Frontier Airlines EarlyReturns - Q4 2011 Financial Results

Q4 2011 results press release was posted last night. Highlights:

Branded (all results from everything flying as Frontier)

$37.1m pre-tax loss including special items
$07.8m pre-tax income excluding special items

Branded special items
--$40.1m charge for "integration and fleet transitiion expenses"
--$8.3m charge for "Non-recurring impairment"
--$3.5m gain on fuel market-to-market adjustments



Republic said they were planning to realize very large non-cash hits to income based on writing down the value of dozens of RJ's this quarter and indeed they did.

More details in the report:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/republic-airways-holdings-announces-fourth-010000352.html
Fixed-Fee results
$139.4m pre-tax loss including special items
$021.8m pre-tax income excluding special items

Fixed-fee special items
--$1.2m charge for "integration and flees transition expenses"
--$160.0m charge for "Non-recurring impairment"

Was anyone able to listen to the conference call? I only caught the very end of it, but it seems like BB's focus is returning to fixed fee while DS takes over F9. BB's major project for the year is finding a home for their RJs coming off contract but still are leased. He did mention possible prorate flying so I'm intrigued to see what they might do with that. I think they still own the Midwest Express/Connect trademark :D.

Was anyone able to listen to the conference call? I only caught the very end of it, but it seems like BB's focus is returning to fixed fee while DS takes over F9. BB's major project for the year is finding a home for their RJs coming off contract but still are leased. He did mention possible prorate flying so I'm intrigued to see what they might do with that. I think they still own the Midwest Express/Connect trademark :D.

Republic still has the 453 ticket stock and YX airline code. It would be interesting if they did their prorate flying under Midwest Express/Connect, especially out of Milwaukee.

According to this Forbes list, Midwest is still has Customer Loyalty and they have not flown for over a year.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/01/the-case-of-the-disappearing-airline/

Was anyone able to listen to the conference call? I only caught the very end of it, but it seems like BB's focus is returning to fixed fee while DS takes over F9. BB's major project for the year is finding a home for their RJs coming off contract but still are leased. He did mention possible prorate flying so I'm intrigued to see what they might do with that. I think they still own the Midwest Express/Connect trademark :D.

The full webcast from this morning is available ...

http://earnings.com/company.asp?ticker=RJET&coid=131107&client=cb

After listening to the call, it sounds like you were absolutely right Knope that the E90 flying is going to be prorate. That's kind of surprising to me. I'm curious what that will mean in markets where they operate both airbuses and E90s once F9 is separated. As an example let's look at DEN-MSP. This summer they're flying the route 4x daily with 3x 319 and 1x E90. The E90 flight is at 7 am which will likely run a little lighter than the other flights but F9 probably wants to offer a decent schedule with an early flight.

My question is would Republic be willing to possibly lose a little money in order to allow F9 to offer a decent schedule and make more money off the remaining 3 flights? Or will we see RAH make decisions that are only based on their own performance which would force F9 to either upgauge the early flight or not offer it at all?

Their decision to make the E90s prorate creates some interesting scheduling questions. It also obviously means the only route out of MKE where F9 has skin in the game will be DEN.

Republic still has the 453 ticket stock and YX airline code. It would be interesting if they did their prorate flying under Midwest Express/Connect, especially out of Milwaukee.

According to this Forbes list, Midwest is still has Customer Loyalty and they have not flown for over a year.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/01/the-case-of-the-disappearing-airline/

Off the wall crazy idea: bring back Midwest Connect with full F9 codeshare and fly high yield routes around the Midwest with their ERJs. Have a few routes out of MKE but focus on P2P routes and minimal connections (like the WN model but small scale). Could have routes from MCI, MKE, OMA, DSM, IND, ORD, etc... 1x1 business class seating w/ Wifi?