Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines reopened merger talks last October despite the canary-yellow carrier’s financial struggles. A month later, Spirit filed for bankruptcy. Three U.S. Senators publicly questioned on Wednesday whether both low-cost carriers are using customers’ personal information, such as their ZIP codes, to influence pricing directly. The legislators pondered whether customers see different prices for the same seats on the same flight.
Senators Maggie Hassan, Josh Hawley, and Richard Blumenthal stated in a letter that Frontier and Spirit should stop collecting personal information before showing ticket prices, according to Reuters. This alleged practice differs from dynamic pricing, the common practice of adjusting prices based on seat availability and competitors’ fares on the same route. Dynamic prices would be the same for any customer regardless of where they live.
Blumenthal and Hawley have led a continuing bipartisan effort to defend the consumer rights of the country’s airline passengers. During a December Congressional hearing, the senators grilled Frontier and Spirit executives over the carrier’s added fees. Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, made both executives even admit that they had incentivized their employees to force passengers to check the carry-on bags, making the airlines more money through fees. Hawley added:
“You guys do appreciate that flying on your airlines is a disaster, don’t you?…flying on your airlines is horrible. It’s a terrible experience…Nobody enjoys flying on your airlines. It’s a disaster.”
It’s hard to disagree with Senator Hawley. Between the rats aboard flights, the gate agent shakedowns and unreliable flight operations, why would anyone want to fly Frontier or Spirit besides the relatively low ticket prices?
