RustyC

Frontier is definitely the "throw spaghetti against a wall and see what sticks" airline. Seems like we get a new crop of trial-balloon destinations from ATL every year.

A key test of whether a route is NOT doing well is if they have to discount it quite a bit in July. A couple of years ago I took a long weekend in July to RDU at $58 RT and I knew the route wouldn't last. They dropped it at the first opportunity.

MEM was like that as well. I hate it that they can't seem to make MCI work and that's not there this year from ATL.

On the flip side, maybe AUS is under-served and has staying power, and SLC is a real broadside against DL. CVG, the former DL hub, looks wobbly.

Seems like the only place that's been semi-consistent from ATL is DEN, and they don't have enough flights there and the ones they do are at odd times. Markets like BHM and GSP are new, and in some cases you've only got 2/week frequencies.

It looks like they're simultaneously trying to be a hub carrier (DEN), a vacation-oriented carrier (MCO, LAS and the whole cold-to-hot bit) and a point-to-point LCC (WN, NK). Normally when you're caught between business models it's not a good thing, but OTOH I'm pretty sure the spool bit is not part of the plan in most places.

In times past a legacy carrier like DL or NW would do a scorched-earth dollar-for-dollar price match if a carrier like Frontier did a hub-to-hub nonstop like ATL-SLC, but with the consolidation and capacity discipline there's less inclination to price-match. Which is a good thing in that it gives Frontier space to operate, as weird as that sometimes looks.