Frontier Airlines new system may not be as problem-free as the company has made it out to be.
The Denver-based airline has touted the recent move of its reservations and check-in system from Sabre to Navitaire’s New Skies — a change designed to expedite booking and check-in — as fairly smooth, with a few minor “hiccups.”
Customers, however, say the issues have been anything but minor, including hours-long waits on the phone, long check-in lines at the airport, and even some missed flights.
“There was a couple in front of me that had missed their flight to Cabo (San Lucas, Mexico) on vacation the day before because of the same thing,” said Mark Stevens, who flew Thursday to Portland, Ore., from Denver International Airport. “They were so frustrated at the whole situation. They should have been at the beach.”
Stevens arrived at DIA almost two hours prior to his 7:50 a.m. flight. He said the line to curb-check his bag was long, so he went inside. It took him at least 45 minutes to get to the counter.
“The line to drop bags had to be 70-80 people at least. There were two lines, neither of them moving,” he said. “From what I could tell, each employee was taking an enormously long time to process the person they’re working with.”
Compounding things, Stevens said, was the fact that the conveyor belt was broken, so employees had to manually walk baggage to the back area.
It was a bad situation for everyone — employees and passengers alike, he said.
Frontier spokesman Todd Lehmacher acknowledged the problems.
“We had long lines this morning as kiosks weren’t working for a time. That’s since resolved and DIA team just told me there are minimal wait times at ticket counter currently,” he said.
Website problems related to the system switch has pushed customers to dial Frontier’s call center and the flood of calls left many of them facing long periods on hold.
St. Paul, Minn. traveler Camille Morse Nicholson tried Thursday to check in for her flight online. After receiving several error messages on the Frontier website, she decided to call customer care, where she was on hold for more than an hour.
“The hold system directs users to their broken website, but also lets us know that ‘customer call volume is heavy’ and we should expect long wait times or call back later,” she said. “I’m confused — I was pretty sure that websites were supposed to alleviate call volume, not make a massive mess for everyone involved. It’s amateur hour.”
The long wait times could also be related to the company’s recent elimination of 1,160 jobs, including the reservations call center in Denver. On March 6, many of those jobs were switched over to contractor Sitel.
The calls coming into the airline are currently split between a smaller Frontier workforce and Sitel employees, who are located elsewhere. Call allocation — which is random — is causing different wait times: calls switched to Sitel have about a 20-minute hold time; calls going to the Frontier switch may wait on hold for more than an hour.
The company is working to resolve the issue, Lehmacher said.
“We have had some longer hold times than we’d like…varying from 20 minutes to an hour,” Lehmacher said. “We are still working on accurate call allocation between our call centers and those of Sitel since we are running a split operation so that’s the reason for some of the long times.
Sitel staffing will increase on Monday, which would help, and Lehmacher said things should “improve vastly within the next two weeks.”
That news may be welcomed by Alan Farb of Westminster, who says he made about 11 calls to the airline in a failed attempt to cancel a flight. Frontier, he says, changed his flight time from 10:30 a.m. to a “red-eye” departing at about 1 a.m.
“We feel bait-and-switched on this; the airline indicates the flight departure time is an operational decision,” he said. “Spending three hours today on calls doesn’t quite fit in with Frontier’s phone message, ‘Always looking to make your travel quick, easy and hassle free.’ I’ve spent more time trying to resolve the issue than the flight from Denver to Cincinnati and back.”
Problems when an airline migrates massive amounts of data aren’t unprecedented. In 2012, when United and Continental Airlines combined their reservations system
, there was a rash of incorrect frequent-flyer records, delayed flights and tied-up phone lines across the country.
Virgin America ran into similar issues in 2011 when it switched to the Sabre system.
There have been no Frontier flights cancelled due to the reservations system change, according to the airline, however, there have been issues with passenger name manifests, which could account for some of the problems.
“The website, continues to encounter issues that we are working diligently to resolve. It is critical that our customers have a reliable web experience as most Frontier bookings along with check-in are done directly through our site. We are also cleaning up some individual booking data that didn’t transfer properly for one reason or another,” according to a statement sent to Frontier employees Thursday that was obtained by The Denver Post.
Laura Keeney: 303-954-1337, lkeeney@denverpost.com or twitter.com/LauraKeeney
