I was asked on a different board what changes I'd make to the winter schedule, and thought it was worth posting here too:

(a) Send E190 on the overnight into DCA instead of the 319
(b) Run a daytime DCA-MKE-LAX-MKE-DCA E190
(c) Maintain a 3rd mid-day trip to PIT and IND (these were both cut from 4x to 2x)
(d) Rework the late afternoon MKE-MSP-MKE so that it gets back to MKE in time to hit the 8:00pm bank of departures -- that flight will need to survive on mostly local traffic as it is currently scheduled
(e) Rework some of the MKE-MCI and MCI-MKE schedules to better fit the MKE banks

Unless the E190 economics are so awful on a long haul, it seems like a daytime LAX trip can be justified, plus the aircraft could be used to send a smaller aircraft overnight into DCA or BOS.


I think that in general these adjustments are justified for the dead of winter, although there are some changes I'd definitely make. If the aircraft are available, I'd very much like to see them add a few additional sun flights for the spring break peak (like another PHX and RSW) and think LAX could potentially come back at that point, too. Come spring-into-summer, I think we'll see a lot of restoration.

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Back when Republic won the bid for Frontier, I had some mixed feelings to go along with happiness. I figured that adding Frontier to the mix changed some things that would have gone another direction with just Midwest as the branded carrier of Republic:

Adding Frontier to the mix:
(a) Brought a better chance of profitable stability
(b) Meant getting high-capacity/low cost aircraft to Midwest leisure routes ASAP
(c) Meant that the "real airline" functions which Midwest brought new to Republic could be eclipsed by the Frontier people who also had these skills and functions. Republic did not have experience scheduling, marketing, pricing, running a FF program, etc, and I seriously hoped that they were not just going to try their hand at doing all that out of Indy on their own. But when Frontier came into the picture, those functions done by YX now could be taken over by F9 people...and they largely have been.
(d) Meant different access to the west. With Frontier in the picture, there's more opportunity during peak times for nonstop flights to the west, but less need for marginal nonstops during off-peak times.

Point (d) is where this ties into the thread. Something like the seasonal MKE-SAN probably wouldn't have happened if it meant YX had to open up a new station, and we may well see seasonal MKE-PDX or MKE-ABQ in the future. But on the flip side, there isn't the same need for them to fly money-losing flights in order to maintain some access west during offpeak times. When the E190 came it seemed like they finally had a small enough aircraft able to fly nonstop to the west coast in the off-peak season. But at least for this winter schedule they are choosing not to do so. That might be a matter of aircraft availability or economics (or both). This winter schedule has five daily MKE-LAX flights via DEN or MCI (connecting or 1-stop), so there's less need to fly a nonstop when demand is marginal.

Would I prefer them to fly all their west coast markets nonstop year-round? Sure...but they'd probably lose money in slow seasons, and some markets which have too much "slow season" might not be served at all. If it were Midwest alone, I think we'd still see a MKE-LAX nonstop year-round, but maybe never see MKE-SAN and MKE-SEA. With the Frontier system added to the network, the picture changes.