Omaha Expansion
 

Flights to Orlando, and San Diego begin January, and Los Angeles and Tampa/St Petersburg begin in February.

Florida is described as running through mid-April, while California shows no specific expieration.

Essentially:

In the morning the plane goes to Florida and back
MCO daily except Wednesday/Sunday
PIE Wednesday/Sunday

In the afternoon the plane goes to California and back
LAX Monday/Wednesday/Friday
SAN Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday

All flown with the E190.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fronti....html?x=0&.v=1

I heard they were pleased with OMA-MCO last winter and were just figuring out how to find the lift to restore it this winter. Last year the combined Omaha-Florida with Oklahoma City-Florida, which was not as robust.

This is another instance where having the dual hubs makes a big difference. When they restored OMA-LAX a few years ago (2007 IIRC) it was a single daily flight without any any alternate connecting schedule. So it was the one flight or nothing else. It would have been even worse if they tried non-daily service like this. But in the new world there are severa connecting options to supplement the nonstops. Some people will gravitate toward the days with the nonstop. But perhaps even more important, people whose set schedule falls on a day when there is a nonstop one direction (or both) are now more likely to choose Frontier.

NOTE: It appears the Tampa/St Pete service is into the St Petersburg airport, which is a head-scratcher.

How is it that OMA can get nonstop to SAN in the winter, but MKE can't?

I have been waiting for a winter nonstop MKE-SAN from anybody for years.

I'm with ya, but the numbers just are not pretty.

Last year's Q1

$175.81 OMA-SAN
$145.73 MKE-SAN

So the local fare yield is about 20% higher, even though OMA-SAN is 425 miles shorter. And this is without either market having a nonstop competitor.

Even perhaps a little worse for the prospect of nonstop MKE-SAN in the off season, last winter Southwest, the dominant carrier MKE-SAN with 40% of the market, averaged a fare of $129.36. That's without a nonstop LCC fare war or big discounting to try to fill overcapacity if too many nonstop seats are offered.

I wonder if this means TPA is out and PIE is in? You wouldn't add a new station for one route that is seasonal and operates less than daily. Hmmm....

If Frontier adds LAS and EWR they'll basically be operating every route Midwest ever offered out of OMA.

Besides having the DEN hub close by, another factor that may help LAX and SAN is that non-stop competition is gone (unlike in 2007 when Express Jet flew OMA-ONT/SAN).

These are all nice additions ^

Probably wouldn't be too bad of an idea. It stops them from having exact direct competition with Southwest and Airtran. The costs might be lower as well but I don't know for sure.

The one nice thing about PIE, is that it is just across the bridge from the TPA airport. It may be a long bridge but its practically like landing at the same airport. But a lot smaller. Allegiant is the only commercial airline at PIE at this time.

Distance: 14 miles/21 minutes, from google.

All Frontier service moving from TPA to PIE, starting 11/18/2010...

http://frontierair.tekgroupweb.com/a...rticle_id=5223

As of this time, neither Frontier nor Midwest booking engine reflects change from TPA to PIE. Should the reservation system not have been updated by the time of the press release? I can see passengers booking flights into TPA, maybe even for connections at TPA, being very unhappy with this surprise.

PIE press release talks about year round MKE-PIE service...

http://www.fly2pie.com/resource/dyna...r_Airlines.pdf

Is PIE a cheaper airport to operate from? Were any subsidies involved?

I also wonder if this will cut in to FL's MKE-SRQ route that starts this fall.

Bingo. PIE is very cheap, small airport closer to SRQ. I think you will see Frontier market it as Tampa/St. Pete/Sarasota. I would. And I think they did it this way just for that reason. From the parking lot to the gate takes about 5 minutes. I flew out of PIE several times back in the ATA days. No jetbridges. Out the door and up the stairs then. Probably still that way, have not been there for awhile.

There is actually a 14 minute video about the airport:

http://www.fly2pie.com/about/video.asp

I'm guessing no body scanners here.

Jet bridges recently went in, thanks to fed stimulus funds; the cost was about half a million dollars.

The video shows a public golf course on the grounds.

My browser refused to play the video ( I don't think it was the ....... etc but may have been ) However, no way there was a golf course inside of the security of the airfield.

After I read your post, I tried the link, and I can't get it to play, either. It did play, when I posted the link. The following error message came up:

"Windows Media Player cannot find the file. If you are trying to play, burn, or sync an item that is in your library, the item might point to a file that has been moved, renamed, or deleted."


Amenities at PIE? From http://www.ifly.com/st-petersburg-cl...tional-airport

I hope PIE works for Frontier. It looks like the airport works very hard to please passengers. If I look at the terminal map correctly there is only 6 gates at the airport? A focus city there could work for Frontier as a gateway to the Caribbean. I believe there is only one gate for International Arrivals?

There is a golf course next to the airport, but I wouldn't consider it on airport, because a fence separates the two. You might be able to shoot a couple of holes before or after you're at the airport.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=pie+ai...38581&t=h&z=15

Midwest already tried Ohama to Los Angeles and the route failed. Why try it again and in the dead of winter:rolleyes: