Standard Milwaukee Business Journal output:
http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/mil...05/daily7.html
AirTran nears 30 percent market share at Mitchell
AirTran Airways’ market share at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport grew to 29.8 percent in February, according to statistics recently released by the airport.
The Orlando, Fla.-based airline’s Mitchell market share — defined as total passengers boarding flights — stood at 28.5 percent in January and 27.2 percent in December 2009.
The figures include passenger counts from AirTran’s regional service provided through a marketing partnership with SkyWest Airlines Inc. that began in November 2009.
Orlando, Fla.-based AirTran (NYSE: AAI) has been undergoing an aggressive expansion at Mitchell since 2007, following its failed hostile takeover of Midwest Air Group Inc. of Oak Creek, the then-corporate parent of Midwest Airlines.
Midwest Airlines, long the dominant carrier at Mitchell, had a market share of 31.0 percent at Mitchell for February, down from 31.9 in January.
Midwest is owned by Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: RJET), which also owns Frontier Airlines of Denver. The February market share for Frontier, which has an extensive codeshare agreement with Midwest, stood at 2.7 percent.
Dallas-based Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV), which launched service at Mitchell in November 2009, saw its market share dip again in February to 7.4 percent, compared with about 8 percent for January. Southwest reported a market share of 8.7 percent for November 2009 and December 2009.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) held the No. 3 spot at Mitchell with a market share of about 14.3 percent for February, compared with 14.1 percent for January.
The basic information is correct, but it's how they use it which matters.
Midwest and Frontier are two brands owned by the same company.
Midwest and Frontier are becoming a single airline brand in short order.
Midwest and Frontier have been cross-flying for each other for months...not just code share, but flights sold and operated as Midwest are in some instances actually flown by Frontier planes, and vice versa.
AirTran and Skywest are separate companies.
AirTran does not put its branding on Skywest flights -- there is no AirTran Express here, no AirTran paint scheme, etc.
AirTran is quick to point out that this is not the standard regional airline relationship.
AirTran denies the Skywest flying as part of them with their continued "business class and wi-fi on every flight" campaign.
Yet the Business Journal chooses to portray "AirTran" as AirTran+Skywest. And they compare it not to Midwest+Frontier but to Midwest alone. They mention Frontier in a subsequent paragraph. Because of the cross-flying, it's not even clear in the MKE airport stats what flying is reported as what carrier. That's especially true with cross-flying going both directions (some Frontier flights at MKE are operated by E170 and E190) so it is not even clear what the 31% they attribute specifically to Midwest is.
The raw numbers are what they are, but they should have been handled in the same way...separate, together, together with an asterisk, or whatever. But perhaps I'm expecting too much of them.
Watch for this report to be the source of a news snippet on Channel 6, and then later in other media outlets.