Frontier Airlines

Infrastructure Analysis & Sustainability Plan

Given its location in Colorado, its link with animals, and a desire to understand what it could do to reduce its carbon footprint, Frontier Airlines hired UHG to develop a sustainability plan for the airline. Across almost a year, UHG interviewed 50+ employees, toured 20+ departments and was indoctrinated into the Frontier culture. 

At the onset of the project, UHG and Frontier established goals the goals Frontier wished to achieve with the sustainability plan 1) to show employees the airline cared about sustainability, 2) to identify ways to reduce GHG, and 3) to establish a way to incorporate sustainability into Frontier’s marketing campaign.  The result of the project was a sustainability plan with some interesting sustainability initiatives.

Amongst the programs initiated to establish that management cared about sustainability, were the introduction of a company sustainability mascot, the initiation of a corporate recycling program, and implementation of a corporate sustainability newsletter which showcased what various departments were doing to be sustainable.  Given most the company’s greenhouse gases result from the purpose of their business, UHG weighed in on their planned plane upgrades recommending that they chose Boeing’s super efficient body with winglets which would reduce the fleet’s fuel consumption by almost 20%. 

On the marketing front UHG worked with Frontier to change their service to include an onboard recycling program and created a donation program to protect habitat preservation.  The concept was to link each animal on the tail of the plane to a non-profit that would protect their habitat and if consumers wanted to offset their travel they could donate money to the non-profit to protect the animal’s habitat.

Although Frontier hired UHG to implement the programs created in the sustainability plan, in 2013 management was on the verge of selling the company and they ceased work on the plan due to the impending sale. This caused the plan to be put on permanent hold.