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Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle has suggested eliminating jet bridges from airports to enhance aircraft turnaround times and improve fleet utilization. Speaking at the Barclays 42nd Annual Industrial Select Conference, Biffle highlighted the benefits of ground loading, a practice already implemented in some of Frontier's operations.
Biffle explained, "Now, we just opened a ground loading facility in Denver, which is 14 positions. We've done this before in other cities, but now we're starting to do it at scale. So one of the things that we're going to do over the next few years is we're gonna try to get as close to 100% ground loading as possible."
He pointed out that European ultra-low-cost carriers like Wizz Air and Ryanair rarely use jet bridges. According to Biffle, "A jet bridge… it's just the kiss of death when you're trying to turn an airplane really, really fast. If you have front and rear boarding, you literally double the speed that people get on and off the planes and so this is a huge cost savings opportunity."
