ILG Based Plane After DTW is Discontinued?
 

With DTW service ending next week from ILG, I'm wondering what's going on with the aircraft on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday after it comes in from MDW at 5 pm? Is it just idle until the next morning's MCO flight? And if that's the case wondering the logic of discontinuing DTW ahead of the other routes which end a month later?

I think that if Frontier had launched a replacement route, it would be short-lived (September and October months only) as it probably had in mind at some point to discontinue the ILG based plane setup temporarily or permanently later in October.

If ILG had kept the plane, I'd think RDU would make some sense. I know a few in South Jersey, Philly that looked at the TTN-RDU flight but were uninterested in the 6:25am departure.

However, those flights are doing very well.

Some of those very early morning flights out of TTN, I believe it's RDU and ATL currently are flown more than 4x weekly, might be filled with Central NJ locals (including business pax) that might be flying out for work and avoiding the hassle of going up to EWR atleast first thing in the morning.

The ILG-ATL flights are still very cheap, and much cheaper than IAD-ATL and TTN-ATL. Is there any word if these will return next Spring? With Frontier opening in PHX on routes like PHX-IAH and PHX-SLC and willing to compete head on with US and Southwest, I think it's fearless now. It might just throw a frequency on ATL-BWI and ATL-PHL and get better yields with more sales going out fast and then higher fares, even though it doesn't generally service those airports. I could see Spirit considering atleast ATL-BWI as well too.

Agree. I'm just surprised that it makes more sense for F9 to have the plane sit idle for those hours for the 30 days or so until the ILG routes are discontinued rather than to continue the DTW service until then.

Probably one or both of two reasons:
a. The flight wasn't making money.

b. Possibly diluting TTN-DTW sales/yields for the many that live in between both TTN and ILG. ILG-DTW operated in the afternoon similar to TTN-DTW and it was flown on days also when TTN-DTW was flown -kinda dumb but that's how Frontier scheduled it, although TTN-DTW was flown on more days. For DTW, the schedule and overlaps to TTN probably has more effect than routes for MCO or TPA as DTW was probably more VFR bound and not leisure bound.

The ILG plane was being used to do MDT-MCO for a while over the summer, I think.

I think it still operates MDT-MCO on the days that ILG-ATL and ILG-MDW are not flown.

It appears that beginning on Sunday October 5, Frontier is running ILG-ATL, ILG-MDW, ILG-MCO in that order, all on the Sunday (and running it Sun, Tuesday, Thursday) and then on Monday and other days, it's ILG-MCO-MDT-MCO-ILG or something of that nature.

The outbound ILG-ATL flights aren't doing so hot, like Sunday's flight is still $56 one-way and $52 return for Tuesday. The return flight on Sunday is actually selling higher.

I think the early morning nature of the 7am flight but being catered for leisure traffic (with it not being daily) means someone from Cherry Hill has to wake up at 4am, leave house at 5am to be at ILG at 6am.

Spirit's ACY-ATL flight runs daily until November 1 (resumes in March) and that flight is running in the afternoon. For Sunday's flight, it's fared at $92.

Atleast for ATL flights, it's difficult comparing Frontier's fares to Southwest, US and Delta at PHL since those carriers all run hubs and price very differently, not necessarily intended to fill the planes and on local O/D.

Frontier's TTN-ATL is also close to daily but operates in the morning and it looks like Frontier is getting better fares, over the other two: ILG-ATL, ACY-ATL (from Spirit).

I wouldn't be surprised if TTN-ATL gets some Central NJ commuter traffic especially for those that might be using EWR otherwise but avoiding the early morning hassle.