It's not "unbundling" they literally just added new costs for features that were originally free because they can get away with it. So far, I have also found you are now REQUIRED to pay for your seats if you want to sit together. Frontier splits me and my wife even when there's seats available
I fly Southwest too. I like the flexibility that they provide.
If you don't feel like flying today, that's fine with them. No change fees. However, sometimes they don't feel like flying either, and you also need to extend them the same courtesy.
Hear hear. It would've been one thing if, when they invented Basic Economy, it was "you can get cheaper flights now but you lose all these things you're used to." Instead, as I recall, it was "welcome to Basic Economy, where you still pay the same amount you used to, but we've taken away a bunch of stuff you now have to pay extra fees for."
It's interesting you used Frontier as an example. Frontier's whole business model is "unbundle everything the law allows." This means dirt-cheap fares that alone can't cover their costs of running the flights. They need the fees to make the whole thing work.
I fly on Frontier all the time, and while I do hate all of their upselling during the checkout process, my flight does end up being significantly cheaper than any other option.
In this case, I searched for a flight to Atlanta - Frontier was $49, Delta was $250. After going through the checkout process, I paid exactly $49 for my Frontier flight. I need to add a checked bag, which it looks like they charge $50 for, but $99 is still << $250.
When I lived out of state, I'd go up to visit family for the weekend with just a laptop and 2 changes of clothing. The dirt cheap budget flight options were amazing.
