Where to start....
1. Booked flight from BDL airport to SFO over Christmas from Dec 17, return on Dec 27/28. Southwest charged the reasonable $35 fee to check a small soft fabric bag.
2. Arrived at BDL airport, flew to Baltimore on Southwest with three hour layover but due to a power outage in SF, turned into a six hour layover. Not their fault, I get it.
3. Arrived at SFO for my flight to BDL on December 27,2025 and was told there was no free carry on luggage, all luggage was charged an exhorbitant fee. One small carry on bag and another bag the same size as the other and the combined fee was $158!!!!!!
4. Arrived at the gate and heard flight crew discussing that we would be taking a short cut to the layover destination in Atlanta. Being a well traveled person, I was wary of the shortcut, and I was correct to worry. I asked the directions of the shortcut and it would be over the Rocky Mountains, in my opinion the roughest, most turbulent area in the US. The shortcut allowed us to reach Atlanta in 3.59 minutes, which was extremely fast, but no paying customer had asked for a three hour turbulent ride where the plane was shaking so hard from the turbulance, the sides of the plane soundd like they were coming undone. I know I was not the only person praying outloud as the plane hurtled through the air fast as a fighter jet. It was so fast that I guess one way to deal with bad turbulence is to hurtle through it as fast as one can, but the resultant feeling was chaos and not safe.
5. We landed more than an hour early and my thought was Well, okay. Great. I sure couldn't sleep on that red eye flight so I will get something to eat, but barely had the chance as there were three gate changes in the time we had, with the last change being a train ride to get to that last gate which was located at the very end of the train ride. All of the passengers, I am guessing about 300 people made a mad dash for the train since we were supposed to board as soon as we got there. No surprise, the train was packed to the gills. I know Frontier does not operate the train, but there were no handrails for me to hold onto and I couldn't reach the straps. I am 5'3" which is not tiny, but there was nothing I could reach and had to rely on the crowd of people to hold me upright. On exiting the train, there was an escaltor which a woman I had visited with fell down because her suitcase didn't fit on the escalator stair.
6. We finally got to the correct gate and when it was time to board, we found out the scanner gun for the boarding passes wasn't working. Yes that's right. The scanner wasn't working, so they had to check everyone onto the plane by searching for the boarding pass number on a list of passengers, then making a call to be sure this was correct. 300 people not being scanned, 300 waiting patiently as it went.
7. We got on the plane and a young girl sitting next to me, who had put her luggage into the bin sideways instead of wheels to the back was told she had to check her bag. The steward gave her a ticket for her bag but he first wrote MIA for Miami airport on the ticket, she corrected him and said she was going to Bradley, but he wrote ATL for Atlanta, and when I called him over and said she is not going to Atlanta she is going to Bradley, he just scratched it out and rewrote it. It is no wonder her bag is now lost and she cannot reach anyone at Frontier to help her find her bag.
8. Last of all, no one seemed in any hurry to get us out of there. The staff stood at the open door laughing and talking long after we were all boarded on the plane. We arrived almost 3 hours late, and when we got there it was freaking forever before baggage came out and as I said, not everyone got their bag.
I will never fly Frontier again if only because a $60 charge for a carry on bag is insane and highway robbery. The almost $80 charge for the checked bag ($35 0n Southwest) was insane as well. When all charges were added up, I doubt my flight was cheap. I'd have rather spent it on a more reputable airline and next time I will. Remember, you get what you paid for.
I only wish there were stars for BAD. This flight was BAD. read more