Frontier Removes Covid Recovery Fee
On June 22 we wrote about the Covid Recovery Charge that Frontier Airlines was charging passengers. The carrier was adding a $1.59 fee per passenger per flight segment. This had been in place since May, but it had gone unnoticed for a while.
The news was picked up by news outlets and Frontier faced backlash since it also received millions in government aid. So the airline quickly rescinded the Covid recovery fee, just a day later.
“Frontier Airlines has made the decision to rescind its Covid Recovery Charge of $1.59 per passenger per segment that was implemented in May,” Frontier said in a statement to Insider. “The charge, which was included in the airline’s total promoted fare versus an add-on fee, was meant to provide transparency and delineate what portion of the fare was going toward Covid-related business recovery, including repayment of a CARES Act loan from the U.S. Government. However, to avoid misinterpretation, the airline will discontinue the practice of breaking out this category within its overall promoted fares.”
It’s not clear how the Covid Recovery Charge was categorized, but airlines break down prices and often use ancillary fees since they’re not taxed. Ancillary revenue is revenue from non-ticket sources.
Conclusion
That’s a strange explanation. Frontier obviously doesn’t break down every every expense so there was no need to let passengers know that it is paying back its government loans $1.59 at a time.
The fee might not actually be a big deal, and will not change much as far as fares go. But it is just a bad look for Frontier to clearly charge the same customers who funded its government loans.
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