Frontier Airlines EarlyReturns - DL adds MKE-LGA and DEN-LGA

MKE-LGA will be 3x daily with a mix of CR9's and E70s.

DEN-LGA will be twice daily on 737s.

This is a result of the DL-US slot shuffle and comes on top of DL's recent announcement of MKE-JFK.

Interesting that DL went from having no service in the MKE-NYC market to serving two NYC airports from MKE next year.

Edited to add: DL is also adding one E70 daily on MCI-LGA

MKE-LGA will be 3x daily with a mix of CR9's and E70s.

MKE-DEN will be twice daily on 737s.

This is a result of the DL-US slot shuffle and comes on top of DL's recent announcement of MKE-JFK.

Interesting that DL went from having no service in the MKE-NYC market to serving two NYC airports from MKE next year.

Edited to add: DL is also adding one E70 daily on MCI-LGA

Did they add MKE-DEN too? I can't see DL flying 2x '37's on that route.

Thanks for sharing the news, hoss. It looks like DL is really ramping up at LGA.

http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=18&item=162

It reminds me of the "old days" when NWA was the carrier to LGA from MKE.

The flight times look good for business travelers.

Hopefully, F9 will remain in the picture and not abandon MKE by reducing capacity even further.

Did they add MKE-DEN too? I can't see DL flying 2x '37's on that route.

That was an error on my part. It's corrected now to read DEN-LGA.

Thanks for sharing the news, hoss. It looks like DL is really ramping up at LGA.

http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=18&item=162

It reminds me of the "old days" when NWA was the carrier to LGA from MKE.

The flight times look good for business travelers.

Hopefully, F9 will remain in the picture and not abandon MKE by reducing capacity even further.

I assume NWA used larger equipment on the old days on that route.

It used to just be Midwest on MKE-LGA. For now, we have F9, FL and soon DL. We'll see who gets scared first.

Sorry - for whatever reason I thought I was still in the Delta forum. This question is probably best there.

I thought DEN's exclusion from LGA's perimeter rule was only for UA. Was the perimeter rule reduced or altered because of the slot swap?

I assume NWA used larger equipment on the old days on that route.

It used to just be Midwest on MKE-LGA. For now, we have F9, FL and soon DL. We'll see who gets scared first.

A long time ago, it used to be mostly the 727s on the route. Sorry, I'm going back awhile.

Hopefully, F9 will remain in the picture and not abandon MKE by reducing capacity even further.

I guess that very much depends on what Southwest/Airtran does.

MKE-LGA looks to me to be capacity saturated with this addition. I don't see how anyone can make a buck on the route with this amount of capacity, especially in winter

davy.

I guess that very much depends on what Southwest/Airtran does.

MKE-LGA looks to me to be capacity saturated with this addition. I don't see how anyone can make a buck on the route with this amount of capacity, especially in winter

davy.

Unless something changes, the summer 2012 daily schedule will be:

5x on FL 717s to LGA
2x on F9 E90s to LGA
3x on DL CR9s/E70s to LGA
1x on DL CR9s to JFK (wasn't this announced as 2x/day?)

Unless something changes, the summer 2012 daily schedule will be:

5x on FL 717s to LGA
2x on F9 E90s to LGA
3x on DL CR9s/E70s to LGA
1x on DL CR9s to JFK (wasn't this announced as 2x/day?)

It will be interesting to see what WN does on this route. I can see the FL routes be eliminated completely by the end of the year, WN could easily use those slots for more lucrative routes.

I guess that very much depends on what Southwest/Airtran does.

MKE-LGA looks to me to be capacity saturated with this addition. I don't see how anyone can make a buck on the route with this amount of capacity, especially in winter

davy.

I agree, but at least F9 has the advantage of having the lowest costs on the route (well as soon as AirTran costs match WN). I think the 2x daily is enough to keep business travelers decent on the route without the massive overcapacity they had last year (3xA319). We'll see, but I hate to see them bow down to DL on yet another route.

I assume NWA used larger equipment on the old days on that route.

It used to just be Midwest on MKE-LGA.

Actually a couple of years ago NW used to have a bunch of p2p routes from MKE and LGA was one of them. It started out with an A319 but later on it was changed to several daily CRJs.

I thought DEN's exclusion from LGA's perimeter rule was only for UA. Was the perimeter rule reduced or altered because of the slot swap?

DEN is excluded from the perimter rule. It's not carrier-specific, and didn't come about as a function of the DL DCA - US LGA slot swap.

Actually a couple of years ago NW used to have a bunch of p2p routes from MKE and LGA was one of them. It started out with an A319 but later on it was changed to several daily CRJs.

True. However, I don't think the NWA mini-hub at MKE lasted longer than a year or two. It was quite impressive while it lasted.

I agree, but at least F9 has the advantage of having the lowest costs on the route (well as soon as AirTran costs match WN). I think the 2x daily is enough to keep business travelers decent on the route without the massive overcapacity they had last year (3xA319). We'll see, but I hate to see them bow down to DL on yet another route.

Yes, I think 2 x daily is a good idea.

I think anything else depends on what Southwest/Airtran does.

Not to offend anyone at MKE but it is difficult for me to believe that some of the (Airtran) MKE slots at LGA and DCA could not be more profitably used elsewhere.

But this Delta/US slot swap is producing some interesting stuff. As it stands at the moment, I believe there are to be two or three adjustments to the retaliation routes that Delta started at MCI - I'll be keeping my eye on AUS and MSY. :-)

DCA-OMA is already gone from the Delta schedules by the end of the first week in January. I suppose US could pick that route up, but maybe not.

davy

Yes, I think 2 x daily is a good idea.

I'll be keeping my eye on AUS and MSY. :-)

davy

And now I hear I should be keeping my eye on DEN-LGA as well - and not in a negative way.

davy

Hopefully, the West Coast will get backfilled in the cities Frontier abandoned.

However, I am less optimistic.

Not sure if this is because DL sees weakness in F9 and wants to force them from the most profitable MKE routes or that they think WN is moving the LGA Slots to MDW?

Not sure if this is because DL sees weakness in F9 and wants to force them from the most profitable MKE routes or that they think WN is moving the LGA Slots to MDW?

Although it's tempting to think of Delta's decision to start new LGA-MKE service to be a reflection of their predictions for the MKE market, I don't think it's that at all.

Delta has decided to serve every possible significant market they can from LGA. That was the point of them putting so much effort into getting all those slots.

Excluding markets which are too long to have legal LGA nonstop service, Delta will have nonstops to every one of the 50 busiest LGA markets except Midway, Newport News, and Akron. And if one considers ORD/MDW, ORF/PHF, and CLE/CAK as three single markets, then Delta has every single one covered.

Not only is Milwaukee one of those top-50 markets, it is the #15 market from LGA using Q2 2011 stats, larger than places like Tampa, St Louis, Kansas City and Nashville.

The largest market Delta could serve but is taking a pass on is Oklahoma City at 180 passengers (to+from) per day. Everything bigger than that which they can serve nonstop they will. At 987 passengers per day, were Delta to bypass LGA-MKE it would leave a comparably large hole. Delta's goal is to saturate all of LaGuardia's meaningful markets, not strike at selected markets. Look at LGA-CLE, a market less than half the size of LGA-MKE which is already served frequently by two airlines (UA and AA), neither of which is likely to go anywhere. Yet Delta is jumping in with 5x/day RJ's on LGA-CLE.

To be sure, new DL competition will affect both Frontier and AIrTran/Southwest. And both F9 and WN could quite plausibly pull out. But Delta's move does not signal the presence of blood in the water at Milwaukee. It's oblivous to the presence or non-presence of it.

Delta's addition does of course mean more competition in a key MKE market, no matter the intent. And that leads one to wonder if this will further push F9 and/or WN to cut Milwaukee. For Southwest, the obvious question remains "is Milwaukee the best place to use LGA slots in the Southwest system?" For Frontier, the question is somewhat similar, although with Delta's penetration in just about every significant nonstop LGA market, anyplace else Frontier would use LGA slots would also face Delta and probably another carrier. If they were to look for a LGA market with only Detla to compete against and not a 3rd carrier, they're likely looking at a market quite bit smaller than LGA-MKE.

The one market which does come to mind without DL is LGA-PHF, a market that FL is pulling out of. However Frontier has already trimmed MKE-LGA and MCI-LGA, and those slots could be used for something like LGA-PHF without having to cut MKE-LGA.

This isn't formatted very nicely, but here are the 50 largest LGA markets, showing daily pax in Q2 2011. I've added a column to show if Delta will be serving it nonstop, won't be serving it nonstop, or can't be serving it nonstop because it is too long (yes, no or can't)

1 ………. 5475 ………. ORD ………. yes
2 ………. 3964 ………. ATL ………. yes
3 ………. 3624 ………. FLL ………. yes
4 ………. 2360 ………. MIA ………. yes
5 ………. 2146 ………. MCO ………. yes
6 ………. 2030 ………. DFW ………. yes
7 ………. 2011 ………. BOS ………. yes
8 ………. 1858 ………. DTW ………. yes
9 ………. 1658 ………. CLT ………. yes
10 ………. 1466 ………. DCA ………. yes
11 ………. 1442 ………. DEN ………. yes
12 ………. 1363 ………. RDU ………. yes
13 ………. 1241 ………. MSP ………. yes
14 ………. 1215 ………. IAH ………. yes
15 ………. 987 ………. MKE ………. yes
16 ………. 936 ………. STL ………. yes
17 ………. 900 ………. PBI ………. yes
18 ………. 869 ………. TPA ………. yes
19 ………. 838 ………. MSY ………. yes
20 ………. 795 ………. BNA ………. yes
21 ………. 771 ………. CMH ………. yes
22 ………. 752 ………. MCI ………. yes
23 ………. 676 ………. MYR ………. yes
24 ………. 630 ………. MDW ………. NO but is served via ORD
25 ………. 624 ………. LAX ………. can't
26 ………. 605 ………. PIT ………. yes
27 ………. 599 ………. IND ………. yes
28 ………. 480 ………. CVG ………. yes
29 ………. 471 ………. JAX ………. yes
30 ………. 465 ………. CLE ………. new
31 ………. 421 ………. CAK ………. NO but is served via CLE
32 ………. 407 ………. SFO ………. can't
33 ………. 380 ………. MEM ………. yes
34 ………. 346 ………. LAS ………. can't
35 ………. 346 ………. BUF ………. yes
36 ………. 339 ………. CHS ………. yes
37 ………. 296 ………. RIC ………. yes
38 ………. 289 ………. RSW ………. yes
39 ………. 257 ………. ABQ ………. can't
40 ………. 254 ………. PHF ………. NO but is served via ORF
41 ………. 252 ………. AUS ………. can't
42 ………. 235 ………. PHX ………. can't
43 ………. 231 ………. SAT ………. can't
44 ………. 209 ………. IAD ………. yes
45 ………. 208 ………. OMA ………. yes
46 ………. 206 ………. SAN ………. can't
47 ………. 206 ………. ORF ………. yes
48 ………. 200 ………. DAY ………. yes
49 ………. 200 ………. SNA ………. can't
50 ………. 193 ………. BHM ………. yes

Fascinating info, knope. Thanks much for posting.

Southwest could take a hybrid approach in MKE and move three of the mke-lga slots elsewhere while keeping two of them in place (like what F9 did).

Thanks for the analysis Knope! I agree it would have been strange of DL not to add MKE-LGA. But your numbers also show that where else would F9 put those slots that aren't under a lot of competition?

I suppose they could try LGA-MCO/FLL, but I would find it much more entertaining to jump into ORD-LGA and utilize their lower costs to ride out the competition's nuclear reaction. Do I think they would do that? Probably not, but I do think with the shift to ULCC its time to start standing up to competition instead of being pushed around by everyone.

...but I would find it much more entertaining to jump into ORD-LGA and utilize their lower costs to ride out the competition's nuclear reaction. Do I think they would do that? Probably not, but I do think with the shift to ULCC its time to start standing up to competition instead of being pushed around by everyone.

I'd love to see a small (domestic) build-up at ORD.

Today is the first day of the Apple flying at ORD - ORD-HUX is in the air now - and at peak Frontier will be flying seven routes from ORD - HUX, LIR, CUN, MBJ, PUJ, PVR and SJD - for Apple, with the last two as scheduled service as well.

davy

For what its worth, the July 2012 MKE-LGA schedule (as it currently appears) actually has about 3% fewer seats than 2011. Delta's three flights only have 76, 76 and 70 seats for a total of 222. Frontier has 210 fewer seats than last summer, and AirTran has 40 fewer seats by virtue of two 737 flights downgraded to 717.

That doesn't mean a one-for-one trade off of course -- the traffic Frontier used to funnel from places like MSN to New York via connecting MKE-LGA fligts won't find their way onto Delta's MKE-LGA flights. But overall there isn't a massive jump in capacity in the market in spite of Delta's flights.

Fascinating info, knope. Thanks much for posting.

I second that. I wouldn't be surprised if you have had job offers to become a analyst for the airline industry via IM here... LOL

I second that. I wouldn't be surprised if you have had job offers to become a analyst for the airline industry via IM here... LOL

They wouldn't be able to pay him what he is worth. :eek::eek:

LOL...kind of you guys to say. I did have somone from an airline contact me awhile back saying that the kind of thing I did was very similar to a certain department and that I might want to apply, but I didn't (and still don't) want to move to the places I would need to go to make that happen even if I got such a job.

If I was able to primiarily work remotely, that would be a different story.

Plus...the airline industry isn't exaclty the most stable one out there. But then again, what is.

LOL...kind of you guys to say. I did have somone from an airline contact me awhile back saying that the kind of thing I did was very similar to a certain department and that I might want to apply, but I didn't (and still don't) want to move to the places I would need to go to make that happen even if I got such a job.

If I was able to primiarily work remotely, that would be a different story.

Plus...the airline industry isn't exaclty the most stable one out there. But then again, what is.

You received some love over on the DL forum, too.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/17649280-post97.html