http://www.wjfw.com/stories.html?sku=20110609165143 has the story about DL leaving RHI.
Originally Posted by
knope2001
Frontier will have RHI to itself after 9/5, as Delta (Mesaba) has filed to terminate serv ice there. Wisconsin Central -> North Central -> Republic -> Northwest -> Delta has served Rhinelander since the 1940's...before Green Bay even had commercial service.
Part of this may be due to the retirement of the Saab 340's, although NW* and now DL* fly CRJ's into Rhinelander on some flights. If Delta decides to let their EAS markets go, there could ther marekts within reasonable RJ range of MKE that will come up for bid.
At any rate, traffic in Rhinelander will undoubtedly grow, likely justifying ERJ or perhaps even a 3rd flight. RHI service is unsubsidized, although the two IWD-RHI-MKE flights pay a subisdy for the IWD-RHI leg, essentially.
Back when Skyway flew IWD-RHI-MKE with the BE1, Ironwood complained that flights filled up too often with RHI traffic with no seats left for IWD traffic. Hopefully IWD does not have the same problem going forward.
IIRC Frontier doesn't fly its own scheduled passenger planes to CWA -- which some RHI area people use -- and yet it has staff there working for AA. Perhaps AA will again pull out of there.
By the way, this de-prioritization of the area is going to be hard to undo since people's sentiment toward (then-US Congressman) Dav e Obe y in the region changed so much that he didn't even decide to run for re-election. That reality TV show replacement for him won't do the area any good, as there's a lot of lost clout that comes from having surrendered the chairmanship and/or ranking member status in House Appropriations.
The loss of DL is going to make international travel a lot harder on RHI area customers who want/need to fly internationally.