In a daring leap of faith a US airline, Frontier Airlines has totally done away with its call centre. It remains to be seen if the airline will experience customer and consumer activist fall-out as a result.
Clients seeking customer support from Frontier Airlines can no longer get help from an agent by calling the airline, as the carrier has discontinued the option for callers to speak to someone on the phone.
“This is insane. There are plenty of things that could be done online, or through the airline’s mobile app. And if you want to fly Frontier, it’s not nuts for them to expect the burden to be on the customer to use the least-costly means of interacting with them. They already set up their fees in a way to encourage online check-in, prepayment of bags before getting to the airport, etc.,” writes travel expert Gary Leff, on his blog View From The Wing.
“However, they have customers that simply aren’t going to be able to interact that way. Indeed, I wonder whether removing this channel of customer service will comply with the Air Carrier Access Act.”
"We have found that most customers prefer communicating via digital channels," Frontier Airlines claims. "Customers can visit our website and interact initially with a chatbot which provides answers to common questions. If live agent support is needed, we have live chat available 24 hours a day/7 days a week. Customers may also chat with us via common social media channels and WhatsApp."
The former customer support number now answers with the following message only: "We offer the lowest fares in the industry by operating our airlines as efficiently as possible. We want our customers to operate efficiently as well, which is why we make it easy to find what you need at FlyFrontier.com or on our mobile app. We also have a chat service."
Brett Snyder, creator of air travel blog Cranky Flier, tweeted in response: “This is unreal. It appears Frontier no longer has a reservations phone number. The old ones are disconnected and say to go to this page where you can chat or email.”
