Frontier’s New Nonstops: Cheap Direct Flights to Weekend-Sized Destinations

We priced a Chicago–Des Moines round-trip in March, right after Frontier’s schedule update landed, and the fare came back at $47 each way. That’s before the seat fee, the carry-on fee, and the $25 you’ll hand over if you want to pick a row that isn’t the middle one. If you compare Chicago – Des Moines fares on Kupi.com, you’ll see the base price is real, but it’s also a teaser, the sort of figure the airline can advertise because it knows the final number will be closer to $110 once you’ve added the basics.

So what’s actually new here? Frontier has been quietly blanketing the Midwest with these weekend-length routes, and the schedule now includes several city pairs that used to mean a connecting flight through Denver or a six-hour drive. We checked the filings on three of them, and the pattern holds: an A320neo doing one turn a day, out in the morning, back in the evening, which is exactly the rhythm a Friday-to-Sunday trip needs.

Before you book, run the arithmetic on the add-ons, because that’s where the airline makes its money. Here’s what we factored in:

• Carry-on bag: $35–$60 each way, depending on when you pay
• Seat selection: $14–$40, with the exit rows costing more
• Checked bag: $40–$55, if you’re bringing more than a backpack
• Boarding position: $12–$20, which becomes almost mandatory when the flight is full
• Printed boarding pass at the airport: $25, a fee that exists purely to punish you

The direct fare was $47, and our all-in total for a two-night trip, one personal item each, came to $163. That’s still cheaper than the $210 we found on the legacy carrier, but the gap narrows fast if you’re a checked-bag household. We priced the same route with two checked bags and the Frontier ticket actually came out more expensive, which is the part nobody mentions in the press release.

What makes these routes work is the aircraft, not the marketing. The A320neo burns about 20 percent less fuel than the older A319s Frontier used to fly, and that efficiency is why the airline can run a 230-mile hop like Chicago–Des Moines twice a day and still make money at $47 fares. The schedule is thin, though, one departure each way, so a missed connection at O’Hare means you’re sleeping in Chicago, and the next flight is tomorrow. Spirit runs the same city pair with similar economics, but their frequency is tighter on the trunk routes, which makes them the safer bet if your plans have any give in them.

You don't need to book months ahead for these. Short-haul leisure routes tend to bottom out three to five weeks before departure, which is when Frontier starts dumping unsold seats to fill the plane. The day of the week you buy doesn’t matter, and private browsing won’t help either; the price moves with how many seats are left, not with your browser history. We watched one fare for a late-April Saturday departure stay flat at $57 for two weeks, then jump to $89 on a Tuesday afternoon, which is just inventory moving.

If you’re flying with only a backpack, the new nonstops are a genuine deal, and you can check the all-in price for your dates on the search I use to see what the total looks like. The booking site I end up on usually shows the base fare first, so read the breakdown, the one that lists every fee, before you click confirm.

The real question isn’t whether the $47 fare is real. It’s whether you can fly with a personal item, and if you can’t, the legacy carrier might be the cheaper ticket without the game-playing. Check both before you buy, via this link, and decide on the total, not the headline number. A weekend in Des Moines is worth $163, but it’s not worth a $25 printing fee for a boarding pass you could have pulled up on your phone.