Strategy shift? Frontier unveils 54 new routes, goes head-to-head with competitors at their big hubs

24.01.2024 - 22:13 / thepointsguy.com / Barry Biffle

Frontier Airlines announced a slew of new routes this week that will see the ultra-low-cost carrier expand its footprint at more than three dozen airports – dramatically scaling up its presence at a handful of those.

In all, the Denver-based budget airline announced 54 new routes, by TPG's count, across 38 airports. Many of the new routes start in April, May or at the very beginning of June.

"This is a massive expansion of our operation from coast to coast and internationally," Frontier vice president of network and operations design Josh Flyr said in a statement announcing the news Tuesday.

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But it's where the airline is expanding that has caught the eyes of some industry observers.

Many of Frontier's new routes put the airline head-to-head with some of its largest U.S. competitors.

For instance, the airline will expand its presence most significantly at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), the home base of American Airlines. With 14 new routes out of DFW, Frontier will offer about 28% more seats during the second quarter of 2024 versus that same period in 2023, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Frontier will offer new service (albeit just a few times weekly) on several hub-to-hub routes of the largest U.S. carriers. It will fly between Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) and DFW and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport (ORD) — both American hubs. United Airlines runs a large hub out of O'Hare.

It will offer four weekly round trips between Delta Air Lines hubs in Atlanta and Minneapolis while also flying between Los Angeles and San Francisco — two United Airlines hubs.

Meanwhile, Frontier will offer fewer seats in the second quarter to Las Vegas, Orlando and Cancun — leisure destinations that are typically a hallmark of low-cost carriers' networks.

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Frontier executives teased this strategy shift late last year amid widespread industry commentary — which came perhaps most loudly from United executives — that airlines have simply added too many flights to popular domestic leisure destinations.

Though the competition can help drive lower airfare for travelers, it can make filling seats more challenging for airlines.

Frontier CEO Barry Biffle, speaking on the carrier's October 2023 third-quarter earnings call, cited an "uneven deployment of capacity" in the U.S. affecting Frontier's earnings performance.

"We will be targeting growth kind of away from those places that have been saturated — in the more underserved markets — as we move into