October 28, 2025 12:41 PM UTC

Introducing Frontier Airlines' Worst Gimmick Ever

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• by: Colorado Pols

From the department of “sounded good in the boardroom,” here’s an email blast that went out this morning from Denver-based ultra-low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines, advertising a new ticket sale with a theme that will make air travelers who watch the evening news groan:

That’s right, folks! In honor of President Donald Trump’s controversial teardown of the White House’s historic East Wing to build a gold-plated ballroom that will dwarf the rest of the White House when completed, executed without notice in contravention of prior promises in the middle of a shutdown of the federal government while lawmakers battle with Trump to prevent massive increases in health insurance premiums next year, Frontier Airlines is running an “East Wing It Sale” so travelers can give their holiday plans…a “new look.”

Here’s a more accurate depiction of the view from Washington, D.C. today:

Setting aside Frontier’s abominable customer service and the new “death march” walk to the airline’s punitively remote gates at DIA–followed by the indignity of standing outdoors while waiting to board old-school airstairs–those cheap seats might not be much good to the flying public if the air traffic control system breaks down under the strain of the shutdown, with unpaid air traffic controlled calling in sick so they can stand in bread lines. Unless federal workers get back to paid work, they won’t be among holiday travelers this season at all, unless it’s to move back in with their parents. And millions of Americans about to get notices of health premiums doubling next year will be forced to curtail their discretionary spending on luxuries like plane tickets in order to not die.

In keeping with the experience of Frontier’s seats, this ad campaign is painfully callous. But then again, we’re talking about it. A less exasperating ad campaign would, like a glass of water on America’s Meanest Greenest Airline, cost extra.