Frontier Airlines will make passengers pay extra to social distance on its flights

• Frontier Airlines is offering a new seat-type for passengers looking to social distance in the skies.
• The "More Room" seat offers a blocked middle so passengers aren't sitting directly next to each other.
• Frontier is offering the product starting at $39 on flights from May until August while also requiring passengers to wear face coverings.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ultra-low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines is adding a new product to its extensive menu of for-purchase extras: peace of mind.

The Denver-based carrier is known for its cheap flights and ancillary revenue-based business model that includes charging for extras ranging from carry-on bags and seat assignments to soft drinks and snacks. Now, it's offering passengers a new type of seat for passengers looking to fly and social distance.

The "More Room" seat, which can be had for as little as $39 depending on the flight, comes with a blocked middle seat to ensure distancing in the row, according to the airline's announcement on Monday. At least five additional rows of the new seats are being added to each aircraft for a total of 18 seats in addition to existing "Stretch" seats in the front of the aircraft that will also feature the blocked middle.

Frontier's move to offer the seat for purchase from May until August, at the earliest, follows United Airlines' announcement to block all middle seats on its mainline aircraft to fight social distancing, effectively reducing capacity by a third on most of its aircraft. When asked by CNBC why the airline didn't opt to block all middle rows, Frontier CEO Barry Biffle explained that the practice would result in rising airfare.

As a low-cost airline, Frontier's aircraft feature a high-density configuration where seats are closer to each other by a few inches in order to fit as many passengers on the aircraft as possible. A Frontier Airlines Airbus A321 narrow-body aircraft, for example, only has four fewer seats than an American Airlines Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner wide-body jet, according to SeatGuru.

Frontier has taken multiple measures to ensure safety onboard its aircraft. The airline expanded its April 13 face-covering requirement for crew to all passengers beginning May 8 and requires passengers to complete a form acknowledging that they don't have COVID-19 symptoms, will check temperatures, and will maintain hand-washing hygiene before a flight.

Frontier was also one of the first in the low-cost realm to introduce a fogging technique implemented by the big three major carriers where electrically-charged disinfectant is applied to aircraft surfaces before a flight.

The practice complements existing cleaning procedures that include physical wipe-downs.

"We bottomed out a few weeks ago," Biffle told CNBC. "To put things in perspective, prior to this, we carried around 80,000 passengers a day and we got down to about 3,000 passengers per day just a few weeks ago. But, I'm really pleased, yesterday and now again today, we're going to carry over 10,000 passengers."

The CEO also pushed back on claims that the airline is "putting a price on safety," by saying that its cleaning practices and facial covering policies are sufficient and that the seat is just an extra for its most-worried passengers.

"We don't believe this is what you need to be safe but it's one more thing that we can do to put people's minds at ease," explained Biffle.

Biffle also recommended passengers onboard his aircraft use the overhead air vents to keep filtered air flowing.

Read the original article on Business Insider