While looking to book a MKE-PHL flight in early December, I noticed that the route is all CRJ. That alone was enough to cause me to book on another carrier. However, the route was scheduled to be flown with 2 E170s and 2 CRJs several weeks ago. That's a big cut in capacity, especially considering the route was all mainline two years ago. I also question the move to all CRJ when the competition flies the CRJ and ERJ on the route as well.

Playing around on midwestairlines.com, I noted several other interesting changes:

1) MKE-MSP gets an extra flight, for a total of six roundtrips each weekday. Equipment will be three E170s and three CRJ.

2) The early afternoon MKE-OMA flight is upgraded to an E170 (I'm sure this has everything to do with the utilization on the OMA-DCA leg vs. an increase in demand).

3) DFW is all E170. Several weeks ago it was amix of 717s and E170s.

4) The additional of the fourth flight to PIT has now been yanked. Equipment is two CRJs and 1 E170.

As previously announced, DEN, ATL, OMA, MSP, MCI-BOS, MCI-DCA, MCI-LAX lose all 717 service.

I haven't checked everything, but the bump in capacity on MKE-MSP is a nice change although a bit surprising.

There's enough slack in the 717 schedule to add another flight or two. Not saying anything will happen, but I could see Midwest adding another flight to DCA (they're chasing after another pair of slots) or perhaps a seasonal restoration of RSW service (February-April).