A Frontier Airlines customer claimed that a group of passengers were stuck outside the gate of an oversold plane—with their locked-up luggage on board.
The TikTok video documenting this predicament comes from Tennessee-based creator Deetz Got Beatz (@natalieemilyy), posted Monday with more than 1.2 million views racked up as of Tuesday morning. The video claims to show a closed gate at Denver International Airport with disgruntled passengers stuck outside.
The short video communicates the conundrum via an on-screen caption, which begins, “Frontier Airlines just shut the door on passengers who PAID for tickets due to their own mistake of overbooking a flight.”
It continues, “The people who paid the least amount for their seats are standing outside a closed door. There are NO flights available tonight and our luggage is stuck on the plane taking off.”
It ends with an all-caps, “DO NOT BOOK WITH FRONTIER!!”
While this might seem unfair, Frontier’s “customer service plan,” as stated on its website, seems to acknowledge overbooking as a possible element of flying the discount airline.
It notes:
In the event that a flight is overbooked, we will solicit volunteers to give up their seats. As thanks for the cooperation of these volunteers, we provide alternative travel accommodations and an electronic voucher usable toward future transportation on a Frontier flight. It is our goal to find enough volunteers so that no customers are denied boarding involuntarily.
If there are not enough volunteers, other passengers who check in after all seats have been assigned may be denied boarding involuntarily. If you are involuntarily denied boarding, we will give you a written statement that describes your rights and explains how we determine boarding priority for an oversold flight. If there are fewer seats available than people who have checked in, generally, the last customer to check-in would be subject to removal.
In order to minimize the likelihood of getting denied boarding involuntarily, it is important that you check-in as early as possible. You can Check-In up to 24 hours in advance of your scheduled flight at FlyFrontier.com.
@natalieemilyy Denver airport current situation. Unfair, equal. Do not book with @Frontier Airlines ♬ original sound – Deetz got Beatz
One insisted, despite the written policy, “If they overbook you they have to pay you double the price of your ticket! I got a 800 check from frontier last year at Orlando for this!”
Another claimed, “Aww man yea I requested a manager & he wrote the check out by hand. Now I still had to fly to Baltimore & catch a bus to Philly then a Uber to Jersey but it helped some lol.”
But another said, “We never received that money. Frontier has bumped or canceled us a number of times & we got a refund plus $50 or $35. Never using Frontier again.”
This led someone else to observe, “Airlines think you are paying to get from point A to B. They need to realized it’s point a to b in this day at this time.”
One traveler pledged, “I’m about to start driving everywhere if it’s within the us or canada because omg flights have been a mess lately.”
The creator, whom the Daily Dot has reached out to via TikTok direct message, replied, “Same!”
The Daily Dot has also reached out to Frontier via email.
