N830MH

Yes, the next schedule extension is on July 20, 2014 for March 1, 2015.

I was hoping DEN-UST or ORD-UST.

davywavy

It held - and goes up to 4 x weekly by Christmas. :-)

rtalk25

Spirit has responded to Frontier's move on ORD-ATL with daily service. I don't think Southwest will respond however, and the fares are still highish on MDW-ATL. Thus, the legacies won't respond either.

Hopefully Frontier resumes ILG-ATL, if not from an ILG based plane, atleast from an ATL based plane.

I was thinking that maybe Frontier would start ATL-LGA as it has shown interest in ATL lately even it's indirectly from the other cities. But ATL will have Chicago, DC, CLE, Denver and Philly (via TTN and seasonal ILG), and NYC would be the next logical move. Spirit is also not on that route.

I also would suspect that while CLE-LGA is using one slot pair, it's likely to be heavy on CLE point of sale but weak on NYC point of sale. ATL would probably be a stronger attraction and market for the NY market, and be more even from both sides point of sale.

davywavy

Is it a response to Frontier, or is it simply the organic development, by Spirit, of its focus city at ORD?

Or, put it another way, is Frontier's DEN-ORD a (quite belated) response to Spirit, or a sensible restructuring by Frontier of its resources (vis-à-vis the Apple flights) at ORD?

Someone on another website did a comparison of the fares ORD-ATL, including, in the case of Spirit/Frontier, a checked bag and a carry-on, on 11/8:

Airline.....Fare.......Carry-On.....Checked Bag.....Total
NK.........$42.09....$26.............$21.......... .........$89.09
F9..........$62.10....$25.............$20......... ..........$107.10
AA.........$142.......$0...............$25........ ...........$167.00
DL.........$318.10...$0...............$25......... ..........$343.10
UA.........$318.10...$0...............$25......... ..........$343.10

WN/FL...$141.10...$0...............$0................ .....$141.10 (MDW)

There's something else. Bill Franke of Indigo, who used to own Spirit and now owns Frontier, believes there is a market of those who feel "disenfranchised" from flying and Bloomberg concurs, at least in the case of Spirit:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...with-big-risks

"Historically, Spirit has drawn customers who do not usually fly, rather than siphon traffic from carriers like American (AAL), Delta (DAL), and United (UAL). Its business works well because the industry’s whales have been largely indifferent to Spirit’s segment of the low-income leisure market. If Spirit were to grow too much or too quickly, however, a larger rival may choose to respond."

Since ORD-ATL is only two flights (one each) by the ULCC's, I don't think the majors will respond, because the low fares are a market they don't want and which perhaps only exists because of the low fares.

The wild card is Southwest. It is possible to think that Southwest has responded to Frontier's build-up at CLE, but it may be just a coincidence.

As to LGA, I assume that CLE-LGA is using one of Frontier's slot pairs previously used for DEN-LGA, but I'm not sure if Frontier has 2 x LGA slot pairs or 3.

Certainly, Frontier had 3 slot pairs (3 round trips) in 2004, but that 3rd round trip was dropped during the GFC and Frontier's Chapter 11. It came back in 2011 (with another slot pair borrowed from Republic/Midwest) for a total of 4 x roundtrips. but for the past couple of years, Frontier has only been flying 2 round trips. i don't know if it still holds the 3rd slot pair (as dormant) but I haven't heard that it has been given back.

If it still has the 3 pairs, then it is possible to think they might assign another pair to somewhere else, given that DEN-LGA is a fairly saturated market. But it's tougher to think that Frontier would give away DEN-LGA altogether.

rtalk25

I know Delta recognizes Spirit on DTW-MCO. Delta offers a special "Basic Economy" fare on that route.

On DTW-LGA, a business route, neither Delta or AA respond. I don't see Delta or AA responding on ORD-ATL unless Southwest does, but Southwest seems not to respond on MDW to Spirit out of ORD. Southwest does get protective with lower fares to Spirit and JetBlue out of BWI for some reason.

If Frontier offered ATL-LGA and maybe ATL-LAS (another route with no ULCC), probably Delta would offer the "Basic Economy" fare on just the latter. It's weird that PHL-LAS has three carriers but ATL-LAS just yet two. I could see either Frontier or Spirit considering that route. Hopefully Frontier gets in first. I'd still like ATL-ILG resumption and hope Frontier would have room for it back on the schedule next Spring.

Would Frontier consider same-plane one-stop service? I always wondered of this.

Spirit, Sun Country and Southwest have flights of such in their network. The benefit is rather than one city getting 2 destinations, and the 2 destinations getting just one, all three destinations get access to 2 destinations albeit one-stop. e.g. maybe it'd run ILG-ATL-LAS or LGA-ATL-LAS.

Are there disadvantages operationally or from a revenue wise for same plane routing?

davywavy

For the first time - that I have seen - Daniel Shurz of Frontier has spoken publicly about the airline's interest in ATL:

http://wabe.org/post/low-cost-carrie...a-new-frontier

"Low Cost Carriers See Atlanta as New Frontier"

He slightly undersells it - or the article does - not mentioning ILG as a destination from ATL, nor IAD.

I hope ILG-ATL comes back, although I'm not sure if it is the most interesting use of the airport and the long runway. I'd rather see ILG-LAS, I guess, although if I had my really-truly druthers I'd prefer routes to the Caribbean - Puerto Rico or St. Thomas.

More and more it seems to me that the winter schedule is governed by the constrained fleet. The Apple Vacations schedule is being reimagined, to simplify it and reduce the humber of repo's (and perhaps reduce the number of aircraft involved?), and this is happening in tandem with the end of Airtran's association with Apple.

So Frontier takes over DTW-CUN/PUJ and some of the MKE work that used to be Airtran.

On the flip side, I believe that Frontier is no longer flying for Apple at BWI nor at PHL, and the latter may have some bearing on the ILG aircraft situation.

N830MH

Is contract change? When it did happen?

davywavy

I assume that - like everything else - the Apple/Frontier contract is under review, but the situation is also complicated for Apple, because Airtran ceases to exist.

For Frontier, partly it is to make scheduling the aircraft easier and maybe reduce the number of aircraft involved. It seems that Frontier isn't flying out of PHL - Xtra Airways appears to have taken over that - but Frontier is taking over DTW-CUN/PU, which used to be Airtran. Xtra is also doing some of the PIT flying.

The situation at BWI isn't clear yet, although I have heard that Frontier is closing the station. Presently,AeroMexico is taking over BWI-CUN, but they don't seem to have found a replacement for Frontier yet for BWI-PUJ (BWI used to be mostly Airtran.)

It gets trickier at MKE (Airtran again). AeroMexico is taking over MKE-CUN and MKE-ZIH, and Frontier has MKE-PVR (to be scheduled as well).

Southwest and Frontier are both flying MKE-MBJ/PUJ (ex-Airtran). But Southwest appears to have little interest in flying them as 100% charters because a note on both routes says "Subject to government approval" which suggests that Southwest wants them to be scheduled as well.

I suspect that Frontier is going in this direction too, and it seems that Apple, like other vacation packagers is moving away from the 100% charters (100% Apple risk) and is using capacity purchase agreements (CPA's) on which their risk is reduced.

Xtra appears to be a winner in all this, but most interesting is BOS, which is mostly JetBlue (for Apple) but Icelandair is flying some of the BOS-PUJ flights.