Frontier Airlines announced it has eliminated its call center and transitioned to only online, mobile, and text support to lower costs.
The budget airline carrier spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz told CNBC Wednesday that the transition to online, mobile, and text support will enable customers to get the “information they need as expeditiously and efficiently as possible.”
David Zalubowski/AP
Jack Filene, Frontier’s senior vice president of customers, said during the Nov. 15 investor presentation that the change would help reduce labor costs and accelerate transactions with potential customers. An online agent can handle three or more customer service inquiries simultaneously.
“Think about the type of obscure question a customer might ask that would take a call center agent many, many minutes to research and find an answer to. The chatbot can answer that very quickly,” Filene said.
Frontier had a $31 million profit on $909 million operating revenue in the last quarter. It spent $182 million on labor costs, its second-biggest expense after jet fuel, up nearly 70% from 2019.
A July spending report said there was strong demand for affordable airline travel, with a record high “ancillary revenue of $75 per passenger, both of which contributed to Frontier’s first profitable quarter on an adjusted basis in over two years,” said Barry Biffle, Frontier’s president and CEO.
