Originally Posted by
hazelrah
I think there are a lot of negatives associated with the Midwest brand and that a rebranding is in order. Negatives are as follows:
1) Few Midwest crew and no Midwest pilots on Midwest planes. Also the way that ex- Midwest crew and pilots have been treated.
2) No signature seating throughout
3) No Skyway flight operations
4) No Midwest planes (Frontier and Republic)
There is not much left of the old Midwest left - I've even read that sometimes the cookie is cold.
The Midwest brand does come with a lot of baggage, but some of your points aren't necessarily considered negatives in the eyes of the general traveling public:
1) The service I've received on Republic flights lately has been just as good if not better that what the mainline crews provided. While Midwest was still around, they spent a lot of time with Republic to ensure service standards met Midwest requirements. As a result, service has improved substantially since September 2008. While I think we can all agree that what happened to the Midwest crews was horrible, most people won't notice or won't care if they're not served by "legacy" crews. My experience with the Midwest crews over the last few years was very hit or miss. Some crews were truly exceptional. Others had surly attitudes and seemed to have no problem airing "dirty laundry" in front of passengers. Frankly, any problems the unions had with management should have been kept internal. Paying customers should not be subjected to this type of complaining.
2) Signature seating was never the primary draw for Midwest. Adding the turbo props in 1989 and Saver Service in 2003 proved that this was the case. You've repeatedly stated that the all Signature Seating model was no longer viable, yet you blast Midwest for eliminating it. The days of an all premium cabin are gone. I'd like to see Republic add a few rows of Signature Seats to the E170s and perhaps that may still happen.
3) Is the loss of SkyWay that big of a deal? All mainline and regional jet flying is now under "one roof" again. The SkyWay operations were a huge drain financially on Midwest. In fact, if you go back and closely examine Midwest's financials from 2005 through Q3 2007 most of the losses were attributable to SkyWay while mainline was solidly in the black.
4) I agree with you on this one. When the average customer shows up at the gate, I wonder what goes through their head when they see a Frontier or Republic painted aircraft. A priority for Republic over the next few months is to ensure all of the E135/140/145/170/190 jets dedicated to the branded operations sport the Midwest livery and trademark brown leather seating
As for the cookies, the E135s don't have ovens installed on them so the cookies will be cold. I was served cold cookies on an MCI-MKE flight once and they were awful.