Allegiant vs Frontier: Fees, Reliability and Which to Book

Pick Allegiant if it flies nonstop from your city and you care most about the trip going to plan: in 2025 it canceled 0.47% of its flights and bumped nobody. Pick Frontier if you live near a big airport and want the lowest total price, more frequent flights or a connection.

The trade is real money. By our calculation, the average Allegiant passenger paid about $126 per trip in fares and fees in 2025, against about $108 on Frontier.

Below, the two are compared on the Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report and each airline’s own SEC filings and fee pages, as of October 2026. Both sell a bare seat and charge for the extras, the model behind every ultra-low-cost airline.

Which is cheaper, Allegiant or Frontier?

On average, Frontier. Its passengers paid $44.60 in base fare and $63.79 in bag, seat and other passenger fees in 2025, about $108 a trip. Allegiant’s paid $56.89 and $68.62, about $126.

The trips are about the same length, 893 miles on Allegiant and 919 on Frontier, so the gap is not distance. Per 100 miles flown, we calculate about $14.05 on Allegiant and $11.79 on Frontier, roughly 19% more.

On both airlines the extras cost more than the seat. Fees made up about 55% of what the average Allegiant passenger paid and about 59% on Frontier.

Frontier also sells the GoWild! All-You-Can-Fly Pass, up to $1,999 a year, which prices flights at a base fare of one cent. Allegiant has nothing like it.

Loyalty works differently too. Allegiant’s free Allways Rewards program had more than 21 million members at the end of 2025, and its points pay for future trips.

Frontier pairs its FRONTIER Miles program with Discount Den, a paid membership at $109.99 for the first year that unlocks its lowest fares and a Kids Fly Free offer.

Edge: Frontier. The average trip cost about $17 less, though canceling late costs more.

On-time flights and cancellations

Here the price gap buys something. In 2025 Allegiant arrived on time on 74.46% of its flights, seventh of the ten marketing carriers the DOT ranks. Frontier finished last, at 70.68%.

Cancellations were the bigger split. Allegiant canceled 615 of 130,899 scheduled flights, 0.47% and the lowest rate of any ranked airline. Frontier canceled 3,508 of 198,065, or 1.77%, nearly four times the rate.

2026 has kept the same order. From January to August Allegiant ran 72.1% on time, sixth of nine, and Frontier 69.7%, seventh, with Spirit dropping out of the rankings in May.

One caveat cuts the other way. Allegiant flies many routes only a few times a week, so when a flight does cancel, the next one can be days away; Frontier’s busier routes usually offer a same-day or next-day rebooking.

Edge: Allegiant. It was more punctual in both periods and canceled far less often.

Bags and bumping

Allegiant mishandled 0.09 bags per 100 checked in 2025, the best rate of the ten airlines. Frontier’s 0.41 was fourth best, so neither is bad, but a checked bag on Frontier was about four and a half times as likely to go astray.

Bumping is where Frontier stands out. It denied boarding against their will to 8,087 passengers in 2025, 2.51 per 10,000 and the worst of the ten carriers, about nine times the industry rate of 0.28.

Allegiant’s count was zero. Frontier’s bumping record is part of why it finishes last in our ranking of the worst airlines in the US.

Edge: Allegiant. Better bag handling, and not one passenger bumped involuntarily all year.

Where they fly

The two networks barely overlap in purpose. Allegiant flies from small and mid-sized cities to leisure spots: as of February 2026 it sold 578 routes to 126 cities, all nonstop, and 433 of those routes had no nonstop rival.

It often uses the secondary airport. Allegiant is the only mainline domestic scheduled carrier at Orlando Sanford and runs more than 97% of scheduled service at Punta Gorda, St. Pete-Clearwater and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway.

Its own filing explains why: “our under-served city strategy with less than daily service has reduced the intensity of competition we might otherwise face.” The flip side is that many routes run only a few days a week.

Frontier served about 100 airports in 2025, mostly large ones, and sells connecting itineraries. Denver, Orlando and Atlanta touched 21%, 17% and 16% of its flights; how it outlasted its closest rival is the story of Frontier vs Spirit.

Allegiant’s reach is widening. With Sun Country’s Minneapolis-St. Paul base added, the group was selling 675 routes at June 30, 2026.

Edge: Even. Allegiant wins if it serves your small city nonstop; Frontier wins for big-city schedules and connections.

The planes and the seats

Frontier’s fleet is young. At June 30, 2026 it had 165 Airbus jets, mostly A320neos and A321neos, and its jets averaged about five years old at the end of 2025.

Its Airbus A321neo seats 240 passengers, the most in its fleet. Every Frontier jet is leased.

Allegiant buys used jets and owns most of them. Its Airbus A320s and A319s averaged 17.2 years old in February 2026, and the A319s alone 20.3 years at the end of 2025.

It is now adding new aircraft: 19 Boeing 737 MAX 8-200s with 190 seats were flying by June 2026. In October it firmed up six more for 2028 delivery, taking its firm order to 56 jets, 22 of them delivered.

Onboard, both are moving upmarket. Allegiant had fitted 87 aircraft with Allegiant Extra legroom seats by the end of 2025, added free inflight beverage service on every flight from August 1, 2026, and plans an Allegiant First seat for spring 2027.

Frontier sells UpFront Plus and extra-legroom seats now. An internal memo reported by View from the Wing in October 2026 puts its new first class, two rows in a 2-2 layout with no free food or drink, on sale from March 5, 2027.

Edge: Frontier. A far younger fleet, though Allegiant’s free drinks and legroom seats narrow the gap onboard.

Which airline is on firmer ground?

Both lost money in 2025: Allegiant $44.7 million, after special charges that included selling its Sunseeker resort, and Frontier $137 million. 2026 split them.

Through June 30, Allegiant made a $37.6 million profit. Frontier lost $362 million as jet fuel averaged $4.17 a gallon in the second quarter, or $90 million before a charge for handing 24 jets back early.

Allegiant also grew. It closed its purchase of Sun Country Airlines on May 13, 2026, adding 47 passenger jets and a 22-plane cargo operation it flies for Amazon.

Frontier is not short of cash: it held $1.16 billion in liquidity at June 30. Still, Spirit’s shutdown in May is a reminder that a ticket bought months out carries some risk with any airline that is losing money.

Edge: Allegiant. It is profitable this year; Frontier is not.

Who should pick which

If both fly your route on the day you need, book Allegiant unless Frontier’s all-in price, bags and seat included, is clearly lower. The DOT record says the cheaper ticket is the one more likely to go wrong.