Frontier Airlines EarlyReturns - F9 MCI-TPA service announced for 2012

The new nonstop will operate 2x per week, beginning 02/15/2012. An introductory $99 fare is available on bookings thru 12/11/2011 and travel thru 02/29/2012.

http://media.frontierairlines.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=5305

Frontier will be going head-to-head with SWA on this route. The introductory fare is very competitive against SWA, even the Classic fare, which includes two free checked bags, to match SWA bag policy.

How will this route perform, when the intro fare is not available?

This route is only going to be flown what, like 18 total times?!...

This route is only going to be flown what, like 18 total times?!...

But, it's in each direction. :)

Up until recently, there seemed to be a reluctance to go head to head with Southwest on some of the MCI routes (excluding the Midwest legacy routes, of course).

That changed a couple of months ago with MCI-LAS, which has done very well, changed again with MCI-MCO and now again with MCI-TPA.

It is something that had to happen eventually, if the MCI hub is to grow, and I'm pleased to see it happening now.

There may be three others of consequence - MCI-PDX, MCI-SAN and MCI-PDX. I wonder if we'll see those.

davy

There may be three others of consequence - MCI-PDX, MCI-SAN and MCI-PDX. I wonder if we'll see those.

davy

FYI you quoted two routes twice

FYI you quoted two routes twice

My guess is one of those was meant to be MCI- PHX, instead of MCI-PDX.

My guess is one of those was meant to be MCI- PHX, instead of MCI-PDX.

They didn't announced it yet? You mention MCI-PHX didn't have a announce yet.

It will get more tougher competitive against WN from MCI-TPA and etc. They will fight the war fare against WN.

My guess is one of those was meant to be MCI- PHX, instead of MCI-PDX.

Absolutely. :-)

davy

I seem to recall that YX flew MCI-TPA back in the day. Glad to see they're bringing it back.

I seem to recall that YX flew MCI-TPA back in the day. Glad to see they're bringing it back.

Midwest flew MCI-TPA daily from late 2006 through summer 2007. Loads and yields were rather lackluster.

I'm actually surprised Frontier hasn't restarted MCI-FLL or made MCI-RSW more than 1x per week. Both routes did quite well for Midwest and were cancelled primarily because of the price of oil in Spring 2008. With a more efficient aircraft both routes might be sustainable year-round.

Given that Southwest flies MCI-FLL, would Frontier consider starting MIA? Now might be a good time, especially with American Airlines in bankruptcy.

I'm curious to see how the ultra-low-frequency MCI-TPA service will do in a market with ample nonstop service from the competition and no long history of service. Nonstops at OMA / DSM / MSN are pretty much the only game in town, and even in MKE where a single daily flight splits RSW and FLL, there is at least a bit of feed, lots of FF members, and many years of history. MCI-TPA on Saturday should be fine, but I wonder how the midweek one will do.

When I saw the headline that MCI-TPA was coming this winter, I really expected it to be funded by pulling the A319 off of MCI-BOS. No, they are keeping an A319 at about 7:00am Sunday through Friday. I don't see how that route will fill even half that capacity in winter. Perhaps not even close. It concerns me that we're seeing a repeat of what happened in MKE last winter. With focus on costs, costs, cost, they set themselves up to fail by flying high-capcaity low-cost aircraft on missions with a snowball's chance in hell of filling enough seats to break even.

When I saw the headline that MCI-TPA was coming this winter, I really expected it to be funded by pulling the A319 off of MCI-BOS. No, they are keeping an A319 at about 7:00am Sunday through Friday. I don't see how that route will fill even half that capacity in winter. Perhaps not even close. It concerns me that we're seeing a repeat of what happened in MKE last winter. With focus on costs, costs, cost, they set themselves up to fail by flying high-capcaity low-cost aircraft on missions with a snowball's chance in hell of filling enough seats to break even.

They really are having a problem comprehending their markets. Last January they flew three A319 MKE-BOS nonstop every day. I was on one that had 14 passengers one direction, and 16 the other direction.

Last January they flew three A319 MKE-BOS nonstop every day. I was on one that had 14 passengers one direction, and 16 the other direction.

And now they don't even have a single daily E90 on that route for the winter...

Midwest flew MCI-TPA daily from late 2006 through summer 2007. Loads and yields were rather lackluster.

I'm actually surprised Frontier hasn't restarted MCI-FLL or made MCI-RSW more than 1x per week. Both routes did quite well for Midwest and were cancelled primarily because of the price of oil in Spring 2008. With a more efficient aircraft both routes might be sustainable year-round.

Given that Southwest flies MCI-FLL, would Frontier consider starting MIA? Now might be a good time, especially with American Airlines in bankruptcy.

MIA would be nice, but I wonder if they are hesitant to open a new station for such a small number of seasonal flights.

FYI, the MCI Florida schedule for Frontier is 8x/week at peak...6x to MCO, 1x to RSW and 2x to TPA. All flights are E190.

MIA would be nice, but I wonder if they are hesitant to open a new station for such a small number of seasonal flights.



I actually think MCI-MIA would be a good year-round addition. It could be scheduled to compliment a DEN-MIA route as well.

Here's a comparison on the YX/F9 onboard loads for Q1 of 2010 and Q1 of 2011. In 2010, they operated 4x/weekday (5x to LGA) mostly with 76-seat E170. In 2011 they operated 3x/weekday A319 in January, moving some capacity to BOS and DCA to E190 in February and March.

[fields are scheduled flights per day, seats per flight, passengers per flight, load factor, and passengers per day]

Boston
…… fl/day …… seats/fl …… pax/fl …… LF % ……….. pax/day
…….. 3.3 …………. 79 ………. 56 ………. 70.4% ………. 180 ………. 2010
…….. 2.7 ……….. 120 ………. 69 ………. 57.4% ………. 175 ………. 2011


New York
…… fl/day …… seats/fl …… pax/fl …… LF % ……….. pax/day
…….. 4.6 …………. 76 ………. 62 ………. 81.5% ………. 273 ………. 2010
…….. 2.7 ……….. 134 ………. 84 ………. 63.0% ………. 221 ………. 2011


Washington
…… fl/day …… seats/fl …… pax/fl …… LF % ……….. pax/day
…….. 3.6 …………. 76 ………. 55 ………. 72.2% ………. 184 ………. 2010
…….. 2.7 ……….. 119 ………. 65 ………. 54.8% ………. 170 ………. 2011

Although average passengers per flight increased, it was nowhere near enough to offseat increase in seats per flight. And total traffic served decreased in each market becaue of lower frequency -- fewer connecting opportunities, some traffic going to the competition for a particular flight time, and traffic turned away when flights filled up (and yes, occasionally certain flights did, especially the E190 in peak periods to DCA and BOS).

I understand that flying E170 against AirTran 717 and 737 is a bad cost comparison, but there didn't seem to be a happy medium, either. The A319 was just too much plane given the time of year and the competitive environment. It was hardly a surprise that the A319 carried so much open capacity, and nowhere was this more true than those early-am BOS/LGA/DCA-MKE flights and the late PM returns back to the east coast. Many of those flights -- especially BOS and DCA -- went out with perhaps 10-25 revenue passengers.

None of this attempts to address how the local/connecting traffic mix was, nor what the yields were like for locals or for connections. That's another can of worms. However it's virtually certain that the types of onboard loads they carried in 2011 were miles below break even because these were not strong yield markets.

They really are having a problem comprehending their markets. Last January they flew three A319 MKE-BOS nonstop every day. I was on one that had 14 passengers one direction, and 16 the other direction.

In case anyone might think those numbers were wildly non-typical, here's some further detail on MKE-BOS in January of 2011, when the route was 3x/day A319 (except 2x on Sa/Su.)

The "bad" flights were clearly the 6:00am BOS-MKE and the 8:00pm MKE-BOS. Those flight operated 6x per week. The other two flights were somewhat better.


If...

(a) The first four days of January were the tail end of the heavy holiday period, with an overall 88.9% load factor (121 pax per flight)

(b) The remainder of the month "bad" flights would have had 11.0% load factor (15 onboard pax)

(c) The remainder of the month "good" flights would have had 58.8% load factor (80 onboard pax)

...that would have come out to a full-month load factor of 51.7%, which is exactly what Frontier reported for the full month of January 2011.

The first few days of January have holiday hangover traffic, which blunts the true weakness of the month. In this possible scenario, the strong-but-not-impossible holiday load the first four days of the month (88.9%) would have pushed the overall monthly average up by over 11 percentage points. Loads for 1/5 thru 1/31 in this scenario averaged about 40%. (It would be even worse if those "bad" flights operated 7 days per week, but they only operated 6.)

Now I've only made up those individual numbers, but they are not very far off the mark for MKE-BOS that month, and the overall 51.7% load factor was accurate.

The 2012 Milwaukee-east coast schedule is addressing this by running E190 instead of A319 on the "good" flights for MKE-DCA and MKE-LGA (that is, the 8:00am and 2:00pm eastbound departures, and 11:30am and 5:30pm westbound departures) and not running an overnight flight into LGA or DCA at all. They should do a lot better, even with much less feed. What I don't understand is why BOS is not treated the same this winter. They should be running MCI-MKE-BOS thru on the E190 and not operate MCI-BOS nonstop in winter, or operate MCI-BOS nonstop a 1-3 times per week and use that plane to Florida the rest of the week. But...I don't run the world.

I actually think MCI-MIA would be a good year-round addition. It could be scheduled to compliment a DEN-MIA route as well.

And if there is still any interest at all in forging a partnership with someone like AA/OneWorld, that could be a good international connecting point.

But, AA probably has more pressing needs right now.

I actually think MCI-MIA would be a good year-round addition. It could be scheduled to compliment a DEN-MIA route as well.

Actually, MIA is too extremely expensive the landing fees. I don't think its happening anytime soon. It was cost $14 or $15 for landing fees.

I actually think MCI-MIA would be a good year-round addition. It could be scheduled to compliment a DEN-MIA route as well.

MIA has always been regarded as a high cost airport - which I guess has affected the LCC's - but about four or five years ago the MIA officials decided to do something about it. They offered a "reduced airport cost" deal to several airlines to attract more service.

There were very strong rumors that Frontier had agreed to it and would add DEN-MIA, but then something happened, one of the periodic financial problems, and it was never announced.

Personally, I'd love to see it it, at least MCI-MIA, but I don't think it will happen in the foreseeable future.

davy

I understand that flying E170 against AirTran 717 and 737 is a bad cost comparison, but there didn't seem to be a happy medium, either. The A319 was just too much plane given the time of year and the competitive environment. It was hardly a surprise that the A319 carried so much open capacity, and nowhere was this more true than those early-am BOS/LGA/DCA-MKE flights and the late PM returns back to the east coast. Many of those flights -- especially BOS and DCA -- went out with perhaps 10-25 revenue passengers.



This is why I think the new MSN/GRR-DCA routes will likely flop. Both markets are much smaller than MKE and have non-stop competition from Delta (which has a strong following in both markets).

My guess is that Frontier will try to funnel as much DEN traffic onto these flights as they can.

This is why I think the new MSN/GRR-DCA routes will likely flop. Both markets are much smaller than MKE and have non-stop competition from Delta (which has a strong following in both markets).

My guess is that Frontier will try to funnel as much DEN traffic onto these flights as they can.

Nothing has been announced yet, but it is generally believed that, because of the DCA/LGA slot swaps, Delta may drop both those routes.

The question now becomes - will US Airways start them, as it originally said it would?

Again, nothing has been announced yet, but it has been said (by others, on other forums) that US won't take over those two routes from Delta.

I don't know. I'm quite content to let it play out as it will.

davy