Midwest Airlines Midwest Miles (Pre-Alignment) - Republic fleet changes -- primarily Frontier

Q400's are leaving, replaced by E190 and E170 flights.

In addition to the seven added Denver destionations (MSN, LBG, SBA, GRR, BKG, GRB, PHF) they will be dropping Fargo and Tulsa.

The CRJ's which Republic had (I think most recently flying as CO*) are being returned.

One added DEN flight each to LGA, SEA, PDX, SFO

DEN-Fort Myers stays year-round


No word yet on any changes on the YX side.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Republic-Airways-Announces-bw-1276047408.html?x=0&.v=1

I haven't looked at Republic's fleet plan/block hours recently. Any idea how much lift might be available for expansion on the Midwest side after all of these changes take place at Frontier? Is there enough to do any meaningful type of additions?

Difficult to tell...several factors come into play:


(1) Specifically how many more E190's and A320 are they getting. The E190 number in particular may be increased based on more USAirways birds coming. If that is true...then Republic can't announce that until US is ready to do the same. It affects USAirways employees if more E190 leave..

(2) The last Q400's are to be gone by September, which means there's still time for unannounced fleet moves to happen.

(3) Seasonal reductions ending in April free up more capacity.

(4) There is some slack in the current schedule at Midwest which can be used to squeeze out another flight or two.

(5) I'm not aware how much A318/A319/A320 slack they have today, but there may be some.

Finally, I believe the white-tail E170's which were rotated into Milwaukee (some birds coming from Hawaii) to cover for the pulled 717's are not all accounted for yet.

I find it somewhat surprising that MSN and GRB will have E190 service. Right now, GRB is seasonal, 04/19/10 - 10/22/10.

I find it somewhat surprising that MSN and GRB will have E190 service. Right now, GRB is seasonal, 04/19/10 - 10/22/10.

I'm glad to see the addition to MSN. It's always been somewhat surprising to me that Midwest never really tried to do more there.

A few more flights would be nice. A return of the MCI route would be good. If Republic can get its hands on some more DCA slots, I'd like to see them attempt service to MSN as well (after MKE, MCI, and DEN are taken care of, of course).

Lovin' the MSN-DEN flight! Do we know the aircraft type yet? I'm hoping it's not an ERJ-145, though I'd take even that. As long as I have a way to get me Delta MQM's and get me to my ski trips (and better west-coast connections) without stopping in MSP!

MSN-NY or Washington would be nice, too, but with the flights on DL Connection (LGA & DCA) and CO Express (EWR), do you think there's the demand in MSN to support more capacity?

Madison is definitely an interesting city. Here are its top 10 markets with the amount of passengers that are carried on average in a day. SFO - PHX haven't had nonstop service for a year.

LGA ------ 85.2
DCA ------ 80.5
SFO ------ 66.4
BOS ------ 60.1
LAS ------ 55.2
LAX ------ 55.0
PHX ------ 53.0
DFW ------ 51.5
DEN ------ 43.6
EWR ------ 42.9

I'm glad to see the addition to MSN. It's always been somewhat surprising to me that Midwest never really tried to do more there.

A few more flights would be nice. A return of the MCI route would be good. If Republic can get its hands on some more DCA slots, I'd like to see them attempt service to MSN as well (after MKE, MCI, and DEN are taken care of, of course).

Blue,
We definitely tried. We used to bring the MD-80s in to MSN. Filled em up a lot of times, too. We eventually gave all MSN to Skyway DO-328s. This was maybe 2003 time frame. Knope probably has those deets.

Lovin' the MSN-DEN flight! Do we know the aircraft type yet? I'm hoping it's not an ERJ-145, though I'd take even that. As long as I have a way to get me Delta MQM's and get me to my ski trips (and better west-coast connections) without stopping in MSP!

MSN-NY or Washington would be nice, too, but with the flights on DL Connection (LGA & DCA) and CO Express (EWR), do you think there's the demand in MSN to support more capacity?


Here is the MSN info:

Denver - Madison (Effective May 3, 2010)
Departs Arrives Frequency Aircraft
3:10 p.m. 6:20 p.m. Daily E190

Madison - Denver (Effective May 3, 2010)
Departs Arrives Frequency Aircraft
6:55 p.m. 8:30 p.m. Daily E190

Blue,
We definitely tried. We used to bring the MD-80s in to MSN. Filled em up a lot of times, too. We eventually gave all MSN to Skyway DO-328s. This was maybe 2003 time frame. Knope probably has those deets.

You're right about mainline, although I believe Midwest scheduled the DC9s (2x daily) instead of the MD80s.

Mainline was yanked from MSN in 2003. At the time, Midwest stated they were losing millions on the mainline flights.

I know Madison would kill for a SFO flight (they've wanted one for years). Could it work with an E170 or is it simply to long and thin?

You're right about mainline, although I believe Midwest scheduled the DC9s (2x daily) instead of the MD80s.

Mainline was yanked from MSN in 2003. At the time, Midwest stated they were losing millions on the mainline flights.

I know Madison would kill for a SFO flight (they've wanted one for years). Could it work with an E170 or is it simply to long and thin?

My guess is too long and thin. MKE has never been able to support more than 1x day if my memory is correct. If it was 2x/day, it was only for a short time. And for many years, MKE didn't even have nonstop SFO service.

MKE has never been able to support more than 1x day if my memory is correct. If it was 2x/day, it was only for a short time. And for many years, MKE didn't even have nonstop SFO service.

Midwest and Northwest ran MKE-SFO concurrently from 1990 to 1992. This was during the NWA hub days in MKE and both carriers operated year round service.

I think Midwest suspended MKE-SFO non-stops for a few years in the early 2000s (following 9/11 and YX's near brush with bankruptcy).

IMO the market is there for year round service. Hopefully AirTran is doing well on the route.

Midwest and Northwest ran MKE-SFO concurrently from 1990 to 1992. This was during the NWA hub days in MKE and both carriers operated year round service.

I think Midwest suspended MKE-SFO non-stops for a few years in the early 2000s (following 9/11 and YX's near brush with bankruptcy).

IMO the market is there for year round service. Hopefully AirTran is doing well on the route.

Thanks for the good historical information, Blue. How do you keep track of all these flight changes? Do you keep a log? Is there a web resource somewhere?

Thanks for the good historical information, Blue. How do you keep track of all these flight changes? Do you keep a log? Is there a web resource somewhere?

No, I don't keep any type of logs or spreadsheets. I guess I just have a good memory :D

In all honesty, I'm an airline geek and have had an interest in the operations side of the business for some time now. If the industry was more stable and paid much better, I might have seriously considered a career in the field. Instead, I just watch in interest from the sidelines like most people on FlyerTalk.

I've actually found that on-line newspaper archives to be a good source of information. The Wisconsin State Journal in particular had tons of articles on Midwest, Northwest, and MKE in general over the years. I'm not sure if they still have the on-line archives available, and if so, whether it's still free.