Last week I boarded a Frontier Airlines flight, settled in the window seat, and was able to stretch out — a little bit — thanks to an empty middle seat next to me.
It wasn’t by luck.
The airline is leaving the middle seat empty in its first couple of rows and charging extra for the window and aisle seats in those rows as part of its “premium” section called UpFront Plus.
And both airlines have totally overhauled how they display tickets and add-on fees. Gone are the days of buying an ultralow fare of, say, $19, and then adding seat selection, bags and the like (unless, of course, you select the lowest “basic” fare bucket, which is still a stripped-down ticket).
All of this raises the question: Are budget airlines worth another shot?
Plus, it’s gotten easier to make apples-to-apples fare comparisons on sites like Google Flights now that those airlines’ pricing structures are more similar to other carriers’.
But, when sitting in a Frontier UpFront Plus seat, there was little that made the experience feel “premium.” Sure, I had some extra space. But a can of soda still cost extra, the tiny tray table barely fit my iPad, and there was no Wi-Fi or inflight entertainment to speak of.
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