Frontier cuts 14 routes, pulls out of 1 city in latest network shake-up

It’s not all growth for Frontier Airlines, as the airline has just quietly filed plans to exit a number of markets.

The Denver-based carrier will drop 14 routes from its network and will also drop service to Rochester, New York on May 8, first seen in Cirium schedules and Ailevon Pacific data, and later revealed by a spokesman for the airline has been confirmed.

The full list of track cuts is at the end of this post, but Frontier doesn’t shed much light on these adjustments. The earliest route cut will take effect in just over a month, and affected flights will be grounded until May 10.

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All affected travelers are entitled to a full refund on their flights, although rebooking on another airline so close to departure could be quite expensive.

Interestingly, many of the affected markets are bread-and-butter routes for American Airlines. This includes multiple flights from Miami, Philadelphia and Phoenix – all hub airports for American.

As one of the largest ultra-low-cost airlines in the US, Frontier naturally offers unbundled fares that don’t include baggage, seat reservations, or free changes. That means even if you never intended to fly Frontier, the airline in your market likely resulted in lower overall fares as major airlines attempted to compete more closely with Frontier’s fares.

For its part, Frontier states that “we regularly review and update our routes based on demand, seasonality and other factors.” Aside from Rochester, Frontier continues to serve all other airports, as it explained in the following statement: “We continue to provide service to a number of targets from these markets.”

Perhaps most surprisingly, more than half of route cuts are occurring in markets that launched less than a year ago. In fact, the Minneapolis-St. Paul to Phoenix departed in January, while flights from Fort Lauderdale to Chicago, Las Vegas and Phoenix all departed last November.

While Frontier has been aggressive about network growth during the pandemic, some of the airline’s bets clearly haven’t paid off. The airline apparently thought it could boost traffic and woo existing passengers with discounted fares, but that doesn’t seem to have worked in all of the airline’s new markets.

Still, the risk of failure hasn’t stopped Frontier from aggressively expanding, most recently adding eight new routes to Puerto Rico. Upon the launch of these new flights, Frontier will offer a total of 19 non-stop routes to the island, crowning the airline as the largest airline serving Puerto Rico by number of markets served.

If you’re planning to fly with Frontier, consider the airline’s new all-you-can-fly pass, which includes a seasonal summer special – currently for an introductory price of $499 for the season beginning June 2 30

Frontiers 14 track cuts

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