mke9499

The drastic cutbacks at MKE are impacting businesses at the airport.

http://www.wisn.com/news/money/Some-...z/-/index.html

knope2001

Although it's no good for the people who worked at either of those places, of course, neither is a big loss. Legends was essentially a small generic airport councourse bar with a grab-and-go cooler. And the kiosk which is closing was a cooler and cash register pushed up against a wall. Not to be cruel but neither is a big loss. Both were cookie-cutter airport operations, and even in the busiest days of "D" I'm not so sure Legends ever did that well. It's right at the start of the concourse away from most of the action.

Losing Johnny B's, Usinger's or Nona (the Bartolotta restaurant) would be a bigger blow as they are larger and more distinctive. The customers who still used Legends or the kiosk will add only a very negligible amount of business to the remaining places. If more airlines come to D it will help, but the real lifeblood of concourse restaurants is connecting traffic. Generally they didn't get food on their inbound flight nor will they on their outbound. And with time to cool their heels, a restaurant is often a good place to burn time. Connecting traffic is much harder to replace.

mke9499

Joe Bartolotta, who helped develop Nonna's with operator SSP and gets a percentage of the sales, has acknowledged the great slump in business. After opening about 3-1/2 years ago, traffic at Nonna's was so active, that the additional seating area was opened. Now, there's never a problem seating a customer in the original space. Bartolotta indicated that he's hoping another carrier(s) can be moved over or brought in to provide more traffic on Concourse D. How long can vendors on the concourse remain open, when they are obviously sustaining losses from lack of customers on the once busiest concourse at the airport? Incentive for connecting traffic from Concourse C to visit Concourse D is gone, since new food options opened on C.

Frontier has about four years left on its gate/counter lease at MKE.

knope2001

I hope that everybody else hangs on at least until UA and WN iron out their plans. That UA is continuing to run a split operation with no word of consolidation suggests that there's shuffling in the works. Another of the other airports with a split UA operation (there are a few left but not too many) is MCI, where consolidation is more pressing than at MKE.

A few options using capacity for late August and weekday departing seats:

Current configuration
C 5751
D 3620
E 3760

FL/WN consolidate in C, UA/AA/US/AC move to D
C 6754
D 3233
E 3144

FL/WN consolidate in C, UA/AC consolidate in C, DL, AA, US move to D.
C 7970
D 5161

FL/WN consolidate in C, all others end up in D
C 6754
D 6377

If E were to be mothballed and UA/AC consolidates on C, here's how that could work out. Weekday departures in partenthesis.

C
WN (52) 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
UA+AC (24) 9, 10, 11, 12
open 14, 15, 17

D
US (11) 51, 53, 55
AA (8) 52, 56
F9 (7) 41, 43
DL (31) 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49
open D30-39 (5 jetways) plus the ramp on D27/28/29

If UA/AC moves to D, they could use 30, 34, 36, 38

In either case, there are several gates open for expansion or new carriers. And some airlines might one one fewer gate than what I've assigned here,


I know that some definitely don't want DL to move off of D, and perhaps that's Delta's position too. However if the price is right I would guess just about any airline would be willing to move. The club on E could be moved into the former F9 club space on D, and if that's too much space for Delta some modest remodeling could wall off excess space. E is just so far behind in facilities compared to C and D that it seems like obvious choice to mothball.

The first two options I listed, which keep E open, still have fewer passengers at D than exist today. That might just be what happens, and it's not unsustainable. But it likely means D loses most of their vendors. In addition to the infrastructure created for Usinger's, Johnny Rockets and Nonna, the brand new USO is on a highly underutilized D.

MKE is hardly alone with the real estate issue. Even airports without the loss of a hub carrier have excess real estate as the number of airlines continues to drop.

newsmanhoss

I'd be curious to see how these numbers compare to what each concourse served, say, ten years ago.

I don't know why there's all this talk of mothballing a concourse when traffic is still higher than it was just a handful of years ago. There was no talk of mothballing concourses then...so why now?

In fact, C was expanded a few years before we knew traffic would explode in 2010.

Heck the stem of D was just redone a few years ago, too.

WIRunner

Looking back to what airlines were around 10 years ago:
America West
US Airways
TWA
Delta
Northwest
Continental
United
American
Midwest Express
ATA
Air Canada

I'm sure there were a few others. But the bigger story is that if each carrier had 2-3 gates (aside from Midwest), there'd be less space available, and less of a need to have gates consolodated. As of now, if a carrier is able to operate a schedule of 24 daily flights on 3 gates, that could have likely required 6 gates when two carriers were doing the same thing. (numbers are made up)

Even though there are more seats, there are less companies flying.

newsmanhoss

This explanation makes some sense, but there are still currently 8 carriers:

Frontier
AirTran
Southwest
Delta
United
American
US Airways
Air Canada

FL and WN are still operating separately for the foreseeable future, so I haven't combined them yet.

Due to consolidation, we've lost these over the last ten years:
TWA
Continental
Northwest
Midwest
America West
ATA

So we lost six, but also gained three:
AirTran
Frontier
Southwest

...and who knows, another could be on the way at some point later!

mke9499

Don't forget another previous carrier at MKE...USA3000. That was a major loss, when it left MKE.

Tim34

You forgot Skybus

WIRunner

Yeah, however they weren't operating in the 2000-2002 time frame (aka 10 years ago) for comparisons sake.

knope2001

From the perspective of gates, it’s definitely true that fewer gates are needed than a few years back, both because of fewer flights (with larger planes) and fewer airlines. But the benefits of consolidation from a gate perspective are so-so. The county would save on things like cleaning a closed-off concourse, and they could keep it colder in winter and warmer in summer. (The airlines pay for security IIRC.) But if they’d close off a concourse they’d lose rent from those vendors. And if they need to cut deals with airlines to convince them to move – perhaps even letting airlines cut gates they'd rather not be on the hook for – it might not be a good move for the county.

From the perspective of passengers, it’s a great point that MKE still has more traffic than a few years back. And if Southwest/AirTran doesn’t pull back too much below this fall’s level, it still will. The problem is that the food options in C and D have been expanded and upgraded a great deal in the past few years, and going back to traffic levels of the mid 2000’s will probably mean losing a lot of that progress.

If Southwest decides to move to C into AirTran’s space, D is left with a single airline with only a handful of flights. That probably doesn’t support anything but the news stand. On the other hand, note that by fall, close to half the combined FL/WN capacity will actually be on D. Everyone seems to assume that the combined WN-FL will end up on C because that’s the nicer, newer concourse, and they might well do that. But with Southwest being the acquirer, they may decide to keep their own space on D, and add a few more gates on D to handle the combined portfolio. (They already will need a third gate on D this fall, so the issue of Frontier having everything else locked up on D must be worked out in one way or another.) Then the volume on C drops below the level which is likely needed to support Chili’s, Piccola, and some other vendors there.

They don’t *have* to mothball any concourse, even if D ends up with just Frontier. But with legacy-CO and WN taking over FL, things are going to be shuffled anyway. If they don’t take some relatively pointed action, they’ll probably lose some of the vendors which allowed them to move their services beyond the circa-1985 stuff they had a handful of years ago.

mke9499

The Business Journal of Milwaukee recently addressed this issue in an article titled "Cuts leave Frontier with unused gates at Mitchell."

Pat Rowe of Mitchell Airport was quoted as saying that F9 obviously did not need all of the 21 gates on D that it has under lease, and that MKE is working with Frontier "to determine the best use of those gates."

Lindsey Carpenter of Frontier stated that Frontier "will continue to honor all lease agreements, as we continue to right-size our Milwaukee operation."

The lease payments for gate and counter space at MKE run about $96,000 per month, with about four years remaining in the current lease term.

lougord99

Looking at the Wayback machine : http://web.archive.org/web/200110092...llairport.com/ , the following airlines were there:

Concourse C: American Eagle, TWA, ATA, Continental, Continental Express, America West, Comair, Delta

Concourse D: Midwest Express, Air Canada, United, United Express, Skyway, US Airways, US Airways Express

Concourse E: Sun Country, Northwest

tvnwz

Delta is now the second biggest airline at Mitchell. If they want to stay in E, my bet is nobody is going to argue with them. And they will want to stay.

E got a face lift about a year ago. The generic bar is now called Cooler Near The Lake and is a combined generic bar/restaurant. But, I never go to the airport to eat, I go to travel. E is the most travel friendly concourse at Mitchell.

Moving Delta and others to D will not solve the concession issue. As Knope points out most large sit-down concession like Nona's must rely on connecting traffic. There just won't be any except on the WN concourse. I have found most airports like MKE have the larger concessions outside security in the main lobby. Maybe that is what will happen here, move Nona's to the museum and catch everyone.

mke9499

Thanks for the walk down memory lane, lougord99. I remembered Sun Country, which actually had quite a few nonstop/direct flights out of MKE, but I did not recall on which concourse they were located.

I get a strange feeling every time I see their counter at MSP's Terminal 2 (Humphrey Terminal).

Maybe MKE should see if they are interested in returning; I believe they do okay out of MSP.