An airline first: $1.99 for coffee and tea

Remember when Southwest made waves by cutting out airline meals and just serving peanuts? Frontier Airlines is about to take things a step farther.

In a two-pronged approach to cutting costs and holding down fares, Frontier will do away with the ubiquitous free soft drinks and coffee, and also push travelers to book on its web site by increasing carry-on luggage fees when they don't.

Frontier announced this week that as part of its "transformation into an Ultra Low Cost Carrier" it will begin charging $1.99 for coffee, tea, soda, and juice, for passengers flying on Economy or Basic fares, effective July 1st.

To encourage customers to book through its website, Frontier will not charge for carry-on bags of customers who book on FlyFrontier.com. But those who book their flights through third parties will be charged $25 if they pay in advance, or $100 if they pay at the gate.

The fee for the first checked bag will remain $20 for tickets booked on FlyFrontier.com, and increase to $25 if booked elsewhere. 

United, Delta, US Airways, and American all raised their fees for checked baggage in the past two weeks.

Locally Frontier flies out of Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland OH.