Further expansion by AirTran
With little to no fanfare, AirTran has added some additional frequency on several Milwaukee routes.
This summer, MKE-LGA increases from 3 to 4 daily round-trips while MKE-SFO gets a second frequency (evening departure, red-eye return). Both of these appear to be seasonal only and are gone by early September.
In September, AirTran bumps MKE-LAS from two to three daily round-trip flights. I'm sure the MKE-LAS route could use the additional capacity, but I'm surprised AirTran is adding this in September (one of the weakest travel months) instead of holding off a month or two.
I do wonder what, if anything, Midwest will do to counter any of these moves. They may not be all that interested in chasing after price sensitive LAS traffic, but they could squeeze in another flight by swapping E170s with 717s come this fall. The real question for me is if Midwest would consider adding a sixth daily MKE-LGA flight. Again, they could probably squeeze this flight in, but is there really a need. Slots could be an issue, but they may have some left over from the MCI pull-down that they could utilize.