Frontier decided to end its efforts to make a go of things at New York’s JFK airport last week with the termination of all but one, single daily flight from the airport. This makes sense, but the opposite is happening across the country in Los Angeles where Frontier continues to build. These are both expensive, coastal airports. So why is one being treated better than the other? I don’t have an answer.
Through the pandemic, Frontier had been pushing to abandon high-cost airports, but that changed in 2024 when it reversed course and went back into LAX while also starting its first JFK service. The schedule data from Cirium tells the tale:
Frontier Departures by Airport Over Time: JFK vs LAX
Data via Cirium
Up until, well, up until right about now, the two airports were growing together, but they have quickly diverged. Why? I think it’s safe to say that a change in CEO from Barry Biffle to Jimmy Dempsey had something to do with that. The timing is far too suspicious for it not to be a factor. We now see two airports on very different trajectories in the Frontier network, but they have similar characteristics.
At JFK, Frontier had started slow with a couple daily flights to San Juan, but it ramped up to the point where it served 10 destinations this winter. Other than San Juan, we had beach destinations in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, all of which are Frontier bases. There was leisure flying to another base in Las Vegas along with connectivity to Frontier bases in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, and Denver. And then there was the nonstop from JFK to LAX, the only non-base flight at the airport.
After mid-April, JFK will plunge down to only having a single daily flight from Atlanta arriving mid-day and then turning around to head back south. This, I assume, it much more about Frontier’s new-favorite and largest operation in Atlanta than it is about New York.
LAX, meanwhile, is set up differently. It has service to around 15 airports that I break down this way:
- Frontier base flying: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Orlando, Philly (seasonal)
- Short-haul, West Coast: Las Vegas (base), Phoenix (base), Portland (OR), Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle
- Other big cities: Houston/IAH and New York/JFK (just ended)
Houston is a strange outlier, but what’s notable here is that a ton of the West Coast flying is between two non-bases, so it requires routing airplanes from elsewhere just to fund these flights. You’d think that would make this harder to justify than JFK which was almost all flying to bases.
Is this a precursor to an LAX base? I can’t imagine that, considering the high costs of complying with regulation and taxation in California. That doesn’t fit the Frontier model, so instead it will flow airplanes from its bases through LAX to run other routes which seems like a pretty heavy lift.
That thing is, I’m not sure that any of this really fits the Frontier model. New CEO Jimmy Dempsey has indicated he needs to drive down costs, so flying to airports with costs per enplanement well north of $30 like LAX and JFK seems like a mistake.
The end of JFK flying makes all too much sense. Not only is there ample competition on these routes from other airlines, but there are plenty of flights from LaGuardia which is closer in to the city anyway. So this is about serving the people who find JFK more convenient than either LaGuardia or Islip and need a cheaper fare. It’s not hard to see how this doesn’t work very well.
In LA, it is a different story in that sense. LAX is the primary and closest airport for a wide swath of the region, and a big part of that region has the money to travel. It’s Burbank to the northeast or Long Beach to the southeast that bracket the airport, but they aren’t ideal for those on the wealthy westside, including Santa Monica. Still, that doesn’t seem like justification enough.
Perhaps this is all about the recent decision by CEO Jimmy Dempsey to have the airline fly its airplanes more to keep costs down. That means boosting flying on off-peak Tuesday/Wednesday/Saturday. So Frontier needs markets that it hopes it can actually fill on those weaker days. LAX certainly has demand, so perhaps that what is making it appealing? I’m really stretching here.
I’m guessing the real appeal here is that Southwest is increasingly expensive, and Frontier thinks that it can make a living doing infrequent service between big West Coast cities with cheap fares. With the Southwest fare canopy being as high as it is, competition is much weaker on the West Coast than on the other side of the country. So perhaps there’s a chance that Frontier can make money even with that enormous airport cost? Probably not. Frontier’s historical fares are still pretty low there.
To add a cherry on top, Frontier passengers have a terrible LAX experience since they have to check in at Terminal 1.5 and then take a bus to the midfield concourse gates. That’s most annoying when your flight is only an hour on these short-haul runs.
So why is Frontier still trying to make a go of things at LAX? I’m running out of ideas.
