I Tested America’s WORST 1-Star Airline 

What airlines should I fly in a head to head next? Also I see a lot of comments saying "Well I Flew _____ Before and they weren't bad at all!" - Guess what, I take the reviews I see and I fly them myself to see. Sure you may have had a good experience but I am showing you my first hand POV and I try to be as fair as possible too.

I live in Atlanta and the gate issue IS frontiers fault. I’ve never had this issue with Delta or any other airline other than Spirit and Frontier. They schedule too many flights for the number of gates they own, and then they’re constantly being delayed.

I never thought I’d experience an airline more stingy than Spirit, until I flew Frontier, where they separate the zones BASED on whether you have carry-on, and make sure to let you know with extreme prejudice. 😅

If customers are treated so badly, can you imagine being an employee? They hear nothing but complaints all day and people judge them for working for such a cheap outfit. I’ve flown both and your judgement is spot on. Spirit is better than Frontier, and I never had a late flight. I had the same experience of waiting on the runway for over an hour for another plane to leave. I think the worst thing on Frontier are the seats and ridiculous tray tables. Maybe a little kid can use it for blocks, but it’s worthless for anything else.

Spirit & Frontier are my go-to's for shorter flights. If the Flight is 2-4 hours then I'll go with them. When I fly 5+ hours I'll look at United, American, or Delta on comfort alone.

From personal experience, Frontier is WAY worse. In 2018 I was on a plane to Florida after an 11 hour delay. And what made that worse, is we only got the email about the delay after we arrived at the airport. It sucked, and we end up spending the morning at Starbucks, and the floor of the airport terminal. Looking back on this, I would've thought it would be a one off occurrence, but it happened a year later when we were using the credit from the delayed flight. We got to the gate in Florida after a decent vacation, to head back home. The plane that was going to take us got hit by a bird, and we only knew when it pulled into the terminal, therefore, we ran to book a new flight, and had to spend the night at a hotel, and we couldn't even get our checked bags back. This is why I will never fly Frontier again. (holy long comment LOL)

Frontier left me and my kids stranded. No hotel no nothing. I had to pay for a hotel spend 2 nights waiting at a hotel and buy another ticket from another airline to make it to my destination. It costed me $2,500 in airline tickets, car rental and 2 nights at a hotel. I will never fly Frontier ever again.

I've flown both Spirit and Frontier and I have to say Spirit was honestly fine, however the Frontier experience was horrible (we had to spend 7 hours at an airport instead of the 1-2 that was planned due to a flight cancellation).

The taped compartments in the Frontier lavatories are "security tape". This plane probably goes out of the country once in a while, the tape is applied by customs to show that it has been inspected. Not sure how long the airline has to leave it on though.

Very entertaining and fun to watch. Thanks for posting this.

One time i flew frontier, the check in closed 2 hours before the flight, and there were at least 30 people who missed the flight.

My experiences with frontier: it costs money to pick a seat, and the website makes it really hard to not pick a seat. The two times i tried to do online check-in for frontier the website was broken. I agree with the checked bag being cheaper because it speeds up planing and deplaning. You can also have two people combine their luggage into a larger checked bag and pay much less so the luggage fees are less of an issue.

New subscriber here! I'm loving this video, its hilarious but also really informative. Awesome content dude ❤

I fly spirit exclusively as a college student with only a backpack and it makes travel so much more possible than it was with other airlines. I also love long layovers in cities so I can explore more. Would recommend for sure, also most of their planes are newer, so they're very safe.

Frontier cancelled our flight, had us wait for 4 hours just to get a little piece of paper to get refunded, and they didn’t provide any help for us staying extra, I thought most airlines help with some food or something? Bad experience with frontier.

Hey Eric got to say I love the videos. You go so far to create the best for us and you create such good content. Whether its your funny humor or your originality when it comes to filming content you come out at the top. I have been watching you for a while now and you have kept you amazing personality in each video. Keep going man!

I've only flown Spirit once and it was OK. I can't say the same for Frontier. I've had gate issues, been bumped from a flight and left stranded with no hotel or meal vouchers. Frontier was always late. I have decided that I am done with them.

Hey, amazing video, I love these airline videos! Also do you remember me from thinking this came out last week? 😅😅

I haven’t watched yet but I know this is gonna be a BANGER!🔥🔥

Love these videos! Maybe you should try Avelo and Breeze, America's two newest airlines

I personally love Allegiant Spirit Frontier & Breeze. I always pack a personal size free bag & add my boarding pass to my phone wallet. I just go straight to TSA super easy & cheap most times.

Frontier and Spirit never had a fatal accident in a combined 99 years in existance... Who gives a sh#$ about leg room, there's a budget and process to maintain the aircraft.

Surprisingly the 3rd time we flew on a budget airline was frontier, and for some reason it was AMAZING for a budget airline, the leg room was very good and the seats were mid, the the bad part is that I trays are SOOO tiny and there was a iPhone screen protector stuck to my safety manual lol

Watching your videos is always a treat!

I was a flight attendant for skywest and the tape is to prove that that vent/cabinet hasn’t been tampered with. Every airline has their own color and most of the time it should have writing on it with a serial number.

I love your videos always wanted to make content similar to this keep it up

Haha that’s so funny, I flew on that same frontier plane earlier this week and the APU was broken that day as well. That was my first and last frontier flight. They canceled our flight at the time of boarding and made us stand in an hour line to tell us there was nothing they can do…..never again!

Great video! Next, you could do Frontier vs Ryanair

Nice vid keep it up 😊

The seat is fine to sit in for a couple hour flight. You dont need a large tray table since food/drink is charged, and most people won't buy it. You are flying an ULCC, you need to set your expectations to the price. You could have put your backpack in the overhead since they were mostly empty. Since the plane was fairly empty, I am guessing you bought zone 1 boarding.

Can you fly Delta and United? That would be super cool.

Some tips to know on west coast: In vegas the spirit and frontier terminal often doesn’t have “real” tsa pre check. This means you can go through metal detector but still have to remove your laptop and electronics from your bag. In San Fransisco frontier is in the international terminal for some reason and TSA is SO slow even if you have pre check.

I enjoyed the video! Keep these up. I wanted to ask if you could try flying AirBaltic which is a Latvian airline.

Eric Great video keep it up Your the goat 🎉

When I flew Frontier it went very well no delays easy check in and a super nice crew. However I flew on one of the brand new A320’s and also booked one of the front row seats with extra leg room. Definitely not as nice as Delta but it got me where I needed to be.

My mom told me to never fly in Frontier Airlines or Spirit Airlines, and she also told me to avoid Southwest Airlines as well, after the chaos they had this previous Christmas season where so many Southwest flights were cancelled, which left so many Southwest passengers stranded in airports during the holidays. The only airline I've ever flown in was Allegiant Air, and honestly, I trust Allegiant Air more than any other low-cost airline in the USA, but I curiously wanted to try the USA's newest airline, which is Avelo Airlines, but sadly, that airline has suspended flights from my home state, after it didn't meet its expectations.

"It is way too early for this, it's like 4:30 in the morning..." I'm watching this at 3:30 in the morning! 😂😂😂

Frontier makes Spirit looks luxury. Also... You explained what a budget airline is... Aren't they all like that now a days?

Spirit does not allow you to tilt your seat back which is awesome. I'm 6'6" & I don't have to worry about a 5 foot skank pushing her seat into my knees.

That frontier landing was hella smooth tho 🔥🔥

I've flown both frontier and spirit I haven't had any bad experiences everything went smoothly on both flights

The real thing that matters is if you land safely😊

Frontier Airlines will always be the worst airline because it ruined our honeymoon.

Erik - maybe you should try JetStar (Qantas low cost airline). I know that it’s in Australia so a while away from you but it’s actually quite a good + cheap airline and there is good food (paid for though). It has reclining seats and decent legroom etc, it’s not late much and the landings are good - I was in Australia and I flew it twice however sometimes it can be quite bad! (Vid 2 of asking for it)

I’d love to watch you review regional carriers in Canada. Fly out of YTZ and compare the likes of Porter, AC:Express and WJ: Encore. They don’t get nearly as much attention as their parent airlines do.

If you were uncomfortable going from ATL to Ft Lauderdale on a budget airline try going from Tijuana to Cancun on Volaris, Mexico's Spirit AL equivalent. At one point I honestly didn't think I would make it.

I just took Spirit to Miami and it was horrible. It kept on getting delayed because of the weather supposedly and there was no gate agent updating us. They were hiding the whole time. Long story short, it was their fault and we were supposed to fly out at 6:00 p.m. and we did not leave till 2:45 in the morning and they only gave us a voucher for $50 was expires the month after issue. Horrible experience and customer service.

As a former F9 flight attendant.. we were given 10-15 minutes in between flights. FAs are required to de-trash the cabin, fix the seatbelt on each seat, and clean the lavatory. The gate agents had a vacuum they would come in and give us a hand, time permitting. I’m not saying to excuse the mess around your seat and the lavatory, but when it comes to the expectation of these budget airlines versus a mainline legacy airline that has subcontractors do all of this.. it’s no doubt your tray table was going to be dirty. They don’t have the resources or time for detailed work. It doesn’t help that all this work goes unpaid because we were not paid when the cabin door was opened.

I LOVE 💕 These Videos! ❤

Can we appreciate How much effort he puts into these videos

The "no printable boarding pass" issue at the airport is coming to all airlines, not just the ULCC & LCC carriers. Alaska Airlines is doing that now and when Alaska (tech savy) debuts a new way to check-in, all the other airlines will follow soon. Bet on it!

That tray table is going to be common place in a few years. Allegiant started using them back in 2019 and I had the same experience with the seats. I swear they remove a 1/5 of an inch of leg room every few years.

Good video! You should fly air Canada rouge next

You should try bahamasair. They operate in Miami Nassau fort laudedale and orlando

the time used frontier is when me and my family we were going to Cancun mexico which was a 3 hour flight it was disgusting and flight was delayed without any explanation we were just waiting on the runaway for one hour

Hey, The only thing I liked about the 2 airlines was the wing. The bunny and "Howdy" just made me laugh. Plus normally on my spirit flights, they also that that medal table thing like in frontier. I don't know if it's because I go on an old plane or what. I guess they both eh. Nice vid.

I’ve flown round trip on Frontier from GRB direct to DEN on several occasions. When you purchase your ticket you know what their rules and fee schedule are. I’ve had nothing but good luck with them. That being said, I’ve never flown them where you have to make a connection. Safe travels everyone. ✈️🙏

Flew frontier before. The flying experience is not that bad, but customer service is nonexistent. Nice video though!

Just a couple things to point out so you have a better idea of Frontier. Frontier does have new seats on the newer planes, the one you flew is actually one of the older ones that still has the old configuration. The newer ones are nicer and have full sized tray tables. The A/C being off, was due to the ground air being used, it isnt always the best, usually the pilots will turn on the APU and the bleed air when it gets to about 76-78 on the displays up front. The bathroom panels are not held by the "tape" those are security strips to make sure no one removes a panel and puts anything inside them. Gate issues are just issues that can happen, a lot of times if a plane breaks they will try to fix it quick, but sometimes it delays into other flights arriving.

Thank you for this video.

Spirit gets a bad wrap because that's the popular thing to do on the internet but I've flown Spirit countless times and never had any issues. Great for when you're just traveling light for a quick trip and don't need to check in bags.

Do Delta vs United that would be awesome

“Holy shit that was brutal” 😅 that had me laughing

I flew on Frontier for awhile to San Francisco. They had some insane promotions. Once a round trip ticket was $38. Total. I could not pick seat or have luggage. Was not supposed to even have carry on, but snuck computer bag on. The flights were empty of course, consequently, the middle seat the gave me became my row. Their rates are now higher than United and Alaska. The people working there seemed happy at the time.

I flew Frontier I was pleasantly happy with it the bathroom was great my only complaint was the drink prices the tray was small but I only had a can so it was plenty big for that

if im being honest, i went on a trip with my parents on spirit and im gonna say its one of the best flights ive been on

Believe it or not, Frontier was once a great airline before they got bought out and forced to be a low budget airline. Now, I don't understand how they're still in business. Nobody ever has anything good to say about them.

This video particularly hits home for me I flew frontier on a connecting flight from Chicago to Florida. We had to stop in North Carolina and get on the next plane from there. Everything was going great. We got to the airport on time we made it through security, and was overall a good experience for about the first quarter of the experience but as soon as we got to the waiting area, all hell broke loose people had connecting flights from different states and they would be on their 5th to 6/7 flight. Just trying to get to the destinations. You are so lucky you did not take a connecting flight you would be left stranded. I got on the plane to North Carolina two hours late. It was a two hour delay, and when we made it to North Carolina, we had to wait because there was another frontier plane in our pocket so we had to wait two more hours just to get off the plane and when we got off we were at the news we missed our connecting flight because our plane was waiting too long in that area so we slept at the airport and waited for the next flight to Orlando, Florida we are sick another connecting flight to get there. We had to go to Dakota then we would take a connecting flight to Florida. Once we made it to Dakota we were stranded once again mind you our trip was only four days long so it wasn’t really a trip anymore. We only have one day if we stay there, so we try to take a connecting flight back home to Chicago. We would have to go back to North Carolina and then be able to go to Chicago. Once we got to North Carolina we were stranded once again we had to wait three days in the North Carolina airport to go back to Chicago. It was hell.

Honestly Frontier's brand new A321neos are very comfortable, clean, nice-looking and are quiet which makes up for the delays they keep having.

Unlike Frontier and Spirit, American is a normal airline and they're all still pretty bad airlines

You’re lucky you got stuck on the runway waiting. A few months ago I took a flight on Hawaiian Airlines to JFK airport in New York and when we had a plane in our gate we spent the time doing circles around the airport waiting for them to move. I’m pretty sure that’s a fairly normal thing but I just hate flying and much rather would’ve been sitting still on the ground

I love spirit,flew them many times,but I do bring a backpack only most of time so it works out well 😊

Can you rate TAP?

At this point hes going to fly every airline

I had to wait an 1 hour+ at FLL with AC because there was another 333 at the gate. It's not only a ULCC thing.

My only experience with frontier, I watched my plane land and then catch fire on the runway before my flight was cancelled 3.5 hours later. Gotta love em.

It feels illegal to be this early

We fly Frontier all the time and rarely have an issue 🤷‍♀️ They have flights all day long and at PHX I generally fly out of the newest, nicest gates. Use the app to skip the kiosk all together unless you're checking a bag. You've already checked in, no reason to do so again at the airport. It makes it easy. I've never been asked to size my bag, either

I have flown on Spirit. You get what you pay for. It wasn't comfortable, but it got me home in a reasonable time.

My best friend and I are going to vegas in 4 months, the flights on spirit and frontier were 1/4 of the price of united, and they were non stop. I still picked united, we are going for a weekend and have to be back on Monday by 5pm to go to work. There was no way I could risk that insanity or sit in that seat for 4 hrs. Great video, made me feel like I made the right choice even thought it cost me more money

Do American Airlines vs Air Canada

Hey Eric I usually fly frontier a lot but it is not as bad as spirit. I fly from Trenton to Fll, Alt, and Nc and it is a pleasant experience. It is only bad because of its cancellation rates, please don’t say that frontier is a bad airline😅😢.

I’ve flown Spirit a few times. Once Sacramento-Las Vegas and twice Las Vegas-Sacramento. It’s not too bad. I always pay extra for the emergency exit row though

TSA PRe Check is a game-changer. I got it for work a few years ago but would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who flies more than once a year.

Fun fact : Ryanair isn't rated the "Worst airline in the world" There is actually a one star airline, which is sometimes used for airplane slander / memes. It's Air Koryo (North Korea's only airline)

naaa bro that is not even a tray table, that's an ipad mini without the screen

This is fire mate

@EricStruk Please do southwest vs delta! They are both very good airlines and I’d like to see you do a video on them! Im subscribed!

Imagine if Ryanair was the best airline

Only in America will somebody complain about being able to fly someplace for less than the cost of gas to drive. If you don’t like saving a bunch of money and the minor inconvenience, take another airline.

Atlanta airport is really busy and The Atlanta airport with 93.7 million passengers passing through in 2022 had more traffic than any other airport in the world

I've been binge-watching Airline Disasters episodes lately, and I've noticed how many of them are about budget airlines cutting corners in ways that passengers would have no way of knowing. Hmmm. Maybe air transportation isn't the best part of one's budget to try to shrink to uber-frugal levels.

I feel like Spirt is the worst

I liked my own comment

I had an identical issue with Frontier, the rock hard seats actually caused a very painful skin tag on my butt after a long flight from Cleveland to Las Vegas, I also had the wait on the runway from a plane parked at the gate we were scheduled on.

I had to take an emergency trip last year and because it was late at night my sister did the purchasing and while i forget what she did for the going flight she did Spirit for my return and it was the worst. It was 2-3 hours late, switched terminals, loaded from the tarmac instead of the provided gate and when I tried to get some sleep it was so bumpy I couldn’t. I had work the next morning and yet my sister still booked me a late flight where once you factor in the drive afterwards I didn’t get back until after 1AM. Last time I have her book for me last minute

Spirit is 🤮

Having just flown Frontier for the first time, two separate instances this month, they are perfectly fine. Loved the check in on my phone, they do not require you to print a ticket just scan your phone. Only old people may have trouble with this. They didn’t size my backpack but they pulled people out of line at random, no biggie. All airlines outside of first class sections have grime on windows, seats and tray tables. Their bathroom was the best part. I’m 6’4 and this is the first time in years I’ve been able to stand up straight. Other than that they are same as the rest, just less expensive. The people on the flight were still morons like all flights and rushed to try to get off the plane and skip the seats ahead of them

We sat for 2hrs on the tarmac in atlanta from Puerto Rico..we were actually 25 minutes ahead of schedule..there was no plane at the gate in Atlanta we pulled in, then all of a sudden they backed us out and the 2hrs began..horrible..i will never ever fly frontier again. The sad thing is we've flown frontier 3 times..twice to salt lake city and once to Puerto rico never an issue until that trip back from Puerto Rico. That 2hrs did it for me..ive had 2 friends that happened the same to them as well..not 2hrs but over an hr.

If you want to have a really great Frontier arrival experience, fly them to Trenton, NJ, with a checked bag on a chilly rainy day. You probably won't have to wait for a gate to open up, but the adventure starts after you get to the gate. There are no jetways at Trenton, which is more like a commuter airlines airport (which it was until about 2010). So you have to come down a ramp from the plane - be careful, though, because it could be slippery from the rain. Now, if this is your return trip home, you may think you're headed for the small terminal building you boarded from for your outbound trip, but, no, you are directed to a small building off to the side that has the baggage carousels. In fact, I think that everyone from the flight, even the ones with no checked bags, has to go through this building. Anyway, once you have your checked bag, you exit through another door, and you're below the street level. The way to the street and the bus stop to catch the shuttle to the quite distant overflow parking area you probably had to park in when you got there at the beginning of your trip is either up some steps or a long way around through a gradual uphill path. My trip from Trenton was to Fort Myers, with the non-intuitive code of RSW. (SW appears to stand for the same phrase as the non-intuitive airline code WN, Southwest, and the R might be Regional - Southwest Florida Regional, I think.) Upon arrival, we had to wait on the tarmac for a gate. They said it could be 30 minutes, but we got assigned another gate, so it was much shorter. Going home, though, our flight was supposed to leave from a gate that's also set up for customs. An Air Canada flight was due to leave about an hour before ours, and since we were early, it was still there. But it was also still there long after the Frontier plane was due to arrive. We could see that plane sitting out on the tarmac, probably being told the same thing we were told a week earlier, and they were out there for about an hour. They never got reassigned another gate. The Air Canada flight was about an hour and a half late taking off. This of course delayed our flight. This was our first Frontier flight. We live in the Philadelphia suburbs, north of the city, so we had been thinking of trying Trenton and finally did so. Frontier also flies from Philadelphia itself, but if I'm going from there, I would probably choose my favorite airline, Southwest. The flightradar24 app actually calls the Trenton airport "Philadelphia", although the TTN code after the name gives away what it really is. Frontier is the only airline currently flying from Trenton. Allegiant was flying from there a few years ago but stopped their service. I think they may serve another "alternate" Philadelphia airport, Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton. And I think Spirit flies out of Atlantic City.