US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Frontier to PHL

Frontier Air To Add Service To Philadelphia
Wednesday February 18, 6:13 pm ET
By Elizabeth Souder, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Frontier Airlines Inc. said Wednesday it will add service to Philadelphia, following the path of Southwest Airlines Co......

The move turns up the heat on US Airways Group Inc., which operates a hub in Philadelphia and has said the fresh competition from low-cost carriers will squeeze revenue...

http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/040218/1813001111_1.html

This news means my defection to F9 is now 100% complete...got the comp to Ascent, and now with this announcement of DEN-PHL and DEN-FLL which will be my two most flown routes for the next few years...no more need for US now, just got to burn those miles...

N674UW (could be N923FR soon?)

Oops I didn't see that you had posted the Frontier to Philly story before me. My bad

Clearly Frontier is new to Philly. To pick Pat's for some great cheesesteaks? Ugh...

"the fresh competition from low-cost carriers will squeeze revenue..."

translation: "Our ability to gouge will significantly decline."

Or "our gouging success rate will decrease significantly."

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by N674UW:

N674UW (could be N923FR soon?)

</font>

AWWWW!!!!

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/476811/M/

Good choice!

Frontier. . .sounds like a ride at Walt Disney Land.

Think there livery is lame, but would change my mind if they had a cockroach http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif Roaches are wildlife too!! Born free as free as the wind blows. . .

Yea, I was on that 'coon from DEN-FLL a few months ago a few days after it was put into service and I have to admit the raccoon is cute...

N674UW

Looks like Pennsylvania is really putting the screws to Usair in PIT and PHL. The announcement of SouthWest and Frontier coming to PHL is right on the opening page of PHL's website, with a direct link to each airlines website.
http://www.phl.org/index.html

And on PIT's web page, you can sign up for a newsletter that lists airfare specials. Usair was conspicuously missing from February's issue.
http://www.pitairport.com

Methinks that Pennsylvania is sending a message to Usair in a big way.

Peace

As per the PIT low fare thing, USAirways did not originally want to join, but now it has. So in that case, it was USAirways own bungling, nothing to do with PA.

USAirways does quite a good enough job of making things hard for itself without our government's help http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I for one think that F9's entry to PHL is more a direct attack on UA then US. US has never been strong in this market, and F9 has built a loyal and growing base at DEN these past few years. I think they were trying to pick at UA during their time of crisis like SW is picking at US by coming to PHL

The red-eye does have 1 advantage over both UA & US's in that it leaves almost an hour after their's does and get's in at a more managable time. The people from the US red-eye will just be getting their luggage at 7:25am, even from a 5:30am arrival! (Trust me, it has happened to me)

I believe Frontier are the suckers who bought a few A318's from Airbus. Hope they don't have to compete on any routes with AirTran, since the 717 burns a whole lot less fuel that that stubby little A318 oinker.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by veliger:
I believe Frontier are the suckers who bought a few A318's from Airbus. Hope they don't have to compete on any routes with AirTran, since the 717 burns a whole lot less fuel that that stubby little A318 oinker.</font>

Last I checked, I think most passengers don't care about the relative fuel burn rates of the aircraft they'll be flying...in fact I don't think most pax even care about the type of aircraft they are flying...

N674UW

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by N674UW:
Last I checked, I think most passengers don't care about the relative fuel burn rates of the aircraft they'll be flying...in fact I don't think most pax even care about the type of aircraft they are flying...

N674UW</font>

Agreed, my point was that Frontier got suckered into buying the worst dog of an airplane being sold today, the A318. The new engine to give the 318 acceptable fuel economy (not good fuel burn, but at least decent) never materialized. So they used the A319 engine on it and sent it out the door. I bet the 30 plus year old DC-9's at NWA have similar fuel burn to the A318 POS.

I understand the dislike of the A318 due to fuel economy, but NWA is doing alright with the DC9's, and from a passenger standpoint, I'm glad that NWA has DC9's and
F9 got A318's, because the alternative is some kind of RJ POS...

PA is putting the screws to US? Let us remember the 20 minutes US gave PIT before canceling the lease under BK protection. And the hard ball negotiating tactics. US thought they held all of the cards, but they obviously don't.

I applaud PIT and PHL proactively courting new "viable" carriers. Some airlines will survive this cut throat market.....US might not be one of them.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by HomeToPit:
Looks like Pennsylvania is really putting the screws to Usair in PIT and PHL. The announcement of SouthWest and Frontier coming to PHL is right on the opening page of PHL's website, with a direct link to each airlines website.
http://www.phl.org/index.html

And on PIT's web page, you can sign up for a newsletter that lists airfare specials. Usair was conspicuously missing from February's issue.
http://www.pitairport.com

Methinks that Pennsylvania is sending a message to Usair in a big way.

Peace </font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Daze:
I understand the dislike of the A318 due to fuel economy, but NWA is doing alright with the DC9's, and from a passenger standpoint, I'm glad that NWA has DC9's and
F9 got A318's, because the alternative is some kind of RJ POS...</font>

Agreed x2. I'll take the 30 year old DC-9's over some RJ any day.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by GotCalcio4:
Agreed x2. I'll take the 30 year old DC-9's over some RJ any day.</font>

I agree 100% with both of you, I actually like the NWA DC-9's. They have new interiors and are a nice ride if you are in the front half of the plane. My point was Frontier bought (leased?) a brand new plane that is no more efficient than a 30 plus year old plane that is fully depriciated. Therefore, NWA is actually flying DC-9's at a lower cost per trip and per seat mile than Frontier is flying their A318's at. So, unless Frontier was given the 318's free or they are absolutly, positivley sure they would never fill 20 more seats on a 319, they made a dreadful decision to purchase 318's.

Ok. So the F9 flight to DEN will be #21 for take-off and the WN flight to PVD will be #22? Let's add some more capacity to PHL and those WN and F9 flights will have gray beards by the time they take-off.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by HPTunco:
PA is putting the screws to US? </font>

Not just PA but City of Philadelphia (airport
owner). Did anyone see the full page add in
Phila. Inquirer on back of business section
today (2/23/04) sponsered by PHL.org. Featured a Frontier plane with a rabbit on
the tail and welcomed Frontier to PHL. Is
the rabbit significant and subliminal as far as 'multiplicity' of Low-Fare carriers
arriving at PHL?



[This message has been edited by gar777 (edited Feb 23, 2004).]

I don't think it's PHL or PA putting the screws to US (supposedly both of these airlines had been courted for several years, perhaps just coincidence they are both starting in May).

I'd like to think it's the realization that US operated about 60% of PHL gates, and that it was an airline clearly in decline (though PHL might be the last of it's hub to feel much change), and that it needed to get someone other airlines servicing the airport to pick up some extra gate revenue. This is especially true of Southwest, who could easily expand from it's initial 4 gates to perhaps a dozen or more.

Jeff

I just priced out some RT DEN-PHL fares for late June, and US seems to have matched F9 down to the penny. With the double miles offer from Frontier, which carrier to use is a no-brainer for me. But it's a coin toss which one most pax, who don't know or care about miles, will choose. I guess the real question is whether the low US fares are sustainable or not.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by veliger:
I agree 100% with both of you, I actually like the NWA DC-9's. They have new interiors and are a nice ride if you are in the front half of the plane. My point was Frontier bought (leased?) a brand new plane that is no more efficient than a 30 plus year old plane that is fully depriciated. Therefore, NWA is actually flying DC-9's at a lower cost per trip and per seat mile than Frontier is flying their A318's at. So, unless Frontier was given the 318's free or they are absolutly, positivley sure they would never fill 20 more seats on a 319, they made a dreadful decision to purchase 318's.</font>

Just FYI -

The math in the quoted post makes no sense. The depreciation argument, especially, makes no sense.