Midwest Airlines Midwest Miles - Job growth in Milwaukee?

With the closing of F9's New Mexico contact center, will jobs be moved to MKE?

http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2009/09/28/daily14.html?t=printable

I hate to get my hopes up but it does look like Milwaukee will land the reservations center for both F9 and YX. We will just have to wait and see. :)

I hate to get my hopes up but it does look like Milwaukee will land the reservations center for both F9 and YX. We will just have to wait and see. :)

This is one thing that intrigues me. Republic has already cut Midwest's finance, purchasing, HR and soon all the flight attendants and pilots will be gone. I think Indianapolis will give a good fight to land more maintenance and reservations jobs.
It seems as though Midwest was a back-up plan for Bedford if he didn't win the Frontier auction and since he has won, he doesn't need any thing Midwest offers.

I see a small Midwest marketing department (if they keep the Midwest name) and a E190/E170 maintenance base in Milwaukee but that is it. The rest will be in Indianapolis.

The rest will be in Indianapolis.

Let's hope so! I have my many doubts as I could see them relo'ing to Denver, but that seems less and less likely.

To be honest, call centers seem best suited for Mountain Time / Central time if you ask me... ^.... they're not stuck waking up early like the PST folks and not staying until past midnight like East Coasters (including IND) would.

Let's hope so! I have my many doubts as I could see them relo'ing to Denver, but that seems less and less likely.

To be honest, call centers seem best suited for Mountain Time / Central time if you ask me... ^.... they're not stuck waking up early like the PST folks and not staying until past midnight like East Coasters (including IND) would.

I don't think the time zone is much of a factor since they are open 24 hrs and contact people during business hours local time.

After doing some more thinking, which is never good, I am not sure if Midwest's call center can handle the additional Frontier load. They would have to add additional space in the building they are now or move it. If they are going to spend money on expanding the call center then their best option may be to move it where labor maybe less expensive and will receive incentives for bringing jobs to the community (Indianapolis).

Much of Midwest's infrastracture was built 10-15 years ago to support an airline of 50-60 mainline aircraft, a size Midwest never achieved. In the time since then, the proportion of sales coming through the call center has decreased significantly for all airlines. So there's a good potential for the exisitng Midwest facillities to handle the added volume and employees of YX+F9 with relatively minimal added cost.

It's been awhile since I've been in that part of HQ so I'm not positive exactly how much work would be needed. But a big plus to MKE over IND and DEN on both the MX and res center is existing infrastructure already under lease.

There are other factors, of course, and work may go elsewhere. But it's a mistake to just rule out MKE since "Midwest no longer exists" as dufus Michael Boyd does.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8716378

Bryan Bedford went out of his way in this article to say that Denver is too expensive to do business in. I know he is playing all cities involved, but his remarks were just made today on this.

Republic is looking at moving Frontier's aircraft maintenance and some ticketing operations out Denver because of high costs there, CEO Bryan Bedford said in an interview on Wednesday.

Bedford said both Indianapolis (where Republic is based) and Milwaukee are competing for the maintenance operation, and he hopes to make a decision by the end of October on where it will be located. Frontier employs about 250 people to work on planes in Denver, and they would get a chance to move to jobs wherever they're located, Bedford said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8716378

Bryan Bedford went out of his way in this article to say that Denver is too expensive to do business in. I know he is playing all cities involved, but his remarks were just made today on this.

It seems Menke can't wait to get out of Denver from his tone in this article.

"But Menke can’t shake negative feelings about jet-fuel-tax and enplanement issues."

“It’s an interesting sort of dilemma that the politicians are in here ... There’s been a lot of questions about whether they’re going to step up and support the company,” Menke said told the Denver Business Journal. “With the city and county, it’s been a relationship that’s been strained at times ... We’ve asked and we’ve pushed, and we’ll see what they come up with at the end of the day.”

“We are working on the platform of a new company, and we have to ensure we’re doing the right things in terms of incentives and cost reduction,” he said. “Because if you make an emotional decision, it may feel good from an emotional standpoint, but it may not be the best decision.”

http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2009/09/28/daily14.html?t=printable

From the Business Journal:

http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2009/10/05/story1.html?b=1254715200%5E2194311&t=printable

For what it's worth, Republic has asked MKE airport officials for additional cargo apron space located in front of the main maintenance hangar, for "maintenance of both Midwest and Frontier" aircraft.

For what it's worth, Republic has asked MKE airport officials for additional cargo apron space located in front of the main maintenance hangar, for "maintenance of both Midwest and Frontier" aircraft.

For a while YX had been leasing out their ramp space in front of the east MX hanger to UPS. However, starting Nov 1st YX will be taking this space back. Also in the coming months YX/RP will be leasing out 2 more gates at MKE.

Also in the coming months YX/RP will be leasing out 2 more gates at MKE.

Do you mean that YX will be leasing two more gates for their own use or will they be sub-leasing existing gate space to another carrier?

How many gates will YX have?

Do you mean that YX will be leasing two more gates for their own use or will they be sub-leasing existing gate space to another carrier?

How many gates will YX have?

They are leasing two more gates for themselves. D27 and D55, both of which actually used to be YX gates but were given back to the airport when YX began their draw down.


I think its around 20 gates they wil be using, though some of the gates can park more than one aircraft.

Today they have 14 total jetways which can park 16 aircraft...the north hammerhead gates 46/47/48/49 are served by two jetways. They also have ramp space at gates D28/D29 with ground level boarding for RJ's

The notion of "gates" is perhaps less important than ramp space, because in practical terms the way Midwest can service increased flights is by returning more RJ's to ground level boarding at peak times. All 16 conventional gates are mainline-able, and at peak times as many as 11 are currently used by large aircraft. RJ's always get D51 and D53, and they also often get D41, D45 and D48. More large-aircraft flights moves more RJ flights to ground level boarding. But the problem is that there's only so much real estate for ground level boarding now that Southwest is getting two gates on D. Where RJ's park today essentially takes up the whole D27 / D28 / D29 side at busy times, and there's not much room for additional planes down there once you put in a couple of 737's.

Midwest stacked 10+ planes on the hammerhead back when it was Beech 1900 and FRJ's, so their peak of 140+/day worked. Now they are around 100/day but aer running short of real estate to add many more flights at peak times. There's definitely still some wiggle room, but not a great deal.

I'm curious if the D55 gate will be a jetway that services 1 or 2 parking spots, or if it will be used as another ground-level RJ boarding operation with multple planes stacked up. I like the concept of having all RJ's at jetways, but there just isn't the real estate at MKE for that to happen these days.

I'm curious if the D55 gate will be a jetway that services 1 or 2 parking spots, or if it will be used as another ground-level RJ boarding operation with multple planes stacked up. I like the concept of having all RJ's at jetways, but there just isn't the real estate at MKE for that to happen these days.

D55 will be ground boarding.