Frontier Airlines scraps free chocolate chip cookies

Courtesy Frontier Airlines

Say goodbye to free chocolate chip cookies on Frontier Airlines.

By Harriet Baskas, msnbc.com contributor

A sweet, complimentary in-flight treat will soon disappear from the skies.

At the end of April, Frontier Airlines will stop serving warm chocolate chip cookies on its flights.

The complimentary fresh-baked cookies were a legacy of Midwest Airlines, which like Frontier, was purchased by Republic Airways Holdings in 2009. The cookies became a Frontier staple in 2010, and the airline had been serving about 700,000 per month.

?When we looked at the cookie, we were the only domestic low-cost carrier serving a free, perishable snack on board,? said Frontier spokesperson Lindsey Carpenter. ?That doesn?t align with the perception or financial reality of a low-cost carrier.?

What does align better? Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers and Barnum?s Animal Crackers.

Beginning in May (or when the current inventory of cookie dough runs out), Frontier Airlines will begin serving 1 ounce packages of the cookies and crackers. The snacks will be complimentary for the airline?s elite frequent fliers and unaccompanied minors. Hungry economy-class passengers will have to buy the snacks for a dollar each.

David Zalubowski / AP

Frontier Airlines will now offer onboard snacks for $1.

The animal snack options are preferable because they are nonperishable, ?run less risk of waste,? and fit better with the Frontier brand, which features a wide variety of animals on the tails of its airplanes, Carpenter said.

While most airlines have eliminated complimentary snacks for economy-class passengers, a few continue the practice; Southwest Airlines and JetBlue both offer free in-flight treats.?

Continental Airlines, the last major domestic airline to offer complimentary in-flight meals, ended that practice in 2010.

Find more by Harriet Baskas on StuckatTheAirport.com and follow her on Twitter.

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