Barry Biffle, chief executive of Frontier Airlines (F9, Denver International), has said that the ultra-low-cost carrier (ULCC) model is “alive and well” in the United States, responding to claims from counterpart United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby that the model had failed.
Participating in a travel conference in New York, Biffle said that cost advantages for ULCCs continue to widen, so the model is successful. He added that the surplus in domestic supply, which is impacting yields, is hurting everyone, not just low-cost operators but legacy carriers as well.
Kirby recently remarked that the ULCC model was “an interesting experiment” but had failed in the United States after budget carrier Spirit Airlines filed for a second bout of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in less than a year in late August, and other no-frills airlines had introduced legacy-like amenities such as first-class seating (Frontier will do so in 2026) and loyalty schemes.
United and Spirit have entered into a war of words, with the former also announcing additional capacity from markets served by the latter in case the ULCC collapses.
"It's just absurd. Look, the people that fly Frontier are not people that spill from [United]. They are people that would have never flown [United] in the first place," Biffle said, as reported by Reuters.
