Passengers arriving in Orlando aboard Frontier Airlines on Sunday night found themselves stuck on their planes for hours, waiting for a gate and jetbridge driver. Then, they waited at baggage claim for their luggage to arrive.
In addition to the delays, several Frontier flights at Orlando International Airport were canceled on Sunday.
Some passengers took to social media and explained that they waited four hours to be assigned a gate after landing, sitting on the tarmac onboard their plane the entire time following their flight. Then once allowed to disembark, they waited an additional two hours to receive their luggage.
Passenger John LaFreniere said he’d visited Orlando Airport on Frontier many times but “I’ve never seen it like this, where there’s three different airplanes that could not get a gate.”
Police were called to help with crowd control as the flights were allowed to deplane. The police at the airport told me the wait times were due to an apparent staffing shortage with Frontier Airlines. The same shortage led to the cancelations the airline experienced on Sunday. Frontier has not commented about the issue.
After raising concerns with Frontier via social media and telephone, a few passengers were provided future flight vouchers, but not every passenger received compensation.
Frontier Airlines is a low-cost carrier headquartered in Denver and operates point-to-point flights to about 120 destinations throughout the United States, Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. They recently opened a crew base in Orlando, a sign that flights and staffing will continue to increase in the coming months.
