Winter Schedule Changes
 

Frontier loaded their initial schedule for winter 2011/2012. Here are some of the changes I noted:

MKE:

-RDU is dropped
-No SEA/SFO/LAX/SAN/PIE
-MSP loses one frequency
-Frequency in other markets is more or less the same as last year (BOS and LGA each gain one flight)

MCI:
BOS and LAX each lose one frequency

OMA:
No major changes. The point-to-point flying to LAX and SAN are still in the schedules so those routes must be doing ok.

DEN:
-MSN and GRR each lose one frequency
-Provo is still in the schedules (this flight was rumored to be on the cut list).

The elimination of RDU is especially disappointing. This is one station that should have had a lot of potential but Frontier let it wither. Non-stop flights were never added to DEN or MCI and the MKE schedule wasn't all that useful to passengers connecting from some of Frontier's western stations. Based on what I've heard loads and yields on MKE-RDU weren't horrible so it's a surprise to see it go.

These schedule changes continue to highlight what a financial disaster MKE continues to be. It will be interesting to see how much Republic discusses the performance of MKE during the up-coming earnings call.

Have to agree. With only flights to MKE and very little connecting opportunities, I'm happy it held on as long as it did. Now, we need to look at Delta to add E70 service to MKE and MCI...

Schedule update
 

As Frontier announced that a new winter schedule was loaded, I was only checking dates later this fall/early winter 2012.

Looking at the summer schedule, some noteworthy adjustments appear to have been made as well:

MKE-LAX/SFO nonstops appear to be gone.
MKE-SAN appears to operate only on Saturdays
MKE-SEA stills seems to operate less than daily
MKE-RDU appears to be gone by June.

Wow, these are some impactful cuts, especially to the west coast. This gives FL/WN a monopoly on the west coast routes and provides incentive for WN to keep the west coast routes in place after rolling FL into its operations.

I am disappointed to see RDU go as well.

I'm curious to hear any speculation on whether any other carriers would bother with replacing some of these cuts. I'm guessing WN will be the only one. Maybe DL, but that's a long shot now. NW might have if it were still around.

If the price of oil continues to rise, I think there's better than a 50/50 chance that Southwest pulls down MKE-West Coast service this fall. That's especially likely if they begin dismantling the East-West hub.

Back in 2008, AirTran stated that their Q2 loss was mostly attributed to the the long haul flying in MKE. They may have a bit more pricing power now that Frontier is pulling out but it's already May and AirTran has likely sold a fair number of seats for the summer at lower prices already.

Southwest also made some cut-backs to their long-haul network in 2008.

Unlike AirTran, Frontier does have the option of getting MKE passengers to the West Coast through MCI and DEN. Given the short notice of these cancellations, I'm sure there's going to be some unhappy customers. At least they can still get to their destination with a connection.

I doubt anyone will jump on MKE-RDU.

Given what's happening with oil, in hindsight it might have been better to keep the Q400 fleet and deploy some of those planes to MKE.

That's a distinct possibility for sure, and if that would happen, MKE would be left with no service AT ALL to the west coast. I would think that either WN or DL would at least add a token MKE-LAX single nonstop. DL had the single nonstop last time this situation occurred, and that was during the last run up in fuel.

But, I will offer a prediction that WN will at least try to make a go of MKELAX this winter to see how it works out with no F9 competition.

Southwest is somewhat hard to predict. After all, who would have thought that they would enter MKE back in 2009, but they did.

I wonder how quickly BBD could get them some more Q's to replace the E35/45's. Surely it would make sense fuel-wise and give them the opportunity to make more money by being able to sell more seats. The problem is figuring out if the acquisition cost would be worth it and how long we can expect oil to be through the roof.

I don't think that Delta will jump in the LAX-MKE route. Last time around Midwest handed them their customers with a code share and FF agreement, not sure how many people would book with Delta without the code share or FF agreement. Plus since Frontier is not flying the route Delta has no motivation to create more competition, lower fares for Frontier.

Southwest will have Airtran's numbers and will probably see a lot of red ink on the route and stay away from the LAX-MKE route as well.

I don't think Republic is interested in any more Q's.

Fair points.

Without competition on the route, there will be less fare pressure than what FL has had to deal with in past winters, so I'm still guessing that WN might give it a try for one winter during the integration process.

As for DL, there is still a significant number of Delta FF members in Milwaukee. In fact, before the DL/NW merger, I recall reading that MKE had the highest number of NW WorldPerks accounts of any non-NW hub except for SEA. DL is still the third busiest carrier at Mitchell.

That's certainly possible. Of all the West Coast routes, MKE-LAX could probably be sustained at 1x daily.

The yields on MKE-West Coast are horrible so fares will have to increase or Southwest will pull the plug and route passengers elsewhere. Without the intense competition and fire sale fares they might be able to make a go of it.

I'm still amazed that Frontier is walking away from LAX/SFO during the peak summer travel season. Even more interesting is that they are keeping SEA (which has AirTran competition at 2x daily) and SAN (where despite having a non-stop flight last year they still managed to have a lower fare than one-stop or connecting options on other carriers). Personally I thought Frontier might reduce LAX and SFO to say, 4 times per week, instead of outright cancellation.

If fuel costs were lower I can see Delta adding more routes but I don't think they're interested in Milwaukee other than what they have. Southwest is a different story, weather they add it or not may give a hint to see how interested they are in keeping Milwaukee around Airtran's current level.

I had just a couple of chances to look at the updated schedule while on vacation, and saw some oddities late Saturday / early Sunday, but I think everything is loaded now. Here's what the changes appear to be (most of this has already been reported):

Milwaukee changes;

LAX ends -- was 6x/week A319
SFO ends-- was 4x/week E190
RDU ends -– was 2x daily (12x/week) ERJ
SEA stays 4x/week goes from A319 to E190 (What was the SFO plane is now SEA)
SAN stays 3x/week
MSP's 5th ERJ flight addition for June will not start, but one existing four flight upgrades from ERJ to E190.
MCI had been back to 1 E190/ 3 E170, now goes to 2 E190 and 2 E170.
MSN drops to 3x from 4x
BNA (1), DSM (1) and GRR (2) see E135 upgraded to E145

Net, this reduces peak-day departures by 6, from 91 to 85:

2 fewer A319
2 more E190
1 fewer E170
1 fewer E145
4 fewer E135

That's 348 fewer seats on peak days, but because the LAX and SFO flights were only 6x and 4x per week each, if you average out the reduction over a week, it comes out to 245 fewer seats per day...a reduction of about 4.5% from what had been scheduled for summer.

At Kansas City, the 2nd LAX and BOS flights and 8/15. I don't recall if they had them loaded to continue into fall or not, but they will end mid-August. I don't follow DEN as closely as MKE/MCI/OMA, but I didn't notice any notable cuts for the summer update just loaded.

Although these cuts are not exactly wonderful, given the large Q1 loss expected and soaring fuel costs, I don't think this is so bad. I am more concerned about what the fall quarter will bring. Talk of ten fewer lines of flying will have a real impact, though I don't know how it will be split among DEN, MKE, MCI and OMA. Perhaps they don't know for sure either. But if oil does not drop, we'll probably see notably fall cuts. Some might be seaonal cuts to be restored as more E190 come in winter/spring, while others might be true drops. We shall see.

The expected big Q1 loss for Frontier means action has to be taken, and while I don't like seeing west coast nonstops trimmed, those markets continue to suffer form overcapacity, worst-in-the-indsutry yields, and thin business traffic. Although on one hand it might make sense to (for example) move those 3x MKE-SAN trips over to MKE-LAX to keep a presence in the market, having an afternoon nonstop MKE-LAX on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday (the SAN schedule) is not a meaningful presence anyway. With oil well into the triple digits, this is not the time for Frontier to try to buy market share or lose a lot of money trying to make a point.

More to say, but no time at the moment. Perhaps the conference call will give us some additional direction.

Starting Dec 23, MKE-MCO shows only Classic Plus fares, with no seats booked; this usually indicates that changes are in the works, and that F9 wants to deter bookings.

I think Republic has plans to reduce MKE service beginning this fall if oil continues to increase. My guess is that a big portion of the loss on the branded operations has to do with the high price of oil and poor performance of the MKE operation (which is exasperated by heavy use of regional jets that simply aren't profitable in the current environment).

Given the capacity guidance coming from the airlines, there will likely be significant cuts coming this fall if the cost of oil remains in the triple digits.

So for September/October flights--book now before fares go even higher or wait until the dust settles from the schedule changes? (looking at LAX and MCO)