I can't speak for your Delaware friend but as a resident of New Castle County I can tell you that my colleagues and friends are very aware of Frontier's service out of New Castle County Airport. It's also been prominently featured in our (only) newspaper. The situation here is unique - we've been without service for a long time, ever since DL bailed, and Frontier's arrival is more than just another airline entering a market. Even my friends in Kent County are well aware of the service. I don't think the issue is lack of awareness of the ILG service, it's more an issue of the limited schedule.

Actually, F9 will start ILG-ATL/DTW.

http://news.flyfrontier.com/press-re...n-wilmington-0

This routes will becomes effective April 29, 2014.

Now, for the first time that I have seen, we have a number for ILG, although very generalised:

http://www.philly.com/philly/busines...80f038ecb.html

""The Houston market was a disappointment ... All the other markets are doing well," said Siegel, adding that Frontier is operating at about 90 percent capacity in Wilmington.

New Castle Airport director Stephen Williams said the facility has processed more than 70,000 passengers since Frontier began operating in July, roughly equally split between departures and arrivals."

Again, this says nothing about yield.

Here are the potential yields based on average fare and distance for each destination in Q2/2013. The actual RASM and CASM likely differ, but this is a starting point. These numbers were obtained from the DOT Domestic Airline Airfare report.

TTN-RDU = $0.23/mile
TTN-DTW = $0.20/mile
TTN-CMH = $0.19/mile
TTN-ORD = $0.15/mile
TTN-ATL = $0.14/mile
TTN-MCO = $0.13/mile
TTN-RSW = $0.12/mile
TTN-FLL = $0.11/mile
TTN-TPA = $0.11/mile
TTN-MSY = $0.10/mile...not shocked that this was the first route cut.

Given these numbers...the Florida service to FLL and TPA is likely hanging on by a thread. The addition of CVG to TTN is also not surprising seeing the strength of the shorter-haul routes.

Where are you seeing these numbers? The airfare report on the DOT website is only including MDW, FLL, and TPA from TTN.

I downloaded Table 6, and then in column C I selected TTN from the dropdown selection menu. ^

http://www.dot.gov/office-policy/avi...d-quarter-2013

The TTN route was the lowest yielding route of all the non-stop destinations out of MSY. The DL route to MEM had a yield of $0.93/mile, and was our highest yielding non-stop destination. It's obvious why we're keeping 2 flights per day even after the dehubbing there.

Thank you!

Using those airfare numbers above as well as the number of flights that quarter*, I estimate the following:

It's funny, DTW, CMH, and RDU have the lightest loads yet the 5 new cities added this year are all similar in nature. RASM for Detroit seem to be very high, so it has that going for it. Hopefully the 3rd quarter numbers will show some nice growth, as this was either the launch quarter or 2 months after the launch date for every route except MCO.

Edited to add: CASM in Q2 was 11.45 cents. While it is impossible to know how that translates to these routes (the average TTN stage length is 200 miles less than Frontier's systemwide average, but costs may be lower as these are not int'l flights and TTN is cheaper to fly into than DEN), 2 of the 10 were profitable in this regard, and another 2 were within about 3%. Not bad for so soon after launch. As mentioned, 3rd quarter will really shine a light on route finances.

*weekly flights x 13 for Florida & MSY, weekly flights x 12 for other cities that launched 2nd week of April. I assumed 4x weekly for MCO, launch number of weekly flights for all other cities.

I would think some routes will work in the long term - especially those in Florida and (to my surprise) RDU, while I think Columbus will soon go away, probably before Cincinnati service starts.

However, if you are getting 80%+ load factors, even with reduced fares, they should make some money. Don't forget all the luggages fees you have to throw in to the mix.

Besides, where else would Frontier get such a long term deal on landing fees?

I would think that RDU's profitability has improved since it went from 6 flights/week down to five, and MDW from six to four (although I understand booking for MDW post-reopening has been weak).

I think ILG might suffer this issue a little more than TTN. Atleast F9 has been advertising TTN more I think, and it has more routes, better frequency to markets like MDW, and it also has the Central/Northern NJ catchment. So there'll be more word of mouth.

Not that it's very significant but travelocity also associates TTN with Philadelphia. There is no ILG association to Philly on travelocity as well. travelocity sells Frontier flights.

The loads might be good at ILG, but the yields are probably terrible. There needs to be more mass awareness/interest to ramp up demand, while supply remains and F9 can charge more if it needs to make the flights more profitable. ILG-IAH was a disaster.

Remembering that the non-Florida flights didn't start until April 8, and there were introductory fares for all of them.

I think CMH is one of the most interesting because it took a long time to fill the planes and they dropped the intro fares to $15 each way for a while, but eventually it did well. It's tough to imagine that will be true in January/February, but it reverts to 3 x in the spring.

RDU has been a surprise to me as well, and it is going back to 6 x in the spring.

I'm hoping they'll give MSY another shot at it next year. The loads were very healthy, but they need to raise the fares a bit. I don't think a $10 increase in fares would scare off too many customers. A fare of $120 would put the yields closer to that of TPA.

What I don't understand is why Frontier doesn't pick, say, 2 destinations from ILG and fly it daily (OK, if they want to do 5x or 6x that might work).

It's just not practical to fly 3x a week. You're going to get horrific yields, because you're basically offering nothing except price at that point. People who would be inclined to be their customers go elsewhere because, for example, you can get them out on Friday.

Given how high fares are at PHL right now, Frontier would have a shot if they offered plausible service from ILG to a city that people want to travel to. I mean, look at what Spirit is doing: their service is horrible, but they get people on price (and then charge them for lots of incidentals).

If Frontier offered a reservation and in-flight service A LITTLE BETTER than Spirit, with reasonable frequencies, they might be able to build a business out of ILG. And one advantage of ILG is that US might leave them alone. For instance, in response to Spirit's PHL-DFW service, US is charging as little as $44 each way on that route. There's no way Spirit can make money if US is willing to do that.

Allegiant uses a similar model and is extremely profitable. The financial turnaround at Frontier since this model was instituted is one of the major reasons it was attractive to the new owner.

Whether Indigo will continue with this model is beyond my ken, but I find it difficult to believe that Indigo was unaware of the announcements at ILG and TTN and presumably gave them the nod, as CEO Siegel indicated.