Frontier Airlines A319 Stretch seats (aren’t all that stretchy really)

Frontier Airlines A319 Stretch seats (aren’t all that stretchy really)

Hate on Frontier all you want, but at least they offer a premium seating option on most of their aircraft. As you’ll see in the following review, Frontier Airlines A319 Stretch seats are pretty good. At least good enough for the haters to pause for a second before instinctively pointing and laughing whenever they see one of these airplanes.

F9 555
Denver, CO (DEN) – San Diego, CA (SAN)
Sunday, June 21 2015
Aircraft: A319
Seat: 2F (Stretch Seat)

Frontier Airlines N931FR side view
Frontier Airlines A319 N931FR illustration by Norebbo
air route from denver to san diego
Our route to San Diego today as F9 555

My full review of the Frontier Airlines A319 Stretch seat from Denver to San Diego

As much fun as these “out and back” trips are, it’s never a good feeling to wake before 5am to catch a flight home. Especially since the people in the room above mine in the hotel were noisy past 2am! I wasn’t well rested at all, and all I could think of was military-grade profanity when the alarm on my iPhone went off at 4:40am. To be honest, I didn’t really need to get up that early since I was technically already at the airport and my flight to SAN didn’t depart until 7:55am. I just wanted to make sure that I had enough time to take pictures (and maybe some video) so I got myself together as quickly as I could and set off for the terminal.

Arrival at the Denver International Airport

Dropping the rental car off took about 25 minutes (20 of that being spent waiting on the Avis shuttle bus), but I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. The main terminal at DEN sure is pretty – it’s certainly one of the nicest airports in the US at the moment.

denver international airport check in counter
Frontier Airlines check in counter at DEN
denver airport ticketing hall
The main ticketing hall here at Denver International Airport
fabric roof structure denver airport
The fabric roof structure is simply amazing!
concourse A denver airport
Killing time wandering around the A concourse
denver airport train
Looking down on the inter-terminal train station
denver airport terminal windows
I did end up finding a nice quiet spot to sit and relax while waiting for my flight, but the view wasn’t so great

The boarding process for flight number 555 to San Diego

I had about an hour to spend wandering around terminal A before our flight began to board, and upon arriving at the gate I found that nearly everyone was crowding around the boarding door before they even called for zone 1.

That meant having to slash my way through the masses as soon as they started the boarding process, which is something I don’t particularly enjoy doing. I normally would have waited until the lines thinned out a bit before getting on the plane myself, but I wanted to be one of the first ones on so that I could get some unobstructed pics of the Stretch Seating up front.

frontier airlines flight information display denver
On time flights are a good thing!
gate lice denver airport
Lots of crowding around the gate long before the gate agents even thought about boarding the plane
denver airport jetway
Walking down the jetway to board the flight

My first impressions of the Frontier Airlines A319 Stretch seat

Unfortunately, many of the front seats were already occupied by the time I boarded the plane so I wasn’t able to get the pics I wanted. Oh well. These “Stretch” seats up front are the exact same seats you’ll find in Frontier Airlines A319 economy, with only a marginal amount of added leg room. That’s it. Frontier could certainly learn a thing or two from the Spirit Airlines A321neo Big Front Seat.

frontier airlines stretch seating legroom
Generous amount of leg room in these “stretch” seats – very similar to what you’d find on jetBlue

The departure out of Denver

It was a short taxi out to 25L on this beautifully clear morning in Denver, and we were off and up and over the Rocky Mountains in just minutes. This departure was butter-smooth compared to the jostling we dealt with on our arrival into DEN the day priror, but the views were just as stunning.

denver airport frontier airlines
Not much to see as we departed the terminal
denver airport runway 25
Turning onto runway 25

Here’s a video I shot of our departure off of runway 25, and pics will follow below:

And now on with the pics:

frontier airlines A319 denver
Rolling out to runway 25
flying over rocky mountains frontier airlines
High above the Rocky Mountains as we make our way out of Denver

How comfortable are the Stretch seats?

I chose to pass on the in-flight snacks this morning (nothing is free on Frontier, by the way) and instead just took the opportunity to catch up on the sleep that I had lost the night before. Yeah, it was a horribly uncomfortable nap, but I managed as best I could.

Edit from future me: the new version of these seats (which you can see in my Frontier A320 Stretch seat review), are a little more comfortable. And they look a lot better.

frontier airlines a319 interior
This picture was an accident, but thought it looked cool enough to post
american desert southwest from the air
The scenery changing from mountains to desert as we approach southern California
frontier airlines A319 bulkhead wall logo
Forward bulkhead of this A319 showing the flyfrontier.com logo. The newest version of this interior is logo-less unfortunately (as you can see in my Frontier A320neo Stretch seat review).

The arrival into San Diego

Despite the weather being crystal clear all the way to southern California, we arrived in San Diego under a rather thick marine layer that is typical in these parts this time of year. It was so gloomy out that I actually felt sorry for the tourists onboard who were coming to San Diego for a vacation.

But no matter – that marine layer always burns off by mid morning and they days always end up being nice. This day was no exception. It turned into a beautifully clear early-summer day just two hours later.

flying over mountains san diego airport approach
Lining up for arrival into SAN, and it looks like a nice day out there so far…
flying over balboa park san diego
…but the clouds were thick as we flew over Balboa Park.

So that’s it for this trip, and now I can say that I’ve flown on Frontier Airlines! I realize that’s something that only true airline nerds such as myself can be proud of, but I’m happy to be able to add another airline to my flight log.

Is Frontier Airlines good? Absolutely! The two flights I had with them in the past two days were nice – nothing amazing, though I didn’t expect anything otherwise. Think of them as a carbon-copy of Spirit. They both offer pretty much an identical experience and are nearly as good as any of the legacy carriers. I’d fly either again without question.

N931FR frontier airlines san diego
One last look at N931FR as I walked out terminal 1 at SAN

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