Remember when Frontier proposed — then U-turned on — a $39 blocked middle seat charge for social distancing back in 2020? The airline is floating an extra space model again, this time with a kind of of Eurobusiness-light product called UpFront Plus.

As one of the US-based low-cost carriers seeking to combat their ongoing revenue slump, Frontier is offering the new middle-seat free ancillary seat selection option in the front two rows of its airplanes. In what is essentially a European shorthaul business class — blocking the middle seat of three — Frontier is hoping that extra elbow-room will be a compelling offer.

ULCC Frontier’s first two rows aboard the airline’s A320 family aircraft offer extra legroom compared with the ultra-tight seating throughout the rest of the aircraft behind row 3. Frontier’s are among the world’s densest, with 240 seats aboard its A321neo aircraft, just short of the maximum certified passenger capacity of 244.

UpFront Plus is not quite the Eurobusiness model, though, or even one of the Eurobusiness-light offerings that some airlines offer: there are none of the other perks like a meal (whether catered specially or as a free choice from the trolley model) or included free bags, and in some dummy bookings today the airline wasn’t offering UpFront Plus as part of its value bundles with bags, flexibility, priority boarding, and so on.

The airline advertises that UpFront Plus passengers also get a “quick exit, with seats located in the first two rows of the aircraft” and are “first to get inflight service” — although with 235 other people on an UpFront Plus-equipped A321neo, those might turn out to be quite the benefit.

Pricing starts from $49 during the initial rollout phase beginning 10 April 2024, although as the introductory rate disappears it settles in at around $100-150 depending on route. As a comparison, third-row extra legroom seats on the flights we looked at run around $80, regular seats row 4 around $45, and overwing exit rows in rows 19-18 of the A321 $60-70.

For a long flight the additional cost over the extra-legroom seats to secure elbow room in a tight cabin may well make sense to passengers. It might actually be more compelling for travellers in row 2, who have the ability to raise the armrests and the extra under-seat stowage of the middle seats to play with for their carryons. But at this kind of price level, depending on the price of the base fare, passengers interested in securing an empty seat next to them may well find it more cost effective to go down the route of buying an extra seat for comfort reasons — especially for two passengers travelling together.

Is it as good as Spirit’s Big Front Seat, which features recliners more akin to US domestic first, but again without any kind of premium service? No, but it certainly doesn’t cost Frontier very much to test the waters. Indeed it was notable to see quite a few UpFront Plus seats already selected during the dummy bookings — although these might well have been passengers previously selecting the front row seats who were then allocated UpFront Plus.

The cannibalisation of the front two rows of the plane, previously Premium level ancillary revenue seats, does change the benefits of Frontier’s frequent flyer programme, however. Gold-and-above members are used to getting free Premium seats at checkin (gold and up) or at booking (platinum and up). There’s no at-booking benefit for UpFront Plus, but Elite Diamond members do get UpFront Plus at checkin if there are any seats left.

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Featured image credited to Frontier