight.
A lot of people that might fly on Frontier, Spirit etc don't because they lack a product that they want. The problem is the cost that it takes to get there. Even United is spending money to remove Polaris seats for the new Polaris Studio because people will pay for the upgraded experience. Its pretty crazy in my opinion but the 787s will have over 60 of these on each plane. A Polaris seat from SFO to Tokyo is about $8k and these things sell out.
I can't imagine that Frontier can't add some first class or premium seats and get more revenue that way.
I am a G4 lurker but couldn't resist. Ya'll are living in an echo chamber if you think "investing" in the product to compete with anybody other than NK and G4 and maybe the startups is delusional.
There is an airline that precisely fits the story you are telling and that is B6 and they haven't turned a profit since 2019. They offer a great product. fantastic imo for a LCC. But they have underperformed for over a decade. Only reason they are still around is they possess a huge portion of the most valuable airline real estate in the world (JFK slots).
You do know that NK is trying to do what you are saying F9 should do and it is failing miserably. It would take years to rebuild the F9 brand into a non-ULCC airline and unfortunately in this industry F9 doesn't have years to re-brand and let the flying public learn through word of mouth, social media, etc. the "new" frontier. We are in the same boat here at allegiant. No wifi, lots of delays, but the fewest cancellations in the industry. we are puttering along, we tried to differentiate ourselves with a billion dollar swamp hotel that we just sold for $200m. again, nobody is gonna associate allegiant with the ritz or four seasons and that's what our former president tried to do with a luxury resort in a florida swamp.
bottom line: forget about dreams that F9 will ever be something other than a ULCC. You don't want it to be anything different because to do a true re-brand and make it like the pre-bankruptcy F9 would require... a bankruptcy.