Refreshing the memory of everyone is entirely germain. As I've noted before it is not uncommon in the business of merger and takeover to search for a benign partner, a "white knight" as it were. How gravely mistaken was the ex-CEO in his choice.
IMO the approval granted for NW to purchase Midwest should never have been given. In today's regulatory environment I don't think it would have passed muster. The demise of Skyway affected many small communities negatively.
The fact is is that Midwest was not viable as a stand-alone. This is borne out empirically;with today's announcement the last vestige of Midwest will soon be gone.
Air Tran was near spot-on off its analysis of Midwest 4 years ago; and this analysis has been vindicated in entirety. Milwaukee is a vibrant and growing market, and Air Tran has grown its MKE hub organically.
Bedford identified clearly his vision for the product as a low-fare carrier; and the Midwest brand was out-of-sync with this vision.
I'll be retiring from the Midwest board at this point
-last post. Good luck to you all whether your plans are to stick with Frontier, or to opt for the transfer in MSP, DTW, or ATL, or ORD