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Frontier Airlines Announces CAO/Treasurer Appointment

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By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Frontier Airlines Announces CAO/Treasurer Appointment

Holly Nelson joins Denver-based carrier

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Frontier Airlines today announced the appointment of Holly Nelson as chief accounting officer and treasurer of the Denver-based carrier.

A seasoned professional, Nelson brings more than 25 years of airline-industry financial experience to the position. Most recently, she served as chief financial officer for Aircraft Technical Publishers (ATP), where she led the company’s finance and human resource functions and was responsible for all accounting and reporting, treasury, financial planning and corporate governance for the company.

Prior to joining ATP, Nelson worked at Virgin America Inc., where she served as senior vice president and chief financial officer. During her tenure, she re-established Virgin America in the financial markets to facilitate capacity growth of 89 percent over two years, executed a fleet plan to support the airline’s growth and led negotiations for the purchase of 60 new aircraft. Holly previously served as senior vice president, controller and chief accounting officer at JetBlue Airways Corporation where she helped the airline enter the public markets and guide its tremendous growth.

Nelson is a certified public accountant and holds a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Holly is a past member of the Accounting Standards Executive Committee (AcSEC) which is the senior technical committee at the America Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and she was on the Airline Guide Task Force that issued the updated AICPA Audit & Accounting Guide on Airlines.

“Frontier is exceptionally fortunate to be able to attract an officer of Holly’s caliber,” said Robert Ashcroft, senior vice president of finance. “Her arrival at Frontier could not be more timely, as the company moves towards separation from its corporate parent and continues to shift towards becoming an ultra low-cost carrier.”

Frontier Airlines is a wholly owned subsidiary of Republic Airways Holdings, Inc. (NAS: RJET) .

About Frontier Airlines

Frontier Airlines is a wholly owned subsidiary of Republic Airways Holdings, Inc. (NAS: RJET) , an airline holding company that also owns Chautauqua Airlines, Republic Airlines and Shuttle America. Currently in its 19th year of operations, Frontier offers service to more than 75 destinations in the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Small Seats, Full Flights Drive Up Airline-Passenger Complaints

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By The Associated Press

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Lynne Sladky/AP

By JOAN LOWY

WASHINGTON — Airline passenger complaints to the Transportation Department surged by a fifth last year even though other measures such as on-time arrivals and mishandled baggage show airlines are doing a better job, according to a report being released Monday.

Private researchers who have analyzed federal data on airline performance say it’s not surprising that passengers are irritated. Carriers keep shrinking the size of seats in order to stuff more people into planes. Empty middle seats that might provide a little more room have vanished. And more people who have bought tickets are being turned away because flights are overbooked.

“The way airlines have taken 130-seat airplanes and expanded them to 150 seats to squeeze out more revenue I think is finally catching up with them,” said Dean Headley, a business professor at Wichita State University in Kansas who has co-written the annual report for 23 years.

“People are saying, ‘Look, I don’t fit here. Do something about this.’ At some point airlines can’t keep shrinking seats to put more people into the same tube,” he said.

The industry is even looking at ways to make today’s smaller-than-a-broom closet toilets more compact in the hope of squeezing a few more seats onto planes.

“I can’t imagine the uproar that making toilets smaller might generate,” Headley said, especially given that passengers increasingly weigh more than they use to. Nevertheless, “will it keep them from flying? I doubt it would.”

The rate of complaints per 100,000 passengers also rose to 1.43 last year from 1.19 in 2011.

In recent years, some airlines have shifted to larger planes that can carry more people, but that hasn’t been enough to make up for an overall reduction in flights.

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The rate at which passengers with tickets were denied seats because planes were full rose to 0.97 denials per 10,000 passengers last year, compared with 0.78 in 2011.

It used to be in cases of overbookings that airlines usually could find a passenger who would volunteer to give up a seat in exchange for cash, a free ticket or some other compensation with the expectation of catching another flight later that day or the next morning. Not anymore.

“Since flights are so full, there are no seats on those next flights. So people say, ‘No, not for $500, not for $1,000,'” said airline industry analyst Robert W. Mann Jr.

Regional carrier SkyWest had the highest involuntary denied-boardings rate last year, 2.32 per 10,000 passengers.

But not every airline overbooks flights in an effort to keep seats full. JetBlue Airways (JBLU) and Virgin America were the industry leaders in avoiding denied boardings, with rates of 0.01 and 0.07, respectively.

United Airlines (UAL) had the highest consumer complaint rate of the 14 airlines included …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance