Frontier Airlines has ditched its ‘More Room’ seat fee even before it got off the ground.
It planned to charge passengers a $39 fee to guarantee an adjacent middle seat is left empty for ‘a little more personal space.’
The ideal was slammed by lawmakers leading to a hasty rollback by the company.
During the House Transportation Committee hearing Peter DeFazio called it outrageous for ‘capitalizing on fear and passengers’ well-founded concerns for their health and safety.’
Sen. Amy Klobuchar said it puts a price on in-flight health and safety.
‘I don’t think it’s appropriate for some passengers who can’t afford to pay an additional charge for a seat to be less safe than other travelers,’ Klobuchar said."
Frontier president and CEO Barry Biffle acknowledged ‘the concerns raised that we are profiting from safety’ but that was not the airline’s ‘intent.’
The airline says its average passenger loadings are trending above 50% making social distancing more difficult.
"Blocking all middle seats or one-third of all airline seats would materially change airline economics and cause airfares to increase by 50% to maintain the same revenue," Biffle said.
"This would not only be harmful to consumers but would cause further strain on the economy at a time when our country can least afford it."
"We simply wanted to provide our customers with an option for more space."
