Frontier and the Super Bowl
 

I noticed on Airliners.net that DL is adding significant lift from GRB and MKE to DFW for the Super Bowl. My question is.... Did Frontier not have enough planes to provide extra lift or are they doing the Funjet Charters? Here is what was posted on Airliners.net for DL.

GRB-DFW
Feb 3
DL XXXX Dep 2:25p Arr: 5:25p CRJ-900 OPERATED BY COMAIR

MKE-DFW
Feb 3
DL XXXX Dep: 3:00p Arr: 5:45p 757-200
Feb 4
DL XXXX Dep: 6:10a Arr: 8:55a 737

DFW-GRB
Feb 7
DL XXXX Dep: 1:10a Arr: 3:20a 757-200

DFW-MKE
Feb 7
DL XXXX Dep: 1:10a Arr: 3:00a 767-300

Funjet charter availability - AirTran

Depart Friday, February 04, 2011
01:45 PM Leaves Milwaukee (MKE)
Arrives in Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) 04:15 PM
#8459
Non Stop
Charter Operated
Return Monday, February 07, 2011
03:45 PM Leaves Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW)
Arrives in Milwaukee (MKE) 06:15 PM
#8460
Non Stop

Charter Operated
Price for all travelers includes Flights and certain taxes & services.
$1,019.89

Only 1 seat available

GRB-DFW Sun Country charters still available thru Funjet, with upgrade to F available.

Frontier actually put an Airbus on the MKE-DFW outbound Feb 3, instead of the usual E170.

I heard Funjet has three charters from GRB and 2 from MKE for the Super Bowl. It was on the Channel 4 News last night. Thanks for the information.

There are also game-day charters, departing Sunday A.M. and returning right after the game. There is a disclaimer that the tour operator is not responsible for cancelled/delayed flights which could cause the traveler to miss the game. :eek:
http://fwt.packerfantours.com/specia.../xlv/game_day/

The same-day option is sold-out!

Round two of the air/land packages is also sold-out, with the tour operator trying to put more together.

I'm not so sure everyone will have tickets for the game inside the stadium... but I did hear there is a cheaper option to be there and watch the game on jumbo screen TV's just outside of the stadium for 200 bucks a person. Jerry Jones sure knows how to make money.

Far too risky given MKE weather conditions. We have been fortunate thus far, but one never knows.

Here is a Frontier response to additional flights to DFW from MKE.

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/a...getting-f.html

Also WN is getting in on the action. They will be adding 2 one-stop flights each from MKE and PIT to DAL. They can't do non-stop at this time because of the Wright Amendment.

I thought the Wright Amendment was gone?

As I understand it, it will not be totally gone until 2014.

WN has bumped their usual fares by $300 one-way for MKE-DAL one-stops the few days before and after the game.

AirTran has some availability on a morning nonstop DFW-MKE, at a not outrageous fare.

Even then, it won't really be gone. North Texas will still be exempted from both the Sherman Anti-trust Act as well as the Airline Deregulation Act, and will be subject to an airline cartel dominated by American Airlines for the foreseeable future. The Wright Amendment revision merely swaps one form of monopolistic protection (geographic restrictions on flights) for another (a hard gate cap in the North Texas catchment area coupled with long term gate leases which serve to inhibit competition).

WN really dropped MKE-DAL fares for Super Bowl. Direct flights at good times now available from $165 before Super Bowl Sunday, or $147 if someone wants to risk a Sunday morning flight.

Seems anti business to keep this outdated law on the books. The rest of the country enjoys competition and free enterprise in the airline industry. If AA can't make it without this amendment in place, they shouldn't be in business at all.

The amendment was more against Southwest than for AA. It was to make sure WN, and any other airline, could not skirt the use of DFW easily or without restrictions. So, it was really an amendment by Jim Wright to protect DFW more than AA.

There is no doubt it is anti-competitive. It was designed that way on purpose. Over the years it has come to favor AA and penalize WN at DAL. Even when it goes away, it still will restrict WN by setting a total number of gates the airline can operate at DAL.

Good ole boy Texas politics. No state does better at it.

WN decided and sued to stay at DAL, they chose not to be a signatory to a DFW operating agreement. They made their choice, so no sympathy here. :rolleyes:

Locks like the Packers were on a DL charter. The Steelers flew US.

DFW closed this morning; unknown when it will reopen. Temps in low 20s, high winds, freezing rain.

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Airpor...tional+Airport

F9's morning MKE-DFW nonstop shows "delayed"" status, while the afternoon and evening nonstops to DFW are marked "cancelled." What a mess!

Will the carriers be able to get all of the fans whose flights are cancelled to Dallas in time? Hope everyone has trip insurance.

Morning flight now en route to DFW.

I heard that DFW is pretty good at keeping the runways clear of ice and snow. For a Southern City that is. :)

Looks like DFW is open again and is receiving some planes, but average ATC stop of over 3 hours. Backlog!

DAL (Love) closed at about 7:30 this morning and doesn't have any estimated update to open, which puts serious kinks in Southwest's ability to get people to Dallas, too.

Doing a quick tally, Love averages just under 15k local pax per day, while DFW is more like 50k, so DFW is definitely getting the bulk, but having DAL
closed is a hit, too.

Right now Frontier looks sold out to DFW for the rest of the week except for the mid-afternoon filght tomorrow. Perhaps they can swap another Airbus from BOS or DCA down to Dallas if they need to. And with interline agreements, they can probably do things like put people on MKE-SAT-DFW if need be.

SWA has posted that all of their MKE flights (inbound/outbound) are cancelled for the rest of the day, as well as tomorrow.

BTW, their site recognized me and greeted me with

How did they know I was a Packers fan? :D

If not logged-in with your RR number, there is just the generic homepage.

Funny! I got the HEY GREEN BAY FANS message too, and I don't have an RR nubmer to log in with. Maybe they are doing it by geo location of the IP? Kind of like when I'm on the road and a website banner ad says "Get great homeowners insurance rates for Wilmington Ohio" when I happen to be using Wifi in the hotel in that city.

Early this morning I noticed that Southwest seemed more aggressive about canceling their schedule -- everything after 10:45am was scrubbed. Most everybody else continues to run some flights this afternoon, although several are canceled due to conditions on the other end (O'Hare, Cincinnati, etc.) I'm sure it will change as evening approaches, but most of today is a relatively routine snow event here. In prior MKE snow and fog events, anecdotally it seems WN cancels sooner, too, but that's just my impression.

I assume their philosophy is to cancel on the aggressive side, and doing so probably helps them avoid last-minute cancelations which are the worst. I totally understand and agree with everybody canceling later this afternoon and tomorrow morning ahead of time. On the flip side, however, every canceled flight costs the airline money, and shutting down hours before most everybody else does creates extra customer frustration as they see other flights go, but Southwest can't put them on any other carrier.

There was one carrier who just threw in the towel in Milwaukee today, and that was Skywest flying as FL* -- all arrivals and departures were axed. Anybody know if they have only high-minimums crews or something like that which were hampered by the visibility? It isn't a beautiful day by any means, but except for St Louis, Frontier operated in and out of the same areas (OMA / PIT/ DSM / CLE / IND) without issue this morning. Of course this afternoon is a different story. But it surprised me they didn't run anything today...not even something like MKE-PIT-MKE this morning.

On a related weather note, looks like AirTran plans to send a few aircraft up to MSP from MKE later this afternoon. Both scheduled flights this PM (3:17pm and 8:50pm) are canceled, but they show some unscheduled four-digit flight numbers going -- one showing IAB as the departure gate. I'm guessing they are looking to get some aircraft out of Milwaukee so they are not stuck here uselessly for perhaps 36 hours.

Hmm...Maybe they got DOJ approval for the WN/FL acquisition and had to shut down SkyWest flying immediately. :D

LOL...I think that might be premature, but perhaps the (apparent) willingness to cancel the entire day right from the start reflects Skywest not planning to have the flying for long. The whole WN / FL scheduling is odd right now. Remember the second MKE-TPA AirTran is adding on May 3? It was loaded several days ago but loaded only for May 3rd, and it is at virtually the same time as the Southwest MKE-TPA nonstop (1 minute different). That's just strange, just like AirTran removing MKE-BWI for part of March, all of April, and into May. Hmmm....

Watch the Super Bowl in-flight
 

Tweet from flyfrontier:

Super Bowl send-offs at MKE
 

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee...s-parties.html

No mention of any Frontier celebration. Was/is there any?

None that I heard of. I think Frontier missed the ball on this one.

They were too busy sulking because their beloved Bronco's weren't playing.

Hey, hey, hey now... some of us are Bears fans. I think we deserve to sulk after Cutler's pathetic performance.

Thankfully, we had the Colorado State Univ. kid who at least kept the game interesting for the Packers fans. :)

Good luck to the Pack on Sunday! ;)

Tweet from Frontier VP Daniel Shurz:

Maybe F9 can welcome fans returning on Monday's DFW-MKE flights, like SWA and FL sent off Super Bowl fans on their flights.

I hope they did. Frontier should have the closest ties to folks in Milwaukee, but sometimes they seem to be out of touch with what's going on here. Midwest understood this previously.

AirTran and Southwest have both done a good job of injecting themselves in the community.

Shurz is a little late getting Frontier involved in the Super Bowl frenzy. AirTran and Southwest were there from the beginning.

Frontier was one of the carriers which provided lift for charter flights out of GRB.
The return arrived back in WI shortly after 2:30 this morning.

Another Airbus now in the air headed for GRB - due to arrive before noon. Too bad that neither Airbus had Buddy on the tail.