Schedule extension 2011
 

As of today, the schedule only goes through 11/13/2011. Does anyone know when it will be extended past that date?

It seems really late; the schedule was usually 330 days out, if I'm not mistaken.

FWIW, neither FL nor WN has extended their schedules past November, either. Could this be a wait-and-see scenario, related to the competition?

In the days of Midwest. Just like any other LCC, it's unpredictable.

The schedule extension will be in effect on Sunday, 5/1.

From Facebook
 

Frontier Airlines
Our early winter schedule posts tomorrow. Book your trips now through January 8, 2012.

The schedule has reverted back...now only thru November 13, 2011. Earlier this morning, it was available thru 01/08/2012.

What's up?

The new website and old website calendars are different. I assume you're looking at the new website? We're working on that one.

Different browsers take me into different versions. When I checked on personal laptop this morning, I was viewing old site. When I logged in from my office, I got into "refreshed" site with one browser and old site on another.

What determines which version is accessed?

Not really sure. But the calendar has been fixed. Just for you. :D

Both calendars should be 1/8. Let me know if you see the Nov. 13th date again.

J

I saw the same thing this morning. As Mostly Air reports, its been fixed.

This morning, before 6:30 AM CDT, WN extended their schedule, with no surprises so far, for MKE.

As of this posting, FL has not yet extended their schedule past Dec 4.

Even if there are some changes which would provide opportunities for F9, lack of aircraft and uncertain fuel expense will presumably limit their options.

Two things I noticed in the new WN schedule:

MKE-PHX drops from 2x to 1x as of 11/6. It does operate for two peak days each before and after Thanksgiving, two peak days before and after Christmas, and two peak days before and one peak day after New Year's Day. Other than those few peak days, it looks to be only 1x. That brings WN down to 10/x day at Milwaukee. Probably not conincidentally, the AirTran schedule shows the seasonal return of MKE-PHX in November.

The other thing I noticed at MKE is that MKE-MCI continues to be a business-poor schedule. Since cutting MKE-MCI from 3x to 2x early this year, the flight times have jumped around a lot, sometimes to useful business schedules and sometimes to not-so-useful ones. The new schedule pretty much keeps the times consistant from late summer through fall and into January, but they are not especially good business times. Starting in later summer, MKE-MCI are at about 1:00pm and 5:00pm, and MCI-MKE are at about 11:00am and 3:30pm. That pretty much rules out same-day travel either direction, and with no early morning flight either direction you're stuck traveling the night before.

Adding an extra nonstop around the holidays also seems to hold true for MKE-MCI-MKE and MKE-BWI-MKE. The additional flights are obviously targeted to connecting traffic and will be heavily booked.

When I checked award availability for a couple of routes within minutes of the schedule extension coming up this morning, I could see very good selection of flights, most connecting at MCI. Now, three hours later, those same flights are no longer available.

Makes sense...I did not check all the routes around the holiday peak days, but mostly checked to see if PHX was being restored. But it makes sense that if they are getting an extra PHX flight in during the peak demand days, the aircraft they are using to make that happen can do some other things, too.

They really do have a core group of customers who are groomed to pounce when the new schedule is loaded...

MKE-LAX,SFO RDU end June 6
 

I did not see anyone reporting this. This is not good news
http://www.jsonline.com/business/121402303.html

Bryan Bedford just sent out a memo to his employees about restructuring Frontier. Seems more cuts and cost savings will need to happen to keep the company afloat. I don't feel right posting the memo here, but you can read it on airliners.net, reply 148.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo....main/5141126/

Yeah, I had no idea that things were that bad a frontier. I guess that I should have though that things were bad. Fuel costs are all over the place, they have WN and United at Denver and Airtran and WN in Milwaukee. One thing I know about WN is that they are like sharks. When they smell blood in the water they attack. While the skywest flights are gone don't look for them to let up especially with fuel costs on their way down. They would love to put frontier out of business.

I have questioned, like a few others on here about WN plans for the MKE hub of FL. I am this gut feeling that since MDW is so close and this being such a substantial connection point along with STL that you may only see a few of the FL routes retained as P2P routes. I could be wrong tough. We all know that FL was purchased for the ATL hub (like the bid for F9 in 2009 was for the quick growth into the DEN market) not so much for the routes.

Bedford's letter was an honest and frank assessment of the issues Frontier is facing. Say what you will about Bedford, but at least he's candid about the challenges confronting the airline.

IMO, the situation Frontier currently finds itself in are caused primarily by high fuel prices, use of high CASM aircraft (E170 and smaller), and the Milwaukee hub. There are other issues, of course, but these are the big ones.

For fuel, I don't expect Frontier to get much relief anytime soon. Despite the recent drop, the price of oil still hovers around $100 a barrel. As the global economy continues to recover and demand increases, the cost of oil will rise. Include the turmoil in some major oil producing countries and you have a very volatile situation. Frontier is smart to craft a business plan around $140 oil as that is where prices are likely headed. They can take some steps to mitigate the impact, such as hedging, use of more economical aircraft, fare increases (assuming the competition goes along), etc. However, this will only accomplish so much.

On the use of high CASM aircraft, Republic is in the process of removing the E170s. It helps that they can send these planes to the CPA side for profitable flying. After reading Bedford's memo, I was a bit surprised to see that E145s will be replacing some (all?) of the E135 flying but it sounds like Republic needs to find a home for those planes.

Regarding Milwaukee, it's clear that Frontier is losing big money there. Despite what some on this board believe, Milwaukee is not a two hub airline town. The market is simply too small. Add in intense competition and lowest in the industry yields and it's clear something dramatic needs to happen. Given AirTran's Q1 loss (especially the operational loss) it's apparent they didn't make money in Milwaukee either but yet they continue to push forward with few overall cuts. It's amazing that with oil at $100 AirTran continues to aggressively push $99 fares to the West Coast. The East-West flying has to be bleeding red ink.

Some may point to the record passenger levels MKE has experienced in recent years as "proof" that all of the added capacity can be supported. However, that traffic growth primarily came from huge amounts of connecting traffic flowing through the hub and stimulation by loss generating fares. It was unsustainable and some rationality needs to return to the market.

Obviously, the situation in MKE is such that Frontier can no longer wait for Southwest/AirTran to begin right sizing. So, it means Frontier will have to begin making cuts and this is what they've already started doing. In last weeks OAG thread, flying to PHX and Florida got whacked pretty significantly. The added frequency to BOS and LGA (which were originally scheduled to not be seasonal) will be eliminated in early fall. Every time another spoke or frequency is cut, the overall viability of the MKE hub comes into question.

While I'd hate to see this happen, from a business standpoint Frontier should pull the plug on the MKE hub if there is no hope of turning things around in the foreseeable future.

Tough times ahead for Frontier. I wonder what the exit strategy is if the board decides to throw in the towel on the branded operations?

In some respects, it feels like we're living 2008 all over again with the restructuring of Midwest.

The For Sale sign will be out soon. If it isn't already.

Its been up for a while, Seabury put it out there a few months ago. Bedford is a talking head just like Hoeskma was in the final year of Midwest. Seabury is making all the moves now, which is why he talked about cost cutting, something Seabury loves to do.

Considering how Republic is blowing through its unrestricted cash, significant cost cutting will have to be undertaken to keep the airline afloat. That will have to be done whether the branded operations are maintained, sold, or ....-down.

Hopefully they're looking at every aspect of Frontier's operations, from top down.

If Republic's board does decide to go ahead with a restructuring of Frontier, I hope Management handles things better than Midwest did in 2008.

I didn't know Seabury was already involved. I had a feeling things were not going well at Frontier before they announced MKE cutbacks. One strong sign was that the advertising campaign Bedford talked about never really happened. Buddy was to star in some of the commercials. If Frontier has to be sold, I am hoping JetBlue will be interested.

It's obvious. Frontier's problem is pilot compensation. If Bedford had any business sense, he'd replace Airbus flying with E190s and their lower paid flight crews. Problem solved.

Luckily Seabury is only responsible for one little part of the organization and not the whole thing and it's what they're good at doing. The decisions they make in this area have no possibility of affecting the major organization or employment, it will help with cost savings, not to be confused with cost cutting. Not going to go any farther than this though, just wanted to qualm a little fear that Seabury was making all the decisions.

Bedford led Frontier out of Chapter 11. It looks like they may be headed right back.

Not at all. The problem is that management made the decision to pour resources into MKE, a "hub" that can't even support year round west coast service, at the expense of DEN where a large national network already existed. The result is that F9 basically lost their most valuable asset in DEN to WN hoping that AirTran would eventually just go away, or downsize, in MKE.

Thanks for the clarification in regards to Seabury. I'm curious about Bryan's mention of the E190s being moved to the F9 Certificate. I think I know why... Republic doesn't want the E190s on their certificate because they can't fly them for anyone else if Frontier is forced into bankruptcy or a sale. It is a way of protecting Republic from financial hardship.

Beyond that, The E-jets are just like the A320 series of aircraft. You don't need to completely re qualify pilots from the E170, E175, E190. So for right now, it is definitely cheaper for RAH to keep the airframes on the existing certificate

The current tumult comes at a time when I can't dedicate even 10% of what I'd like to the debate, but I'd like to make these points, at least.

The employee memo really doesn’t say anything more than what BB already said in the quarterly earnings call. That’s not so make light of the circumstance – if anything perhaps it suggests that some of the information in the Q1 conference call flew under the radar of some. But Bedford was pretty clear at that time that a looming task was not only to devise a way to make the company profitable, but to convince the powers that be to continue funding this program as an ongoing entity. The red-letter day is this week, hence the mention in the employee memo.

I don’t think there’s anything to suggest that things are any worse than they were a few weeks ago when the Q1 call was. It’s just an update as d-day approaches.

At this point, there’s undoubtedly a plan to right the branded operation – this is the time when Bedford needs to sell it to the decision makers.

What we don’t know is how much of that plan is already announced and in the works, and how much of the plan is yet not announced. We also don’t know how much of the plan comes from changes in flying, versus how much comes from changes in fleet, versus how much comes from non-flying sources of cost reduction.

Bedford isn’t going in front of the board without a plan – his task is to show them enough financial improvement within the plan to justify continued investment. From our perspective, we know some of the aspects of the plan. Part of it certainly includes reduction in Milwaukee, which with already-announced cuts is down around 20-25% in ASM’s. The fleet change benefits – especially the redirection of E170 but also replacing A318 and E135 flying with better-CASM aircraft – are also undoubtedly part of the plan. We don’t know if already-announced changes represent 35% of the proposed plan, or 85% of the proposed plan, or what. Even if the already-announced changes are shown to yield enough improvement to right the ship (and I’m certainly not saying they are) the BoD still needs to be sold on the idea to continue supporting the business while the changes yield results.

If the plan includes more changes in the Frontier network – which it well could – Milwaukee of course comes to mind. It’s a fairly obvious thought since Milwaukee has clearly lost a lot of money for Republic. Rather than a flippant “Milwaukee” on the list of what to cut, I think it’s worth looking at exactly what there is to cut.

(1) RJ’s
The majority of flights in Milwaukee – service to about two dozen cities – are RJ markets. The memo specifically speaks of the RJ operation in terms that suggest it will continue. That doesn’t necessarily mean zero reductions in that segment, as the upcoming end of RDU service suggests. But several of the RJ markets are high-fare routes, and the only RJ market with LCC competition is MSP. Even the longer-haul routes to PHL and EWR, which would probably be a better fit for E-jets, are rather high fare markets and which have only RJ competition.

(2) East Coast Mainline Business Markets
These three markets, Boston, New York, and Washington. Are what should be the biggest earners for the MKE hub, but the AirTran fare pressure and overcapacity (especially in the offseason) have led to red ink, at least for part of the year. Should Frontier cut here? Perhaps, but these are markets that likely make money in stronger seasons, or have the best shot at making money with merely rational pricing by the competition, something which has been lacking.

(3) Leisure Routes
Orlando, Fort Myers, St Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale, Phoenix and Las Vegas. The four Florida markets have already been trimmed so that only Orlando is year-round, and it is not daily during the weak all period. Phoenix and Vegas are the only daily, year-round markets, but they are 1x/day each. Those two markets could potentially be cut in the offseason.

(4) West Coast Nonstops
These long-haul markets have absurdly low fare levels which lead to losses. Of note, even with Frontier not flying nonstop to LAX nor SFO this summer, AirTran still has $111 and $119 one-way fares available on various days. And this fall, $99 MKE-SFO seats abound on AirTran, even without any nonstop competition. Frontier is still flying a handful of weekly nonstop each SEA and SAN this summer in the late PM, but compared to last year’s level of flying and level of resources dedicated to MKE-west coast, this already-announced change saves a good deal of red ink.

(5) Other Routes
Denver, at 6x/day, is primarily about local traffic and feeding traffic through the Denver hub.
Dallas, at 3x/day, is a rare entity in Milwaukee – a mainline market without LCC competition. This market should be one Frontier can make money in.
San Antonio is only 3x-4x per week and also has no LCC competition. It started last fall and has apparently held its own.
Kansas City, at 4x.day, connects the MKE operation to the MCI focus city. It has LCC competition (twice-daily WN) but there are more reasonable close-in business fares.

That’s what MKE has. Beyond cuts already announced…which are already reducing MKE ASM’s around 20-25%...there’s not all that much left to cut. It would not surprise me to see some reduction in RJ flying, and perhaps LAS and PHX going to seasonal or less than daily, But I think some people think MKE has 15-20 aircraft which should instead be focused at Denver, and shutting down MKE would do that. Well, the RJ’s are not going to Denver, nor should they in my opinion. Beyond 10 flights to Denver and Kansas City, the Airbus/Ejet fleet serving Milwaukee is rather limited. MKE has already seen a lot of cuts.

There’s a tendency…human nature I guess…to label things as good or bad. More than once on this and other boards I’ve seen people saying that MKE should be shut down and resources used to build Denver, Omaha, and Kansas City. It’s safe to say that Frontier loses money on several Denver routes for at least part of the year. Realistically profitable opportunities for Omaha are limited at best. And while Kansas City has some promise, look at the types of sale fares Frontier is offering and ask yourself why. If you say it’s the fault of irrational Delta action, that puts MCI in the same boat as MKE.

The fact is that finding profitable places for expansion is a difficult task for anybody. That’s especially true for airlines with comparably fewer resources such as Frontier. That’s why airlines don’t take lightly the decision to drop established routes when they turn into red ink. They try to figure out a way to make the best of the situation in hopes of weathering the storm. But that has its limits.

Getting back to the crux of the situation, assuming Bedford is successful in his presentation, we shall see what further actions will be taken. Some of course may be in Milwaukee, but I don’t think it’s safe to assume they will be limited to only MKE. For example, one wonders if they are looking to outsource Aspen flying and getting rid of the last Q400s. No matter how efficient on a CASM basis an aircraft is, having a tiny fleet of any aircraft is a big drag on costs. Aspen is a very high-yield market in season, but if there’s a more cost-effective way of getting F9 into the market such as paying Horizon to fly it, perhaps that’s among the additional moves in store.

I'd say that Sean Menke did the heavy lifting on leading Frontier out of Chapter 11, not Bedford.

And we know what happened to him.

In his letter, Bedford mentioned that the elimination of the FL* SkyWest flying is a positive development but likely would do little to address the "situation" Frontier faces in Milwaukee.

Given that Bedford has publicly stated Milwaukee has lost a significant amount of money, I don't think it is "flippant" to suggest more aggressive action is needed there to right the ship.

The real question the Board has to be asking is can a hub operation in Milwaukee work in a high fuel price environment where over 60% of flights are operated by high CASM regional jets. What specifically needs to be done to make Milwaukee at least marginally profitable?

This is the third major schedule change Frontier has undertaken to address the lack of profitability in Milwaukee. Last winter, they reduced capacity significantly in many markets vs. 2009, operated some routes less than daily, used larger aircraft with lower CASM, etc. all in an effort to stop the bleeding. It didn't work.

Obviously the environment in Milwaukee is much more complex and there are likely long-term strategic issues at play here as well. However, time is running out. Frontier can't keep throwing good money after bad in Milwaukee. If Southwest doesn't start making some changes (both from a scheduling and yield standpoint) Frontier will have to start making some very difficult decisions in the near term.

I think this is a key point in the discussion here. WN appears to be in a much better position to "wait it out" in Milwaukee. WN's financial future does not hinge on two hubs like DEN and MKE.

While WN's main priority isn't necessarily to put the squeeze on F9 in both DEN and MKE. They have bigger fish to fry on intergrating FL and getting their arms around ATL. But, in the process, an ancillary consequence might just be that F9 is forced to squeeze in both hub cities. Icing on the cake for WN.

It is interesting to see that the whole notion of getting rid of the WN/SkyWest partnership and the possible shifting of slot controlled flights from MKE to MDW or elsewhere appears to not be a top priority at all right now. The longer this drags on, the worse the results will be for all carriers at MKE. Of course, the longer this all drags on, the better it is for the flying public at MKE. I'm still astounded that the huge passenger growth at MKE has been sustained. It's gotta drop off a bit this fall.

Sorry Frontier
 

This year, I concentrated most of my flying with Frontier in hopes of making Elite by the end of the year. I'm halfway there, but this article sent chills down my spine. Even if I did make Elite this year, odds are Frontier will be in a radically different form in 2012, making the Elite benefits a huge question mark. So, it's off to United. I just pulled out of a F9/AirTran DEN-MKW-BOS roundtrip where I had to connect and booked a DEN-BOS nonstop round trip on United. I know that I won't be able to make Premier this year, but I also know that they will be around next year. As for Frontier, I enjoyed the stretch seating upgrade option, the mostly friendly crews and counter agents (except for that one DEN-ABQ run where the FA was a real -itch) and I even put up with the variable service levels once outside of their DEN hub (LAX and SFO operations leave a lot to be desired.) I hate Southwest enough that it really has to be a last resort before I will hop into Cattle Class. I had really hoped that Frontier would make it, but now it looks like the sun may be ready to set. I feel sorry for the thousands of F9 employees here in the Denver area, but we all live and die by the talents and decisions of our company leadership. In their case, some poor choices were made (or not made) in a very competitive market that were compounded by harsh economic factors. You gave it a good go Frontier! :(

My use of the word “flippant” wasn’t to suggest that Milwaukee should be immune to cuts, and to be frank it was aimed at some participants on the airliners.net board (where I also posted this) who tend to be dismissive. The point was to as specifically, what additional flying should be cut of what remains at Milwaukee.

There are other reasons why I’m not sure exactly what of Milwaukee really to further cut:

(1) Frontier has already cut many of the biggest money-losers in Milwaukee. And not everything at Milwaukee is an overall loser.

(2) The non-RJ operation is at about 30 or so flights per day, and that will fall a bit further after labor day. There’s not all that much to cut.

(3) The RJ operation – which would seem an obvious source of cuts with $100bbl oil – does not appear to be on the block. (More on that below.)

So that’s why I ask what to cut further at Milwaukee, and why I went through the list of every segment of the operation. I don’t think it is especially clear or obvious.

At the 30,000 foot level, of course one would tend to point to the RJ operation as a big source of the red ink. Fuel is high, and RJ’s are comparably rather fuel-inefficient. But they don’t seem to be targeting large RJ cuts. And there are some things which suggest that the RJ operation isn’t as big a financial drain as conventional wisdom assumes.

--The cost of F9* operation to Republic is a notch less than typical because most major airlines pay a guaranteed profit to the regional operator off the top, making it harder for them to break even with 50-seat RJ’s. That’s not an issue for Republic.

--Local yields in several RJ markets are remarkably high, and can offset the higher cost-per-seat-mile of the RJ. Here are some MKE average Q3 2010 one-way fares (all carriers)

Newark $238, versus $115 to LaGuardia
Cleveland $237, versus $104 to Pittsburgh

Obviously the larger aircraft flying LGA are a lot cheaper per seat then the RJ’s flying to Newark. But is the cost more than double? Nowhere near that.

The illustration of Cleveland versus Pittsburgh shows how much difference there is within the segment, and why I think it is misguided to lump all RJ flying into a single category (as some pundits do) and dismissively label it as bad. This also illustrates how significantly the removal of FL* service can be. Of course higher fares will lead to traffic volume decrease, but the current situation has been losing money on every passenger but making it up in volume, as the cliché goes. Having Skywest out of the market and no longer charging $96 and change (the actual average MKE-PIT fare for Skywest) will cut losses for Frontier. Not just PIT, but the other four competitive FL* markets, too.

--Although there is understandable suspicion (justified or not) that the branded operation essentially is the dumping ground for surplus RJ’s, it’s worth noting that they are not afraid to park at least some excess RJ’s because they already do just that, and the end of MKE-RDU parks another RJ. Yet they are apparently choosing to continue to keep significant RJ numbers in the F9* operation.

Given these things, and combining them with pretty clear indication that the F9* operation is not being shut down, my conclusion is that it’s not the RJ operation, as a whole, which is the main source of drag in Milwaukee. I’m certainly not saying that F9* is exactly a profit center, and clearly some routes do a lot worse than others. But if it’s not primarily the RJ’s, then it’s the Airbus/Ejet system where the substantial losses are.

So....if we look at the Airbus/EJet system since Republic bought Midwest and Frontier, there are several places where they probably have racked up real losses

East Coast: The east coast business markets were very heavy with the E170, and while they ran relatively full, the yields were probably money-losers even at 100% loads on the E170. Then they switched to A319 to match or even surpass AirTran’s CASM advantage, but did so just in time for the traffic-weak winter, losing money with efficient but half-empty planes.

West Coast: The west coast has industry-bottom fares, and I don’t doubt everybody loses money much of the time.

Florida: Florida was seceded to AirTran back in 2008, and while Frontier does fine in the peak travel season, they flew far too many empty seats until early February (outside of the holiday periods.) Some of that was due to total overcapacity to western Florida, and some of that was likely due to the switch to PIE. AirTran and especially Southwest probably didn’t do as well as they would have liked in that period either, but Frontier definitely didn’t do the types of loads they needed in the early season.

Other: The cost disadvantage of the E170 to Kansas City, Dallas, and notoriously Tampa, pitted them against AirTran and Southwest costs advantages as well. Yields were perhaps not as cut-throat as they were to the east coast, but considering that AirTran pulled Dallas, and that Southwest reduced Kansas City and seasonally-pulled Tampa, Frontier probably did even worse with notably higher costs.

I’m not saying that all of these Airbus/Ejet segments never had periods of profit – some undoubtedly did. But I think those are the bulk of the MKE losses. And if you think about how often BB has pounded home that the E170 is not the right aircraft for the branded operation...think where the E170 as mostly flown. Though it has been used here and there out of Denver (including a nubmer of non-LCC markets like COS, ICT and BIL) the E170 has until recently been a mainstay in Milwaukee. It's in Milwaukee, primarily against FL and WN, where the ecnoomic disadvantage of the E170 has been most apparent and costly.


If there’s one more piece to suggest that it’s the Airbus/Ejet segment creating the bulk of the loss, take a look back at how much they’ve monkeyed with each part of the MKE system:

--The Airbus/EJet routes have seen many changes in frequency and in aircraft in the past 12-18 months. That of course includes the big schedule change in November which adjusted the banks, but also numerous changes in aircraft and other adjustments.

--The RJ routes have been rather stable in comparison. Last November’s change in banks lead to associated RJ changes, but that was driven by the Airbus/EJet schedule goals…they didn’t adjust the big markets to accommodate RJ needs. The only other notable RJ adjustments were some cuts in a few markets where Skywest killed yields.

It stands to reason that adjustments in frequency, timing and aircraft would be in segments where they are trying to fix a problem. And where has the repeated tinkering been? Not the RJs, but the Airbus/EJet markets.


Now let’s address those Airbus/Ejet segments.to see where they are headed.

East Coast: These business markets need Airbus in summer and E190 in the off season. Competitive CASM through the year, but lower capacity in winter to not suffer slaughter when the traffic slows. If FL/WN pulls back, this segment will improve dramatically, but even if they don’t, the changes already made are already making this segment perform much better than it had.

West Coast: The severe cuts in this segment will save millions.

Florida: The early season has been cut back sharply outside of the holiday periods, flights which last year often ran 40-55% full. More loss averted.

Other: The end of FL service to Dallas eases fare pressure (AA is not a low-fare carrier), and the transition from E170 to E190 to Kansas City will help better succeed with Southwest fare pressure in the market.


So in my opinion, the bulk of the losses in Milwaukee have not been from the RJ segment, but from the Airbus/EJet segment. And when one looks at the changes which are *already* in the works for Milwaukee will provide a great deal of improvement. And based on all of this, I am not expecting a great deal of additional Milwaukee cuts at this point.

One final item. The leaked content of Bedford’s presentation to the board the other day include targets for $120m in annual cost savings. The amount of that total expected from route and network changes is relatively small…about 20% of the total at $25m annually. That comes to about $2m/month, and that savings *includes* the benefits from the replacement of E170 / A318 / E135 by more efficient aircraft. Although I don’t know exactly how much of that $2m/month is anticipated to come from those fleet changes, the already-announced changes (which include changes in Milwaukee, as well as Denver and Kansas City) probably account for much or most of that savings. Had they instead proposed a plan where the large majority of savings was targeted to come from route/network changes, that would suggest a lot more changes were on the horizon.

Fair enough. I didn't see your posts on airliners.net until this morning but saw things were starting to get a little "heated" over there, lol.

Overall, it's hard for me to disagree with your analysis.

My concern about the RJ operation in Milwaukee is based on comments Bedford recently made about not being able to make money on any flight with the E170 or smaller aircraft in the current oil and revenue environment. That sounded pretty alarming given that neither situation is likely to change in the short-term (and high oil prices are likely going to be the new norm). With that said, sometimes what Bedford says is more of a generalization so it's entirely possible some flights are currently in the black and the real problems are elsewhere.

As far as what changes should further be made to the MKE hub, I'll offer the following thoughts:

1) Make connections for passengers originating in some of Frontier's Western network easier with better schedules/frequency. This is especially true for routes like BDL, EWR, PHL, PIT, etc. Essentially passengers not living in MKE or key feeder cities have only one flight per day to choose from. Having, say, three well-timed flights in each direction should increase the appeal of Frontier to a wider passenger base and allow them to get some decent connecting traffic which in turn will make the MKE hub stronger overall.

2) Florida. Frontier should switch PIE back to TPA and operate it with an E190 during non-peak periods (perhaps 5x per week during early fall). FLL should be a decent enough market to be flown daily from December-August. The route could also do well if it's operated on weekends during non-peak periods with flights timed well for cruise traffic. Alternatively, Frontier could investigate adding MIA service (it has the potential to be a good route from DEN and MCI as well and avoids direct competition with Southwest).

3) Increase frequency AND use larger aircraft in the key feeder markets of OMA, MSP, MSN, and GRR. MSP in particular is one market where Frontier could capture even a larger share of the local O&D market with a few better timed flights.

If they would undertake any of the above, I certainly don't expect to see any of the changes before next spring.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, it appears as if Southwest is preparing to make some changes to the FL schedules around November 21st. That is the date they announced DFW service would end. It also seems likely that some of the DCA and LGA slots could be allocated elsewhere around that timeframe as well.

If there are no major changes to the competitive and revenue environment in MKE by next spring, then all bets are off.

As a subsidiary of Republic, MKE will eventually become "just another station" in the F9 system.

Republic's business model is the problem. There is not sufficient demand for Republic's product in MKE to make it profitable. Republic does not have sufficient economies of scale, a business-focused strategy, or a substantial FF program required to be a successful airline. While my contribution is anecdotal, it seems that Republic can't attract high yields because they don't offer what travelers willing to pay high yields want: business class, lots of frequency, and an international FF program. BB can tinker with timing, aircraft, etc., but no matter what he does, his product doesn't demand the revenue required to be profitable.

MKE cannot support two airlines. WN knows who they are in MKE: a leisure airline. With FL disappearing, I suspect most of the higher yield traffic will defect to DL or UA (if they haven't already). YX was successful as long as the economy was good. Combined with the NW partnership, they offered enough value to generate profit. Once the YX product became diluted (Signature/Saver implementation was a disaster), value evaporated, and they failed.

Soon enough, MKE will become what it was in the pre-YX days: a substantial DL (formerly NW) station, with non-stop service limited to high yield business destinations (LGA, DCA, etc.), or hub feed (eg. DL to ATL/DTW/MSP, US to PHL/PHX, etc.). WN will be MKE's leisure airline.

BB will replace Airbuses with E175s/190s. While individual aircraft CASM may be higher than the Airbuses, F9 crew costs are probably the loss-driver. Also, the money losing stations served by the E140 family have got to go. Look for many of the MKE-feeding stations to disappear (ATW, etc.).

I predict that F9 will eventually end up in a JetBlue/Virgin/Frontier 3-way deal. Consolidation is the path to survival.

With the current financial issues Republic seems to be currently having, is code sharing with another airline a possibility? From what I know it is an expensive process for all airlines involved. Would another airline want to invest in it if they think it would not last due to the financial issues? Does Republic want to shell out that much cash to support a code share if cash is tight?

RAH has place an order with Bombardier for 50 CS300's to replace the A320 series aircraft as the leases begin to expire in the next 4-5 years.

I wouldn't rule out Alaska Airlines either. They may want to move Eastward and fill in their route map someday.