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By Soo Kim
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Frontier Airlines has issued a refund after a passenger said she was denied boarding her flight after being told, "Your seat's been taken."
Marley Stevens, a 20-year-old TikTok user who posts under @m.stevens03, was scheduled to fly from Atlanta, Georgia, to San Francisco, California, on July 22. But in a viral video that she shared from the Atlanta airport, Stevens said that she was turned away from her flight despite buying her ticket "months ago" and arriving at the boarding gate "an hour and a half early."
Stevens' post comes as 2,442 Frontier Airlines passengers were reported to have been denied boarding on an involuntary basis from January to March this year, according to the latest Air Travel Consumer Report by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), released in June 2023.
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She said in the video that she received an email from Frontier on July 22 saying that "the plane is filling up." The email noted: "If you have flexible traveling ability, you can switch to a new flight for free, we'll give you free baggage," according to Stevens.
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Declining to delay her travels, Stevens said she went to the boarding gate early for her scheduled flight. When her seat group was called for boarding, she joined the line and showed her ticket to the airline worker at the gate, who said: "Oh, you're not on this flight...I guess we just don't have room for you.
"So we'll have to get you out on the next flight to San Francisco because we can't get you on this one. Your seat's been taken," an airline staff member said, according to Stevens.
Asked when the next flight would be leaving, Stevens said she was given a ticket that showed a flight departing on July 24 at 6:05 a.m. local time and arriving in San Francisco at midnight, with a 12-hour layover in Denver, Colorado. She said that her checked baggage was "already on the way to California."
"So I have purchased a new ticket with a different airline. But Frontier Airlines...I am gonna get my money back because this is not okay...don't fly Frontier," Stevens said.
A spokesperson for Frontier Airlines told Newsweek: "Our records indicate the customer failed to appear for boarding within the required timeframe. The customer was provided options to rebook on the next available Frontier flight.
"As a customer service gesture, we have initiated a refund to the card used at the time of purchase. The customer should see the refund reflected within three to five business days," the spokesperson said.
Can I Get Compensation for Being Bumped Off a Flight?
The practice of bumping, where airlines oversell their scheduled flights in a bid to compensate for no-shows, "is not illegal," says the DOT.
The DOT requires airlines to give "all passengers who are bumped involuntarily a written statement describing their rights and explaining how the carrier decides who gets on an oversold flight and who doesn't," according to the DOT website.
The department explains: "Those travelers who don't get to fly are frequently entitled to denied boarding compensation in the form of a check or cash."
To be eligible for compensation, the passenger must meet the following requirements, as outlined by the DOT:
- You have a confirmed reservation
- You checked in to your flight on time
- You arrived at the departure gate on time
- The airline cannot get you to your destination within one hour of your flight's original arrival time.
Passengers involuntarily bumped from a flight are not entitled to compensation in the following cases, according to the DOT:
- A change to a smaller aircraft for safety or operational reasons.
- Weight and balance issues
- Downgrading to a lower class
- Charter flights
- Small aircraft (flights on planes holding fewer than 30 passengers)
- Flights departing a foreign location
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'No Customer Service Line' Available
In a later post shared on Wednesday, Stevens revealed that her parents were able to book her onto an American Airlines flight for July 23.
The poster said she later "tried to call [Frontier] customer service to found out that there is no customer service line you can call anymore." Her stepmom tried to chat with the airline online "but that was going absolutely nowhere."
Stevens said her travel insurance for the trip was purchased through Frontier and she called the company (Travel Guard) to claim compensation. However, she was met by an ongoing automated message saying: "Due to an increase in misdirected call volume from Frontier Airlines reservation center and website, we are unable to appropriately service our customers who purchased a travel insurance plan," according to another video post.
"Please note that Travel Guard cannot help you with your Frontier Airlines reservation. If you need assistance from Frontier Airlines regarding a new or existing reservation, seat assignment or baggage fees, you can utilize the Frontier Airline's chat feature," the automated message continued.
In another post shared on July 28, Stevens said she has yet to receive any money back from Frontier, even though the airline said they "issued me a refund."
Newsweek reached out to Stevens for comment via TikTok. These videos have not been independently verified.
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