I fly a lot. It’s part of my job.
I typically fly Delta but I was headed to Philly for one night for a party for some dear friends, and Delta doesn’t fly direct so I decided to go with Frontier. Direct flight and cheap was the goal and Frontier fit the bill.
I recently figured out that Agency is one of my core values. Having the freedom to choose. Options. Being able to do it my way.
With that as my core value, you would have thought that the Frontier booking process would be very enjoyable for me. You get to pick all the extras you want. Here’s how it went.
$230 for a basic ticket. YAY!
• Oh, you want a carry on? That’s $290
• Oh, you want to select your seat? That’s $330.
• Oh, you want priority boarding? That’s $360
• Oh, you want extra leg room? $390
• Checked luggage? $425
How far does this go????
• Cup of water and peanuts? MORE
• A seat belt?
• To use the lavatory?
• A seat inside the plane, or are you ok riding on top?? (I think my friend Kelly didn’t opt for this extra!)
Jumpin’ catfish, this is ridiculous. (To be fair, I made up those last 4).
By the end of this process I was so aggravated, I wanted to bag the whole trip. Who cares if my dear friends are having their first child after 4 years of IVF. Going to their baby shower is not worth all this. I don’t love them THAT much… (also worth noting, this is the case with most of the airlines these days…it’s not just Frontier).
And then I reminded myself of my core value…agency.
This ridiculous process was actually giving me exactly what I want so badly. I didn’t HAVE to pay for the seat. I didn’t HAVE to bring a carry-on. I didn’t HAVE to pay for more legroom. I got to decide what mattered enough to me to pay for…and what didn’t.
Was I instantly in love with this pricing model? Let’s not get carried away. But I realized there was another way to look at it.
Maybe I don’t have to love being charged separately for every stinkin’ thing. But there is something nice about being able to decide what I care about enough to pay for…especially when I’m traveling on the cheap. Having the option to choose is actually pretty nice!
(The fact that they dupe you into thinking it’s a $230 ticket and then charge you for everything you used to get for free is a totally different issue for another email geared towards customer experience!)
There’s not some epic lesson here. Just an easy twist of thinking to help ease the pain. Helpful? Maybe. Entertaining, hopefully. Or maybe I just gave voice to something you’ve been frustrated by too…helping you realize we’re all bumbling through this together.
So yeah. Thanks for reading this far! And don’t eat yellow snow. (If you got nothing else out of this email, THAT is solid advice.)
Go get ’em, Tiger!
Anne Bonney helps companies stop waiting for their teams to “get on board” with change and gets them moving through the discomfort and into action. Anne Bonney is an emcee and change keynote speaker specializing in the human side of organizational change, including resistance to change, resilience, leadership, emotional intelligence, and difficult conversations.
