Yes but you are neglecting ILG's reach into the NE Baltimore Suburbs, Sussex County, SW Jersey and most importantly, SE Pa(Chester and Delaware Counties alone add another million).

Yes, that's why it's a bracketing of PHL, not just a No. Delaware focused approach. atleast for SW NJ and SE PA.

When I call Frontier, I still get the automated Trenton and Wilmington as new focus cities. They were marketed together.

I know Spirit does no advertising that way (TV broadcasting), and possibly Frontier is following similar approach.

It also doesn't always work also. I know it didn't work for Southwest when it locally advertised extensively the BOS services and many markets, but pax stuck with US Air.

Spirit though is somewhat of a known entity because of their years at ACY. They're known here and their reputation isn't a great one. F9 isn't known here besides a handful of billboards and ads on the side of a bus (and advertising on Dart isn't like advertising on other areas' public transit - it's a lightly used system). The brand is new. I think they need to find their way into the vernacular.

Frontier's product overall better than Spirit but if it strips out all the seating for 28" pitch seats, $15 seat selection and $30 carry on, I just won't see much worth the hassle unless US Air and Southwest nonstop flights out of PHL are so much over priced to Frontier, and wouldn't really have an expectation that Frontier advertise much. The same way I don't expect a flyer from Dollar Tree but would from the local Acme.

TTN/ILG seems less overall important network wise, when IAD joined the network and F9 started dedicating service there. I understood the opportunity at CLE, but less so at IAD especially when TTN and ILG especially would be downsized months later. I always though ILG could service the western side of the PHL market and the longer distance routes, but a lot of the more special routes were given such weak frequency at get-go and odd timings, or duplicative timings to the TTN service. It operated ILG-DTW the same days as TTN-DTW for example, and ILG-ATL and TTN-ATL are both AM flights this summer, and modified TTN-CLE's schedule so much in the year it has run.

However, I don't want to complain too much: most cities and the schedule with these routes out of TTN and ILG makes sense, and it's great Frontier is offering them.

The low frequencies for ATL and DTW hurt them considerably because they cant attract tourists as well as a big city like MDW can. So you have to increase frequencies to catch business travelers which is why they work at TTN. ILG's one plane is at capacity so they cant increase the frequencies.
Hopefully this spring will at least see the return of ATL with additional frequencies. I still think transcon service to LAX or SFO would work with the exit of Virgin from PHL but that would require serious reduction of service in the other routes or anorher plane.

I also think Vegas would work. It's similar to Florida in that the reduced frequency wouldn't hurt like it does with the business destinations.

It should be remembered that "Frontier" has dramatically changed in the last six months.

CEO Siegel had done small miracles in making the airline attractive for sale, but Indigo didn't buy Frontier for what it was - but for what it believed it could be.

Now Indigo is making its presence felt and part of that is to address Frontier's most enduring problem. Even in the glory days, no matter how much money Frontier made the rest of the year it found it almost impossible to make money in Q1 - deep winter.

Obviously, that has to change and I can't see what is happening on the east coast in isolation from what is happening in the west - at DEN, where some routes that have always been year round are now going seasonal.

As previously discussed, DEN-GEG, great for eight months of the year, is miserable in January/February and rather than fight that and lose money, Indigo's Frontier has embraced it by making the route seasonal. So just as we wouldn't expect Frontier to fly DEN-PSP (Palms Springs) in August (no one wants to go there then) we shouldn't expect it to fly DEN-GEG in deep winter (no one wants to go there then).

Things don't change. When Frontier flew DEN-PHL it was great in summer - 90% loads - but, again, miserable in winter deep winter. They were lucky to get 50%, and then only at junk fares. Obviously, they hoped things might be different with DEN-ILG and, as obviously, they weren't.

The Indigo rule appears to be both simple and obvious: fly where people want to go BUT only when they want to go there.

I though about that to, but would Frontier be willing to go up against Spirit at PHL and if so, then they should go into MYR also.

This is Indigo's first winter with Frontier, so I think all of us were taken by surprise by the suspensions from ILG, but this is more than an ILG problem, its across the entire network. This winter, marks a change in how Frontier does business. I've heard rumors that more seats are going to put in and the DirecTV is going to be taken out. This winter may mark the final stage in Frontiers transformation into an ULCC and it will be interesting to see how everything shakes out come spring.

1!, then
 

All true.

As seen by Siegel (pre-Indigo) part of Frontier's "winter problem" was that, DEN based, it did not participate in the lucrative north/south east coast winter traffic - the snowbirds and Florida, and much of what he did was to address that. Thus TTN and ILG-Florida.

There is, obviously, some skiing traffic at DEN, but it pales in comparison to Florida and even routes like DEN-LGA - gangbusters in summer - fell off a cliff in winter. So Frontier will make more money by shifting a pair of slots from DEN-LGA to CLE-LGA.

Pretty much everything that is happening is to boost that winter revenue, because if Indigo can achieve break-even or (best case) profit in Q1, then it is getting somewhere.

There is a bit more to it, and you (wittingly or not) put your finger on it. Frontier is to install the new slimline seats (Indigo's behest) and the process will start in January. Obviously, aircraft can't fly while the seats are being installed, so an already constrained fleet will become further constrained as aircraft are taken out of service - I've heard rumors of five aircraft at a time.

So yes - by the time we get to Spring, it will be Indigo's Frontier.

Any word on whether STRETCH will stay, especially beyond the exit row and bulkhead?

Sorry, I haven't heard.

I assume it will because it represents a revenue stream, but I don't know.

Are the Frontier slimline seats going to be like on par with Southwest's slimline or Spirit's slimline?

Regarding ATL:

I hope that it resumes and F9 is mindful not to schedule it the similar time as TTN-ATL as that creates some duplication.

For example: this summer TTN-ATL is a 5:55am flight, while ILG-ATL is 7:10am flight. Maybe it could schedule ILG-ATL as an evening run if TTN-ATL is for morning, but run another market in the morning to diversify it more, since many are equidistant from both TTN and ILG and F9 is then just offering the same thing otherwise.

I'm waiting to see Southwest's schedule coming out August 4, as it is the main competition in low fares especially to ATL. US and Delta will probably match Southwest but it's really Southwest that drives the fares I believe. It's frequency probably goes back up to 4x daily out of PHL, but maybe it doesn't. Spirit actually operates ACY-ATL longer than ACY-ORD, but no service for six months between November and mid April. Many in So. NJ are about 35 mins-1 hour from all four: TTN, ILG, ACY and PHL.

What are you talking about? AirTran is the only carrier in the WN family that flies non stop from ATL-PHL and under WN's ownership, AirTran fares to Philly have jacked up on that route. THe cheapest I can find on that route on Wednesdays in September is 137 one way. Frequently, the fares have been a ridiculous 160 or more on that route, thanks to WN's pricing. Even WN's one stop flights(which no self respecting ATL based frequent traveler will take when we are so used to non stops) are not priced any cheaper.

For the first time, I had to fly my mom on Frontier ATL-ILG (she goes first time this week) because AirTran was pricing the route ATL-PHL much more expensive.

I fly AirTran as I get free upgrades. But once AirTran is gone in November on that route, I was planning on taking Frontier. Too bad, it ends in the winter. And I sure hope seasonal doesn't mean an outside chance it is coming back as people stop getting used to it for a whole season. Whenever AirTran used to suspend flights to areas like Burlington for seasonal purposes, they never came back.