Stumblefoot

I have really enjoyed my short time here on the forum and appreciate the informative posts by its participants. Clearly, a passion exists for the new F9. Here's my story...

I got the air travel bug when I flew my first commercial flight on NW back in the 80's during college spring break. I thought flying at night around all of the thunderstorms during the MEM to MCO leg was the coolest thing. A year later my bride and I flew TWA from STL-HNL for our honeymoon. We were a couple of wide-eyed farm kids in awe of air travel, just 21 years-old, madly in love, and excited to be traveling west of the Mississippi, let alone to Hawaii. I'll never forget for the rest of my life when the Ticket Agent asked when we were checking-in if we had just been married (I guess the shiny new rings were a dead give-away) and if we'd like an upgrade. From that moment I was hooked on air travel.

Fast forward a couple of decades where I had consolidated most of my flying with UA. Finally, after all of the years of labor strife that translated into poor in-flight service by the cabin crew on a regular basis, I decided to give F9 a try. The friendly helpfulness of the cabin crew, coupled with live television and a good on-time performance record, convinced me to switch my allegiance to them. Although I missed flying in a first class seat, it goes to show you that there is more to the "product" of an airline, than the seat itself.

Today, I live in Colorado, married to that same farm girl for over 20 years now. I love her even more than I did in the 80's, if that is possible, and continue to enjoy air travel. I own a consulting firm and currently am leading a new start-up company. So, it's through that prism of experience and entrepreneurship that I continue to fly F9. I wish them continued success and want them to grow their network, increase route frequencies, and expand into Asian and European markets with solid international partnerships.

BTA

Hi all,

I'm a pretty infrequent poster, and of late, a rather infrequent YX/F9 flyer. I am however based in MKE, so I do like to keep up with things in this forum. I haven't flown with YX since the Delta agreement stopped, but I do have a leisure trip to Vegas booked this fall on F9.

I fly nearly every week, mostly on United, and less and less of late on Northwe...errr Delta. Corporate contract is with United, so that's the bulk of my travel, but do take YX for some convenient nonstops as well as occasional leisure trips with my wife (typically Vegas). For work, I go all over, primarily North America, but occasional trans-oceanic travel.

I've been an airplane nut since a fair bit of travel with my parents as a kid growing up in the 80s. I used to have a contest with my dad naming all the planes we saw, and the variants. There aren't many 727-200 or DC-10-30s out there anymore. I'm happy that travel is part of my work, and I really appreciate the variety. I work for a global biotech company, and training customers is what I'm typically on the road doing.

I enjoy reading the insights on this forum, and I look forward to new perspectives from the new grouping of folks from YX and F9.

MostlyAir

Finally, some time to post.

Most of the former Midwest posters know me or have actually met me. But I think I will fill in all the rest.

I'm currently a Frontier employee/Midwest Legacy. I was one of those lucky college kids last year that had a job lined up after I graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point with a degree in Computer Information Systems and minor in Business Administration. And luckily...Midwest was the only airline that called me...got into the industry that I wanted and loved, airline aviation. And to a further extent joined a company, whom in about a couple months would enter into a time of a lot of change, for the worst and the best. So I can say that I've learned a lot over the past year.

Based in Milwaukee, I work in the E-Commerce department and my primary responsibility are email communications, transactional or marketing. I also do some other things where needed, like develop/webmaster FrontierMidwest.com and program the name the badger contest.

I do a lot of flying, but don't get miles for most of my trips, my current flying extent is China and England, don't ever do a England day trip. I do have a slight understanding of mileage programs and how they work. Overtime, I have learned some things about our mileage program and can always get a quick answer from somebody in the office about certain questions people on the boards may have. So I may be able to help you.

I also skim the boards for suggestions and improvements and if I see some good ones, I will recommend them. And if there are ever any specials events that are going on, which I get approval to invite people too, I come here first. ie. First in on seat sale and the Badger unveiling.

If you ever see something that appears to be wrong on the website, feel free to PM me and I'll look into the problem as soon as I can.

I'm glad that you are all here and that we were able to pull these boards together, I can already see how tremendously it has paid off.

Links:
My life's travel: http://openflights.org/user/MostlyAir
My YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/MostlyAir

P.S. I also like to stay fit, enjoy rollerblading and fancy a possible walk on the Lake Michigan beach. Outdoors are always fun and Wisconsin will always be my home. And I'm sad to see Great Lakes pulling out of Milwaukee, no more free flights to Rhinelander after September. :'( Looking for a girl that doesn't mind going dutch and loves to travel. O n/m this isn't the classifieds.

heyblueoc

I have lived in MKE my entire life and flew Midwest Express on countless family vacations. After graduating from Marquette University, I began working in MKE while my girlfriend took a job in NYC. Over the years, both of us took countless Midwest flights to and from LGA/EWR. The service was always great. Slowly though, the airline changed. EWR going from mainline to regional was a killer for us in terms of comfort and price. My gf eventually moved here but we still fly quite frequently back to NYC, although most of our flights we take to LGA are now on FL due to price and the fact my gf flies them for work and has elite status. I will be taking my first F9 flight to Las Vegas through Denver tomorrow for my bachelor party with about 12 other guys. We'll see how the F9 experience is.

btr

I'll keep mine short and sweet (sorry Knope)

I'm from the Chicago area (IN, actually) and I've landed in CO. Lovely place if you like snow, skiing, hiking, and rarified air. The further up I get, the better I like it. No air conditioning required.

These days, my work makes me bicoastal, with a pretty big emphasis on the left coast. When a paycheck isn't at stake, I'll be more than happy to make it noncoastal.

I'm a short stroke/high RPM flyer, so I don't tend to get a lot of free trips. Too bad you can't buy tickets with segments, I'd be in good shape.

I've been on UA up until now, but I think that I'm pretty much cured of that.

NoMoreDorms

Well it has been a long time coming but I am going to make my first post after being an onlooker for 5+ years.

I may not be the typical airline enthusiast. Yeah I like the planes but watching them take of and land may not be my cup of tea. For me its about the people, the passengers, and the places you go. The opportunity to experience.

It all started before I was born about 30 years ago. My mom worked for air Wisconsin. She and my father would gallivant across the limited air Wisconsin globe going out for a quick lunch in some exciting place and then coming home. My father got a new job in Madison and my mother settled down and had to kids. Seeing that my parent had seen much of the United States there was not much traveling for us kids. Hearing her stories though developed a deep desire to travel. I flew once at 14 on a missions trip. After graduation I went to culinary school and was a state officer for the FFA(an agricultural organization not an aviation organizing). As my one year term was coming to a close in 2005 I knew I needed to do something but at the time I was refusing to attend a four year university so I decided to be a flight attendant (only having flown once).

I applied for a job with Midwest knowing nothing about aviation and then I waited and waited. I finally got the call to come and join a training program. I became engrossed in airline business and understanding customer service (something I think Midwest was better than most but needed major improvements).

I am still so amazed by the stress that people experience when they decide to fly and fascinated by the process that often takes normally sane people and pushes them to a breaking point. I would love to take a few months and study the whole airport and flying process to ease the stress and create a more enjoyable experience for passengers.

Well thing were going well for about a year or two and then I started to see the culture change. The anger and dissatisfaction between the management and the employees and the disregard for any courtesy among them often affecting our great and loyal customers.

I watched as Midwest shed its unique identity as a premium carrier and tried to become everyone else's airline rather than look for ways to adapt while working to maintain our unique brand. I saw them wait till it was to late to make a decision and then go ahead and make an incorrect one. Seeing some of the writing on the wall and determined to be a better business leader than those that were leading my airline I enrolled in a bachelors in business at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater 2007. I continued to work for Midwest until they laid off all Flight attendants and pilots at Midwest in 2008.

Not comprehending business and still fascinated with the airline industry in 2007 I had the brilliant idea of making my first and to-date largest stock investment. You see while I worked at Midwest the stock price had went from one dollar to 17. So I found this great little airline called Frontier and made my investment.

I quickly learned what happens to your stock when a company goes bankrupt.

As you will see my relationship with Midwest and Frontier has been exciting, informative, and tumultuous. I really find in hard to regret any of the experiences and though I may not be 100% fond of the companies I still love the industry and believe that God was in control.

I graduated college in may 2010 and started a small online start-up like hotels.com for student rentals called NoMoreDorms.com. It has been an incredibly experience and something I likely would not have accomplished had I not be laid-off.

I am not done with the aviation industry and with the seasonality of my business I may try and work in the airline industry over the summer because as you all know it gets into your blood.

I want to thank you all for your great post over the years. Much of what I know about aviation and aviation business came from all of you and I have to give significant credit to knope2001.

Thank you again,
Tyler Sailsbery

knope2001

Welcome,Tyler, and thanks for sharing your story! Please, of course, jump in with your thoughts and opinions as you'd like.

lougord99

I also love to fly. I have a friend with a pilots license and we often fly his club's Cesna 152's out of Waukegan, IL. I am in my late 50's and started flying with my parents when I was 5.

Today, I fly for work on average 2-3 roundtrips per month plus many pleasure trips per year. WN use to be my loyalty program, but even then I made several trips a year on Midwest/Republic.

I have come to realize that points in FF programs are of little value and today I always book the cheapest flight I can find ( though if WN is close in price - especially since I often check bags when traveling for business - I give them the nod because of no-change fees ).

Since I live in the Northern suburbs of Chicago, I probably have more choices than virtually anyone in the country since I am happy using MDW, ORD or MKE.

I suspect I will never become immune to the joys of flying. I still always try to get a window seat. I could sit all day in my car near a runway and watch planes land. Unfortunately, those opportunities don't exist like they did 20 years ago.

knope2001

Thanks for the backstory...always interesting to know where people's perspective comes from.

(who knew there were so many shy people here...)

RSVP

Not shy people. Just those who's lives are not an open book.

knope2001

That's certainly understandable.

I get frustrated with my SO about the amount of personal goings-on posted to Facebook, so I certainly do understand where you're coming from.

SkyhawkTenshi14

I'm a poor college student from Nebraska transferring from the University of South Dakota to Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO to study international business.

Since Fort Lewis is 900 miles from home, I will be flying frequently between either DRO or ABQ and Omaha. After looking at several frequent flyer programs and getting an idea of how much tickets would cost me, I decided to join Frontier's EarlyReturns. The rates actually look affordable for my budget, especially flying out of ABQ, and it seems to be the only program where I won't always be stuck on the lowest tier.

knope2001

Welcome to FT! Hope you have good experiences on F9...

RSVP

I'll second that.

Stumblefoot

Get your skis tuned to take advantage of all of those powder days next winter!