The fleet plan recently filed and posted on Republic's website still says 3 50-seat RJ's and 2 74-76 seat aircraft (Q400 or E170) flying in the Frontier fleet for Q4 of 2012.

http://www.rjet.com/investorrelations.html

[from this link, click on "Financial Reports" at left, then on "Fleet Plan / Block Hour Report"]

This document says Updated November 7th. Now since November 7th have they changed their plans and gotten that change into the slide show created for this presentation? Possible, but it seems a little tight that such a decision would happen to be made in that narrow window, and then the presentation which was probably already well in the works would be modified to reflect that change. The presentation wasn't just conceived, complied, and created in a few hours.

So there are a few possibilities that come to mind.

(a) it is possible that the slide show presentation reflects a decision since 11/7 to fully eliminate the sub-99 seat aircraft

(b) it is possible that one or the other is simply incorrect...one hand doing one thing while the other is donig something else

(c) it is possible that they will keep them through 2012 as shown on the fleet plan, but plan to dispose of them at 2012 year end

(d) it is possible that the small number of remaining ERJ and Q400 could be reclassified back into the fixed-fee numbers -- still flying as Frontier but not dragging down the all-important overall CASM.

You know, Republic is (of course) grooming Frontier for sale. And in that presentation it says that the type of sale (including if it is part sale or full sale) is not yet determined. But two things seem pretty clear in relation to the small aircraft flying as F9*

(1) They are pushing Frontier as having ultra-low-cost-carrier costs, and they need to be rid of all 99-seat aircraft to have that golden CASM number to brag about

(2) Anyone who is interested in actually purchasing Frontier and splitting it away from Republic certainly has no interest in an orhpan fleet of 3 ERJ and 2 Q400.

In both those points, the few small aircraft are boat anchors to the "Frontier" they want to find a buyer for. The more I think about it, the less I'm convinced that the presentation is really tipping their hand that the ERJ and Q400 will be parked by year end. I think that they are shining Frontier up for sale with this investor presentation. Even if there are plans to keep a few sub-99 aircraft (which may or may not be) they are not gonig to burden the for-sale Frontier with them.

If/when the last ERJ go, it seems that at best Newark could survive with E190, and possibly Omaha if they coordinate for connections to what's left at MKE.