Originally Posted by
BlueHorseShoe2000
Also of interest is that Frontier announced seasonal OKC-MCO/TPA. I think that this is noteworthy because it was specifically mentioned at the DO this past June that Midwest would seriously consider adding point-to-point flying.
Here's the
Press Release for F9's new service.
Take a good look at the OKC-Florida schedules and try to figure out where the aircraft starts and ends each day.
To me, it looks like Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri/Sat an E-190 starts out at MCO at 12:20 p.m., flies to OKC, does a 35-minute turn, then flies back to MCO arriving at 6:30 p.m. That's only two segments and the plane is only in service 6 hours and 10 minutes (including the turn at OKC) The rest of the time (17 hours and 50 minutes) it's just sitting somewhere.
On Thu/Sun it appears to start in TPA at 12:05 p.m., flies to OKC, does a 35-minute turn, then flies back to TPA arriving at 5:55 p.m. That's only two segments and the plane is only in service 5 hours 50 minutes (including the 35-minute turn in OKC.) The rest of the time (18 hours and 10 minutes it's just sitting somewhere.
Plus, after arriving back in MCO on Wed nite and Sat nite, the aircraft would have to be ferried to TPA to do TPA-OKC-TPA on Thu and Sun. After arriving in TPA on Thu nite and Sun nite, it would have to be ferried back to MCO to do MCO-OKC-MCO on Mon and Fri.
Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but can one E190 operate some flight segments for Frontier and some other ones for Midwest on the same day? If that's the case, you might see something like this.
(Hypothetical MCI service is shown in bold italics mixed in with already announced Frontier service from OKC.)
Note: I used the same block times for MCI-Florida as OKC-Florida because both OKC and MCI are about the same distance from TPA and MCO.
MCI-MCO
Departs Arrives Frequency
8:05 a.m. 11:45 a.m.Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri/Sat
(35 minute turn)
Orlando-Oklahoma City
Departs Arrives Frequency
12:20 p.m. 2:15 p.m. Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri/Sat
(35-minute turn]
Oklahoma City-Orlando
Departs Arrives Frequency
2:50 p.m. 6:30 p.m. Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri/Sat
(35-minute turn)
MCO-MCI
Departs Arrives Frequency
7:05 p.m. 9:00 p.m. Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri/Sat
RON at MCI
MCI-TPA
Departs Arrives Frequency
8:00 a.m. 11:30 a.m. Thu/Sunday
(35-minute turn)
TPA-OKC
Departs Arrives Frequency
12:05 p.m. 1:50 p.m. Thu/Sunday
(35-minute turn)
OKC-TPA
Departs Arrives Frequency
2:25 p.m. 5:55 p.m. Thu/Sunday
(35-minute turn)
TPA-MCI
Departs Arrives Frequency
6:30 p.m. 8:25 p.m. Thu/Sun
RON at MCI
Doing it this way would be a better utilization of this one aircraft, plus the plane would end up every night in MCI and there would be no ferry flights between TPA & MCO as it appears there will be with this new announced schedule.
Note: your could substitue MKE for MCI because MKE is also about the same distance from TPA and MCO as OKC and MCI are.