Frontier Removes Departure Times from Boarding Passes

June 12, 2015

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertising Policy, visit this page.

For better or worse, it doesn’t seem like Frontier Airlines is afraid to try new things. The carrier’s latest move is a bit puzzling on the surface, but it may just end up helping to speed up the boarding process. Frontier has decided to only list the time that boarding begins and the time that the door closes on boarding passes — generally, the door is closed 10 minutes before the set departure time. Frontier is the first major US airline to make this change to its boarding pass.

Frontier’s boarding passes will no longer list a departure time. Courtesy of Shutterstock.

Frontier’s spokesman tells USA Today that ideally the change will help get flights out more quickly — with only the boarding and door-close time listed, passengers won’t show up at the departure time and expect to board a flight. According to FlightStats, the carrier’s current on-time arrival performance rate is just 74%, which is below airlines such as American, Delta and United. It might be a long shot, but if all goes according to plan, the new boarding pass will hopefully improve the airline’s on-time departure ranking.

Reminder: Frontier may not be a part of a major alliance, but you can still bank extra credit card points by using a card that maximizes airfare purchases, like 3x on airfare with the American Express Premier Rewards Gold or 2x on the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Check out this post for more on maximizing airfare purchases.