In a refrain familiar to the regional airline industry which founded its code-sharing partnerships with the majors on the incremental traffic they provided, Frontier and Air Tran are trying to do something similar in the first-of-its-kind agreement between two low-cost carriers. Although it will not include code sharing, the deal gives a coast-to-coast sweep to their networks since Air Tran is strongest east of the Mississippi and Frontier in the west. The two LCCs expect their partnership to drive incremental revenues and new customers to both. The new plan consists of three components - Refer, Earn, Redeem, in which passengers on either carrier will be referred to the partner for travel beyond their system where they can earn and redeem frequent flyer miles. The program begins with a web-based reservations system which will seamlessly direct passengers going beyond their systems to their partner's web site for bookings. In addition they will include an integrated route map and a full list of destination options which nearly doubles the destinations available to passengers.

"Legacy carriers have seen the benefits of marketing relationships like this for years and this marks a very clear line in the sand as two of the broadest LCCs, in terms of number of destination, are going to be able to leverage the tremendous growth that each has seen over the past decade," said Industry Analyst Mike Boyd, who cited the loyalty the carriers enjoy in different regions of the country.

A Frontier passenger traveling from Denver to Jacksonville will be routed to Air Trans's site or an Air Tran transcon passenger to Portland, Ore, will be routed to Frontier's site. A Frontier member who travels round trip on Air Trans between Denver and Boston will earn 3,500 miles.