. >> barry biffle joining us from frontier airlines. that's the main question -- how soon will the travel experience he this year has not been a great one. will it be a smooth thanksgiving for people who are flying? >> i think it will be a about usee thanksgiving. everyone will be full and everyone needs to be sure to pack some patience, make sure you show up early for the flights. i think the staffing challenges are behind us, i think >> you mentioned the staffing challenges, have you been able to nonmeet -- but more judicious in terms of the scheduling, in terms of where you were, maybe, six months ago >> we've been able to manage our staffs in fact, we had one of the best summers we've had from a completion factor, but i think the broader industry isible to keep up now. >> barry, just last week you guys were fined by the department of transportation more than $2 million, and told to pay back more than $220 million in refunds earp slow to repay during the pandemic. looking back, would you have done it differently in terms of how you h

barry biffle is ceo of frontier airlines. he's with us now. barry, good to see you. checked flight aware before the show. things are looking good. what are your expectations for today and through the rest of the holiday weekend? >> yeah, look, i think we're getting people back in the air, and it's good to see. the season is actually more elongated. it's unfortunate to hear about that traffic on the road. but you know, we started seeing outbound travel for thanksgiving start last thursday actually. and we're seeing the returns spread into next week. it's kind of flattening out that demand. so it actually enables more people to travel than used to. yes, we're well within -- industry overall is doing well with operations. >> has frontier solved the staffing issues that made travel for every flyer on any airline really over the summer, have they solved those issues? just made it a nightmare for people back then -- >> we had a great summer. yeah, we actually had a great summer operationally for frontier. we had staffed ahead of it and stayed ahead of it, so we didn't have

let's ask the ceo of frontier airlines, barry biffle. know everyone is travelling, it's yolo, you only live once. your industry is going extraordinarily well. tell us how it's going so far? >> it's going great, charles. thanks for having us on. we're doing well over the thanksgiving holiday season. 85 to 95,000 passengers and we haven't seen any disruption. weather is cooperating so far. >> to the point we had the big issues earlier in the year and a lot of finger pointing and disgruntlement and a lot of the airline industries say that pilots took off. they didn't come back. this crunch that caught the entire industry flat-footed isn't it looming out there? couldn't it happen again? >> well, there still are challenges, we've talked about it a lot. our staffing it wasn't really an issue. we had challenges with air traffic control and with gating. and we're working with the authorities on that. our challenges are largely behind us at this point, charles. charles: for the entire industry? i know there's a push to let pilots fly beyond 65 ye

perspective from one ceo coming up later on today on the exchange don't miss the exclusive with barry bifflem frontier airlines they are offering the go wild all you can fly ticket people have been talking about the last couple days and more they are coming off a major fine from the d.o.t. in terms of not refunding tickets as quickly as expected during the pandemic a lot to talk about with barry biffle >> it is safe to say it is good to be a union airline employee right now, isn't it? aren't there going to be some rich packages? aren't they in the driver's seat >> that's the heexpectexpectati. 100% in the driver's seat. we have seen airline executives and different airlines and union memberships saying we have a new contract we locked in a pay increase of 15% or 17% or more than 20% in some cases it is rejected by the broader rank and file. whether the pilots or some cases other unions at different airlines i think we get this worked out i say we we watch from the outside watching the airlines and the unions get it worked out some time over the next six months. >> it is part of what we're pa