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Old May 2, 2011 | 8:13 pm
  #12  
knope2001
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 2,653
I had just a couple of chances to look at the updated schedule while on vacation, and saw some oddities late Saturday / early Sunday, but I think everything is loaded now. Here's what the changes appear to be (most of this has already been reported):

Milwaukee changes;

LAX ends -- was 6x/week A319
SFO ends-- was 4x/week E190
RDU ends -– was 2x daily (12x/week) ERJ
SEA stays 4x/week goes from A319 to E190 (What was the SFO plane is now SEA)
SAN stays 3x/week
MSP's 5th ERJ flight addition for June will not start, but one existing four flight upgrades from ERJ to E190.
MCI had been back to 1 E190/ 3 E170, now goes to 2 E190 and 2 E170.
MSN drops to 3x from 4x
BNA (1), DSM (1) and GRR (2) see E135 upgraded to E145

Net, this reduces peak-day departures by 6, from 91 to 85:

2 fewer A319
2 more E190
1 fewer E170
1 fewer E145
4 fewer E135

That's 348 fewer seats on peak days, but because the LAX and SFO flights were only 6x and 4x per week each, if you average out the reduction over a week, it comes out to 245 fewer seats per day...a reduction of about 4.5% from what had been scheduled for summer.

At Kansas City, the 2nd LAX and BOS flights and 8/15. I don't recall if they had them loaded to continue into fall or not, but they will end mid-August. I don't follow DEN as closely as MKE/MCI/OMA, but I didn't notice any notable cuts for the summer update just loaded.

Although these cuts are not exactly wonderful, given the large Q1 loss expected and soaring fuel costs, I don't think this is so bad. I am more concerned about what the fall quarter will bring. Talk of ten fewer lines of flying will have a real impact, though I don't know how it will be split among DEN, MKE, MCI and OMA. Perhaps they don't know for sure either. But if oil does not drop, we'll probably see notably fall cuts. Some might be seaonal cuts to be restored as more E190 come in winter/spring, while others might be true drops. We shall see.

The expected big Q1 loss for Frontier means action has to be taken, and while I don't like seeing west coast nonstops trimmed, those markets continue to suffer form overcapacity, worst-in-the-indsutry yields, and thin business traffic. Although on one hand it might make sense to (for example) move those 3x MKE-SAN trips over to MKE-LAX to keep a presence in the market, having an afternoon nonstop MKE-LAX on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday (the SAN schedule) is not a meaningful presence anyway. With oil well into the triple digits, this is not the time for Frontier to try to buy market share or lose a lot of money trying to make a point.

More to say, but no time at the moment. Perhaps the conference call will give us some additional direction.
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