Republic moving jobs to MKE
 

Republic Airlines to move hundreds of jobs here
By Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Nov. 10, 2009 10:14 a.m.
The corporate parent of Midwest Airlines is expected to announce Tuesday plans to move hundreds of jobs to Milwaukee and Oak Creek.
Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings Inc. will consolidate operations at Mitchell International Airport and at Midwest's offices on S. Howell Ave. from other cities, most likely Las Cruces, N.M., and Denver.
Gov. Jim Doyle's office said Doyle will announce a consolidation plan to create and retain hundreds of local jobs. Details will come at noon at a meeting of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, at the Bradley Center.
A spokesman for the governor, and a Republic spokesman, declined to comment prior to the announcement.
Republic Chief Executive Officer Bryan Bedford told the Journal Sentinel on Sept. 3 that the company might shift 150 to 400 jobs from Denver and Las Cruces to the Milwaukee area. Those jobs would come from Denver-based Frontier Airlines, which Republic bought Oct. 1, after buying Midwest Airlines for $31 million on July 31.
The Frontier jobs that were in play included a customer service center in Las Cruces, with 150 employees; another 150 heavy maintenance jobs at Denver International Airport, and around 100 other Denver-based positions, Bedford told the Journal Sentinel.
The Milwaukee area was being considered in part because both the Midwest operations center, at 6744 S. Howell Ave. in Oak Creek, and the Midwest maintenance hangar near Mitchell International Airport have a lot of available space, Bedford said.
Midwest has around 800 employees in Milwaukee and Oak Creek.
That number dropped recently as Republic phased out Midwest's fleet of Boeing 717 jets, which were staffed with flight crews employed by Midwest before the company was sold to Republic. Those jets have been replaced with aircraft staffed by Republic flight crews.
The last Boeing 717 at Midwest was removed from the fleet last week. The Republic flight crews have less seniority, and earn lower salaries, than the veteran Midwest crews who lost their jobs.
The Midwest crews might eventually fly on Republic and Frontier aircraft, but that depends on efforts to combine the seniority lists of the unions that represent pilots and flight attendants from the three airlines.
Negotiations to merge the seniority lists have stalled, and the unions representing the Midwest flight crews have asked Bedford to get involved in the process. Bedford, however, has said that dispute should be resolved by the unions.

:DI saw the posting for full time and part time rez agents posted on the YX site yesterday and assumed that they were moving the F9 positions to MKE, since this position has not been open for awhile at YX.

The starting wage is $10 per hr.

http://money.aol.com/rtn/pr/republic...365?channel=pf

https://recruiter.kenexa.com/midwest...nd=CCSearchAll

http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/mil...ml?t=printable

Bedford to be named to MMAC Board today at the annual all-member meeting. How ironic that one of the corporate sponsors of the event is AirTran.

Promotion at the meeting: "Attendees will be eligible to win airline tickets to any destination served by AirTran Airways. A pair of business class tickets will be given away at each table!"

Maybe BB will win the tickets. :D

Nice to finally see a string of positive news for Midwest. This is great news for the local economy, and it's nice to see jobs outside jobs moving to Milwaukee for once.

It will also be good to see increased activity at the maintenance facility. I wonder when they'll finally remove the old "Midwest Express Airlines" signage. That sign has been outdated since 2003. Perhaps they'll add Frontier signage as well.

Good news indeed! Who would ever imagine that MKE could beat out IND or DEN for jobs? From what I read the incentive package the state offered Midwest 5 years ago to keep HQ's here played a big part of the decision making process for Republic. I wonder how many people from DEN will actually consider moving to MKE?

Along with these new destinations and non-stops, this will certainly help the public image of Midwest.

From the Business Journal

I don't quite recall the details, but wasn't the hangar bought from Midwest by the county to generate $$ for Midwest, and leased back to Midwest at a very good rate? The county appears to be leveraging that same asset in getting these hundreds of jobs.

Milwaukee County provided loan guarantees in connection with the hangar and is the backup guarantor of a loan held by US Bank.

An article on the radio today quoted a DEN spokesman who said that DEN put together a great package, but could not compete with the free hangar space.

Back in October, Denver said they didn't really have the ability to compete strongly for these jobs.

http://www.denverpost.com/frontierairlines/ci_13510095

Denver is reported to come up with $16.5M over ten years, versus $27m here over 11 years.

http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver...9/daily22.html

Agreed, as long as YX hires local Milwaukee residents. I also wonder how this will affect Fontier's public image in Denver... It's all one big company now!

I'd say! The new signage posted on a.net makes it look like one company.

http://www.airliners.net/uf/view.fil...phptCbcSJ.jpeg

What location was this picture taken at? Milwaukee? Denver? Has anyone heard that a new signage campaign is going to be undertaken like what Delta is doing with all the NWA signage?

Sure looks like photoshop to me. There aren't any color / light variations on the Midwest letters like on the Frontier letters.