New Routes
 

Among other things trickling out:

DEN-PSP
DEN-LIT
MKE-PIE is moving back to TPA
MSN-MCO
DSM-MCO
OMA-MCO returns
DSM-TPA
OMA-TPA

Looks like most Florida flights are less-than-daily seasonal flying

Very interesting. Hopefully those Florida routes will work out and interesting to see them do some P2P from DSM. I think it is great to have a bigger presence in these Midwestern cities. Most of these are with the E90 correct?

Isn't this the third try for DEN-LIT?

Promotional fares being offered on these routes.

http://www.frontierairlines.com/fron...name=ebspecial

Company press releases:

http://media.frontierairlines.com/ar...rticle_id=5284
http://media.frontierairlines.com/ar...rticle_id=5283

Little Rock was added with the Frontier Jet Express initiative in October 2004, and was among destinations cut in mid 2008 after bankruptcy was filed.

Thanks for posting these additions, knope.

I particularly like that PSP has been added to the route map. Might have to take advantage of that!

I find it interesting they are going back to TPA from OMA after flipping over to PIE last year (2010) from TPA in 2009. I always found it interesting MKE, OMA, and MCI went to PIE and Denver went to TPA for a while. That was some easy cost savings there.

Please do! It is the only way they'll keep it around.

It may have been cheaper to fly to PIE but I think they lost customers in the shuffle. I had no idea PIE existed before they made the announcement and I bet a lot of consumers are in the same boat.

DEN-TPA
 

So F9 has one DEN-TPA flight, whereas WN has two. F9's tickets are a penny less than WN's on this nonstop, which occurs around the same time as WN's latest nonstop/

There are also multiple connection opportunities on some days DEN-XXX-TPA, where XXX can be DSM or MKE. MKE is expensive but has a quick connection...quick enough to beat out WN's one stop "quick turn" option. The problem here is that WN offers a nonstop DEN-TPA that arrives later and gets to TPA earlier than F9, for a lower price. But if you want a flight that gets to TPA from DEN around 6-7pm on F9, you've got one or two (or zero, depending on the day) options.

As usual though, Classic Plus on any F9 flight is cheaper than AT on WN.

Now add in three connecting flights from Airtran that are cheaper (by $20) than both F9 and WN, two of which are shorter than either F9 or WN connections. Plus a couple of direct UA flights for $17 more expensive than what F9 and WN are selling...the route must be a reasonably strong market.

As for DEN-PSP, United's pricing appears to be "we're the only ones offering nonstop service on this route" pricing. Then again, sub-daily on an E90 has a different market penetration style vs. 2x dialy on a CRJ.

Right now everyone else is one-stop DEN-PSP, and everyone is more expensive.

On DEN-LIT, F9 is the only cheap airline. One or two stop flights are significantly more expensive. Nonstops are over $400 one way, courtesy of a mix of United ERJs and CR7s (3x daily though).

The question is whether leisure and connecting traffic can fill an E90 once daily. Then again, there may be enough of a "Frontier Effect" (WN serves neither of these locations direct, and doesn't serve PSP at all) to keep a relatively small plane reasonably (say 80 pax/flt), where a mainline jet from someone else wouldn't work.

Didn't F9 moving back to TPA? This is where F9 is belonging there. Why F9 didn't like PIE? I thought those route is doing extremely very well. Can F9 will bring more specific routes from FSD/FAR/BIL-MCO/TPA?

Nobody knew about it, so the loss of traffic more than made up for the decreased costs there. Kind of like how Allegiant tried MCO instead of Sanford...except Allegiant moved back to Sanford when the experiment was all said and done.

Speaking of which, Allegiant is the big player at PIE. It's the Phoenix-Mesa to Tampa, so to speak. Or the Sanford to MCO. Frontier was kind of our of place there since it isn't a ULCC with a distinct aversion to planes built during this millennium :p

FSD/BIL, maybe. FAR, doubt it until F9 decides to serve DEN at that airport. Serving MCO/TPA (or, rather, PIE/SFB) without allowing connections to the rest of the US through a more centrally located airport is Allegiant's business model (and Airtran's to an extent, though that will change with the WN purchase), not Frontier's.

Examining the situation more closely, F9 isn't in FAR right now. In BIL they might be able to make a go of it since G4 only goes west of the Mississippi from there.

FSD would be...interesting. F9 has one evening flight into and out of there, on an E90. No connections are possible to TPA or MCO. Allegiant hits these routes with an M80 of some sort, twice a week during peak season, so 260-332 seats per week available. Fares very, but lowest I could find was $130 or so OW. The big question here is whether F9 can take an E90, throw it into FSD 3x a week (297 seats) and get the plane reasonably full. Or, for that matter, 1x a week on Saturdays, keeping in mind that Delta offers round-trips for $200 OW with a reasonable connection time.

How long with the Q400?
 

This article in the Aspen paper fears for continuing service DEN-ASE

http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/148443

What other destinations would be affected if those aeroplanes are sold?

It might last as long as LGB did.

I'd like to use it, but don't see much of a future. The 6:00 AM MKE departure isn't too appealing.

I'm pretty sure the other destinations could continue to be served with the E90 just fine. The hope is that with the runway extension F9 could try to get the E90 certified for ASE and get rid of the rest of the Q's. Personally I'd like to see them dump the CSeries in favor of a bunch of new Q's and operate a lot of short haul midwestern traffic to/from MKE but I don't think that day will come.

Mods: I wasn't sure if the Q400s remaining in service with F9 deserved it's own thread or should stay in this thread about new routes.

I am not familiar with the dimensions of the E90 so I am not sure if that particular aeroplane would be certified to operate at ASE. Many years ago the was a backlash to a proposed aerodrome extension because a very well organised small group fought very hard to prevent 'large' aeroplanes operating out of ASE. IIRC the aeroplanes being considered were 737s and maybe 757s. These larger aeroplanes would have allowed non-stop operations from anywhere in the USA (a big plus for Aspen tourism)
There are now a couple of county regulations with restrictions that could affect the certification of the E90, firstly the wingspan must be <96' and secondly a maximum mass of 100,000 lbs.

This all happened about 20 years ago, the protesting group had propaganda using a caricature of of a 747 Jumbo. Perhaps if the larger aeroplanes had been allowed to operate there would have been a reduction in the total number of movements at the aerodrome.

The E90's wingspan is *just* under the limit of 96', if it still exists.

That is my understanding of the situation. I think F9 could make a pretty good case that it is in ASE's best interest to keep them around and adjust the limit slightly to allow the E90 to land there.

Does anyone know if the E90 (or E70) is even capable of serving ASE?
AFAIK the CR7 is the only jet able to climb out on one engine safely. This is why the Q's didn't all go away...RAH didn't have any CR7s.
But, perhaps the new runway has changed things.

That is the reason the e70 was not certified. The e90 has different engines but I do not know if the climb performance is enough for ASE.

If the e90 can't be certified, rjet will have a bit of a pickle on their hands. A 4 plane fleet doesn't make much sense longterm. Do they get more q's and try to use them under cpa for more than just frontier? Do they replace the e45 flying with more Q's? Or do they just drop ASE?

Personally I'd love to see them give the Q's another shot under the RP certificate. Maybe they could buy piedmont?

I would hazard a guess that RJET-owned Q400s are not long for this world, though as a cost-cutting measure they'd be excellent.

F9 has a fair number of destinations a short hop away from MKE and DEN, and they can probably operate a Q400 for the same cost as an ERJ, but with 24 more seats. I don't think anyone will mind being on the plane for 5-10 more minutes vs. a jet if it means either upgrading from an ERJ or maybe getting a cheaper fare because fuel isn't as expensive.

OTOH Frontier would be growing a subfleet of aircraft that it shrunk a few years ago, and at that point they'd have four different types of aircraft to maintain (A320, E-Jet, ERJ, Q400). You can argue that the ERJs and E-Jets are taken care of by the RJET side of the house, but the fact remains that the only customer of the Q400s is F9, whereas ERJs and E70/75s are in use under other RJET brands. If they're going to cut something, the Q400 mini-fleet is what's going.

As for Piedmont, I don't think people would take kindly to switching from ERJs to turboprops of comparable size and significantly older vintage. Plus, US Airways needs those planes to run short-haul routes from Philly and Charlotte, though less so now that NYC is winding down...or will needs increase since DCA is winding up?

F9 *could* contract out to Horizon for Q400 service, or maybe use them to maintain the subfleet. The latter may be more likely since Horizon seems to be utilizing its own fleet pretty heavily at this point. Could be wrong though.

I have a feeling you are correct :(.

They could even put STRETCH on the Qs if they wanted. According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), the Q only needs like 25-30 passengers to break even on a route (I guess assuming a typical fare). It seems like it would be a perfect bird for some of the EAS markets they want to bid on.

Again, definitely agree, but they could swap the Q one for one with the ERJ. Now, again, the ERJ has minimal additional cost for RJET since they are using them for several other vendors. To get new Q400 vs cheap ERJs might just wipe out any cost advantage of the Q.

This off the wall idea would be to continue operating those birds for US, but would give RJET the advantage of having a sizable fleet so they can have big fleet economics even if only a large handful operated for F9. Again, I'm sure there are plenty of differences between the 100, 300, and 400 where this might not even work out that way.

Yeah while the ASE route definitely brings in a revenue premium I doubt it is enough to warrent RJET contracting to another carrier. I have a feeling the rest of the pilots at RJET would frown on that.

I guess here's hoping the E90 can get worked out at ASE!

Thats gonna be a NO! Piedmont has the most senior crews of the US carriers. 25 year guys that started there right out of training and have many years left to go. Their costs for crews is very high.

NYC is winding down. DCA will not see an increase in prop service. 10 Piedmont Dash 8s will be retired to the bone yard starting in October.

The Fleet commonality for parts on the 100/200, 300 and 400 are not that significant so purchasing an aging fleet has no benefit.

Something that could happen is US contracting RAH to fly Q400's along with the E170/5's.

Yes the pilots would but the F/a's would have the bigger contractual complaint.

Yeah I figured it was a bad idea the more I thought about it.

I like this idea though. With the price of fuel probably going nowhere but up (Thanks China!), I would not be surprised to see more and more prop service in short haul markets. Especially if they can find more carriers to pay for this service, it could be a good investment for RJET.

I personally love the Dash so i would have no problems working it! I would get the training now but I would have to be based in DEN and I dont want to go and get myself in the middle of all that drama.

MCI-LAS and HOU
 

Just announced
Intro fares for 59 out of HOU and 89 to LAS each way