I think it is probably a great idea to have some slack in the schedule for winter because of the high chance of delays in poor weather. Even if they fly less people if those people have an enjoyable experience they may be more likely to fly them in the future.

It's good to have our very own analyst back and contributing. Thanks for the very thoughtful and and thorough post.

Perhaps when the economy is stronger and seasonal service ends, frequencies will return to prior higher levels.

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.

I don't know Knope Airtran kept MKE-SFO, MKE-SEA, MKE-LAX year round. I do not know how well they did in the winter but Airtran has not made any changes to their schedule yet thus one could assume that they are likely to keep the west coast routes year round. Why would Frontier let airtran take that traffic from them? I am not sure I buy the argument that they can feed MCI and DEN. I would buy that argument if they still had a code share with Delta but without that I think that those connecting passengers may be likely to try Delta or Southwest( which has the best west coast connections via PHX and LAS). I think that this is a bad decision. LA is a huge destination for business and travel. LA has great weather in the winter and can attract travelers who are sick of Florida (which is over priced: as you can see I am no Florida fan). The Bay area (my new home!!) has the second largest concentration of fortune 500 companies outside of the New York area. It is a key business destination and is a good leisure destination in the winter. SEA is an important destination as well. I think that frontier needs to grow these markets not shrink them. To me it is not a good idea to let Airtran and Southwest get the upper hand in the battle for Milwaukee

I wonder if WN would add MKE-LAX? They have a "hub" at LAX and could offer connections throughout the west coast (i.e., SFO, SEA, OAK,PDX) That could further weaken Frontier and Airtran.

I think the point that Knope was making is that Airtran has no other option than to fly direct MKE-LAX because MKE-ATL-LAX would not work. But DEN and MCI are almost a straight shot in and they can utilize aircraft better while not stopping people from getting to LAX. If Airtran dropped MKE-LAX in the winter then they might not get the numbers back in the summer, so they'll take a hit over winter to keep the route positive overall.

Okay, but that does not mean that frontier will fortify MCI or DEN. Southwest offers more destinations and greater frequency to west coast destinations via LAS and PHX than Frontier does via DEN or MCI. Delta would also be more attractive for people who also fly overseas. Between direct flights on Airtran, Southwest (greater connections and more destinations), Delta more destinations I do not see where Frontier fits into this equation.

Frontier has the frequest flyer base and can afford to match prices MKE-XXX-LAX and most west coast destinations via DEN/MCI. Granted Airtran and Southwest will probably do fine on those routes too but the point is a non stop MKE-LAX is less important to maintain in the slow season if the route is only marginally profitable and pick it back up when the demand is there. It would be different if they did not have the connection opportunites (like Airtran) because you wouldn't want to drop the LAX destination completely.

Los Angeles is a huge destination for business travel, but not from Milwaukee. There is a significant amount of leisure traffic on MKE-LAX, but it falls off a lot during late fall/dead of winter.

AirTran will have an advantage by offering non-stop flights to SEA/SFO/LAX during the slower travel months but that doesn't mean they'll be making much, if any, money doing so. Last winter AirTran carried significant amounts of connecting traffic on the West Coast runs. This generally leads to weak yields especially when AirTran is competing against carriers that offer non-stop flights in markets like BOS-SFO, NYC-LAX, or ATL-SEA. In fact, AirTran's CFO stated earlier this year that their MKE operations were not profitable during Q1 2010.

Bedford has stated numerous times that Republic's goal is to ensure sustained profitability going forward. They have a lot of data from Midwest to show what works vs. what doesn't during the slower winter months. The re-tooled MKE schedule reflects this.

Could these moves hand AirTran and others a bigger piece of the MKE pie? Absolutely. If they begin to see improved results on the East-West flying it will likely encourage them to add even more flying. This will have an impact on Frontier. I'm less concerned about Delta or Southwest as they've both retrenched somewhat in MKE during the last year.

I drew up a list of points but didn’t get them posted until now. In the mean time some people have already pointed out some of this stuff, so I apologize it it seems like I’m ripping off what other people have posted.

The prevailing notion of some is essentially “If AirTran is doing it, Frontier should be able to as well”. However MKE-west coast flights have different roles for AirTran compared to Frontier.

1. East-West Flow

AirTran’s Milwaukee operation is largely built for east-west traffic, and if they were to discontinue them, it would significantly impact results to BOS/LGA/BWI/DCA.

Frontier’s Milwaukee operation does not serve much long-haul east-west traffic, so trimming west coast flights do not especially impact the rest of the MKE operation.


2. Alternates to Nonstop Flights

AirTran has no good way to serve local traffic from Milwaukee to the west coast without flying nonstop. The winter schedule has a few connections via Atlanta, but ATL is far out of the way – about 50-70% more miles than nonstop MKE-west coast, and flights are generally around 8-10 hours. So if AirTran wants to be in MKE-west coast in any reasonable way, they have to keep the nonstops.

Frontier’s January schedule has several MKE-LAX options through the day, with routings only marginally longer than nonstop flights and coordinated connections. Here’s the January MKE-LAX offering:

6:00am – 10:26am via DEN (daily)
7:07am – 11:32am via MCI (daily)
10:40am – 2:27pm via DEN (daily)
2:25pm – 4:07pm via DEN (except Saturday)
6:59pm – 10:44pm via DEN (daily)
9:50pm – 12:16am nonstop (Thursday / Friday / Sunday only)


3. Flow from Key Markets

AirTran’s best launch point for west coast flights – geographically – is Milwaukee. Flat maps don’t do justice to how relatively “right on the way” Milwaukee is to the west coast for two key AirTran markets, Baltimore and Atlanta. So when the offseason comes and AirTran trims or drops nonstop west coast flights from Atlanta and Baltimore – which they do – they can still serve a lot of that flow west from those two key markets via Milwaukee. MKE is virtually right beneath the direct flight path from BWI to the west coast – BWI-MKE-west coast is less than 3% longer than BWI-west coast nonstop. And even from Atlanta to Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, stopping in MKE is only 8.3%, 17.5%, and 24.6% longer than nonstop routing to those cities (respectively). The kind of flow that this generates really fortifies the viability of west coast nonstops. In the first quarter, when AirTran did not fly SEA-ATL nonstop but instead flew SEA-MKE-ATL, there were on average around 29 Seattle-Atlanta passengers on the SEA-MKE nonstop each day. That’s huge support.

Frontier has no such key market to the east/southeast of Milwaukee to fortify west coast nonstops. Frontier benefits somewhat the other direction, where MKE-BOS benefits from strong flow flying MCI-MKE-BOS, and increasingly DEN-MKE-BOS too.


One final point. There’s nothing to suggest that AirTran is actually making money on west coast nonstops during winter. They’ve said more than once that Milwaukee has made them money, however that is very different than saying every market in every quarter makes money. This past winter (Q1 2010) AirTran posted a solid net loss. It would seem unlikely that MKE-west coast was a profit center, overshadowed by larger losses in the rest of the AirTran network.

Would I like for Frontier to fly nonstop from Milwaukee to the west coast in the dead of winter? Sure, and I hope in the future they choose to. But it’s a whole lot more complicated than the notion that AirTran can do it but Frontier can’t compete.

One additional note. A 6th DEN-MKE-DEN was added to the winter schedule. This does a couple of things:

(a) The MKE departure is at 8:30am, meaning that the early-morning flights from BOS, LGA, PHL and DCA have a good connection to DEN. That will especially help Boston and Philadelphia.

(b) With the added flight, the MKE average daily capacity is now within 74 daily seats from last winter. Considering that a fair number of comparably empty RJ trips were among the cuts, they might well serve more passengers than last year in spite of fewer seats.

(c) With the added flights, all three banks of feeder flights from places like GRB and FNT have well-timed connections to/from Denver. Prior to this add, only two of three banks each direction were well-timed for Denver connections.

I doubt it WN will eventually to start owned metal nonstop MKE-LAX/SAN will became year-round long. If there is enough more demands. I can have consider that I can see WN is next potential new routes from MKE anytime soon. I believe WN is cutting it back the flights due to slow travel seasons. Hopefully in the wintertime WN will boost more passengers capacity. It will very extremely busiest during Holidays.