Pigeye01

Did I say "miserably?"

Republic 1 and NW were well entrenched in MKE prior to YX. If NW offered services described by Knope, why did they downsize MKE, rebuild and downsize again? They should have crushed YX. Why didn't DL crush FL?

I understand NW decided they could make more money elsewhere, but NW's network was well established and offered more to the consumer other than YX inflight service. Why did YX prevail in MKE during its early years despite fewer non-stops if NW offered what Knope described as the traits of more successful airlines?

I think there's two factors in buying tickets: price and service. Some people want cheap, some want service. While I understand service also means flight times, FF programs, I am referring to inflight.

Also, while Knope's example of fare comparisons is good, I think it's too simplistic. For example, I find that CO is consistently less expensive than DL both long and short term pricing, on the city pairs I fly. Sorry, I don't have time to do relevent research.

hazelrah

And Midwest has lost market share - 'Nuff said.

knope2001

No, neither of Northwest’s attempts in Milwaukee came close to matching what Midwest offered in nonstop destinations nor in frequent flights. The first attempt in the late 80’s came closest, and they filled planes fairly well in key markets. However Northwest hemorrhaged money in the early 90’s, and they retrenched back to their hubs of DTW/MSP/MEM, cutting their focus cities in Milwaukee and in Washington.

The second attempt in Milwaukee fell far short of matching Midwest’s frequency and nonstop destination advantage. When it first started out, NW had a single daily nonstop to DCA, BOS, and LGA versus 4-5 Midwest flights. Later they swapped in all CRJ’s on the business routes, but usually still just had half the frequency of Midwest, plus far fewer destinations.

Northwest had and has (DL now, of course) a huge base of flyers in the Milwaukee area. That was part of the reason they believed they could succeed here against Midwest. The problem was that these same frequent travelers who used Northwest for travel to secondary places like Richmond, Sioux Falls, and Little Rock were just as deep or deeper in the Midwest frequent flyer program, which met their travel needs with nonstop flights to most of the largest destinations.

knope2001

Both RC and NW had turned Milwaukee into nothing but a "spoke" to their hubs years before. In 1981, between the two of them, they peaked at more than 90 flights to 35 nonstop destinations.

By 1984 they were down to just the three hubs of DTW, MSP, and MEM, plus a single flight to DCA and a few to LGA.

By the time Northwest ramped up their operation in mid-1988, they had really lost any grip they once had on Milwaukee...still the largest carrier but seeing serious inroads from new airlines like American, USAir, TWA, Continental, and Midwest.

Northwest definitely put real pressure on Midwest with that hub. However there was not as much overlap. Northwest never flew to Atlanta nor Dallas...Midwest's strongest destinations at the time due in part to Kimberly Clark traffic...nor did NW fly to Denver or Kansas City. The other key thing which made NW pull back, as I mentioned in the other posting, was the recession of the early 90's brought Northwest and a number of other carriers to the brink of financial disaster. The decision to close Milwaukee came out of this crisis, along with their mini-hub at DCA.

Northwest did not come at Midwest in 1988 from a position of the entrenched dominant carrier.

That is definitely its own can of worms worthy of a different topic and discussion by others who know the situation better. However back when they were Valujet and were making a foothold in Atlanta, I definitely remember more than one industry observer surprised that Delta did not aggressively battle them, putting up almost no challenge compared to things AA, NW, CO and others did.

History doesn't support that people buy tickets on onboard service, however. At least not in the domestic US market. Nobody has ever found even close to enough passengers will to pay more for a better coach product to offset the price.

--Every other single premium service airline failed

--Every attempt to give customers a better seat for free in hopes of getting a better yield also failed

--Most onboard amenities have gone the way of the dinosaur on all domestic US flights...except for ones which the customer pays for.

Airline after airline has gone down since deregulation banking on the notion that people will pay more for a premium experience on domesitc coach. This tells us that a significant revenue premium does not correlate with the onboard product.

Midwest has maintained a significant revenue premium even as the premium service has been removed from some markets (like Saver, and mainline-toRJ conversion) and reduced in others. This tells us that a significant revenue premium does not correlate with the onboard product.

Both these things tell us, from slightly different perspectives, that a premium onboard product does not correlate with significantly better revenue.

Nobody...just about nobody...is willing to pay more for a premium coach experience. And that's why reductions in the onboard experience at Midwest over the years have not runied the revenue premium.

It was just an illustration to show how even when fares are exactly the same, one airline can have a significantly higher average fare based on buying patterns. Not sure what you're getting at with the CO versus DL fare comparison...obviously two airlines do not always have the same fares. However there's a widely-held absolutely incorrect belief that Midwest's fare premium comes from large numbers of people choosing to pay significantly more for a Midwest flight than what they would pay for comparable nonstop service on a competitor. It just isn't true.

knope2001

And they are gaining market share back. Would you like to continue with other assorted facts not related to the remarkable line of thinking I was addressing?

Straight talker

This forum is strictly a medium for Republic/Midwest management/bloggers to get their message out. All you need to do is point out a defiency of Republic and watch the spin. If you say anything negative you are identified as a bitter ex-employee. Some of my personal favorites.

Republic pilots and other employees are significantly less expierenced then those thery replaced at Midwest.
-I once saw a old pilot and some of the pilots were layed off from other airlines that fly for Republic.

Commuter pilots have had a significantly higher fatality rate than mainline pilots.
-The highest fatality crash ever was by mainline pilots. Midwest had a crash at it's beginning.

I could do better if I was a full time blogger or lived in my parents basement. Midwest was once a source of pride for Milwaukee, now it is an embarassment.

newsmanhoss

Interesting that you never posted until after you lost your job. Where were you when things were going well?

knope2001

I'm sure there are exceptions, but when the MKE ramp positions were changed to Skyway and lower pay rates, I don't recall outrage coming from pilots or inflight on how it was punishing the people who made this brand great and ruining the product. (Midwest's bag mishandle rates, by the way, month after month rate among top five of all airlines...certainly not because of this, but perhaps in spite of it.)

blucys

Well, the saying was "Best Care in the Air"...Which, I assume, will be the excuse for this.

It is unfortunate that the Midwest F/A and Pilot union leadership forced a furlough (did I read somewhere that some of the F/A's are back to work?) and are haggling over the contract, but truly many more people contributed to "Best Care in the Air" than just the F/As and Pilots...as I talked about in a previous post today, the ground crews at the various stations around the country are a big contributor to why people fly Midwest.

BlueHorseShoe2000

Is this simply your opinion or the union talking points?

You're obviously very bitter but your anger is mis-placed. It's one thing to take out your frustrations on the perceived failures of Hoeksema and Company or TPG. It's another matter entirely when you post deliberately false and/or mis-leading information about Republic or take snide swipes against other contributors just because they happen to disagree with you.

hazelrah

Knope your logic and facts are twisted to suit your premise that premium seating does not matter.

The fact is that many customers have walked from Midwest, they won't be back to pay Midwest's high fares, for care that is far from best, but rather pedestrian. As Midwest has shrunk the diehards are left to pay that RASM premium

A paltry two percent gain in market share in September is not significant, nor indicative of a trend. Just as your worship Brian Bedford said at the 3Q earnings , MIdwest's share of MKE flights has fallen from 60%to 33%. While BB would like to recapture this market it is doubtful particularly with premium prices for a non-premiuim product.

cwe84

Some furloughed F/A's saw the writing on the wall in the early stages of the "aquisition" and joined RAH early. They don't just work for Republic some went to Shuttle America and Chautauqua too.

knope2001

You simply don't like the conclusion. I've drawn ample evidence to support the hypothsis that premium seating is not correlated to higher average fare.

Can you refute that a significant fare premium remained in the Saver markets in the years since they changed from 2x2 to 2x3? Nope.

And since you can't refute it, then offer some plausible reason why it has remained. Please. Without another explaination, the only logical conclusion is that the premium service is not linked in a significant way to the fare premium.

Your use of market share to suggest otherwise willfully ignores the fact that market share in Milwaukee is overwhelmingly affected by Midwest's removal of the M80's last year for reasons other than declining demand. The market share stats are also affected by the decision of a major competitor to set up a connecting hub in Milwaukee and funnel large numbers of non-Milwaukee passengers through MKE.

Your premise is that it's the loss of premium serivce which has lead Midwest to lose market share in Milwaukee. I say that it is instead primarily the sharp reduction in capacity not related to reduced demand.

If people are running away from Midwest because of high fares and lousy service, as you claim, then why did they carry 20% more passengers in Milwaukee in October 2009 versus October 2008?

With the affect of the A319's starting to show in October, the comparisons will reflect even more favorably.

Well congratulations for being the first person to openly accuse me of licking Brian Bedford's boots. Hardly. Very nice of you to personalize this, though.


Note that I'm not saying Midwest's market share isn't down, I'm saying the reason isn't primarily the changes in service.

I'm not saying zero people have migrated their allegiance over to competitors. Of course not. And given the efforts of the competition coupled with last year's 40% capacity cut, it would be astonishing to think nobody had.

And I'm not saying that zero people ever paid a cent more to fly Midwest for their premium onboard product when a comparable flight (nonstop flight, similar time) on another carrier was cheaper. However this is and always was exceptionally rare, and is not resonsible for the revenue premium.

n735

It's the people at Midwest that focused on making the customer happy that made Midwest the "best care in the air".

TH wanted to build a airline that focused on the customer and he did it. BB focus is on CASM and he gutted the culture at Midwest. Big mistake. BB could have maintained the key employees to maintain the Midwest culture but he thought it was all about the "cookie".

BB sums up his thoughts about MKE customers...

The market share surrendered – mostly to AirTran – has seen a positive tick back as we’ve started to rebuild,” said Bedford, “and we see a share shift back largely splitting by seats in the market. More important for us, however, is the RASM which is a competitive advantage. According to the Department of Transportation second quarter 2009 survey data, on competitive overlapping markets, Midwest maintains a 156% RASM premium which is not surprising to anyone, except, maybe the AirTran guys. Milwaukee is not a destination market that you can stimulate by price. [/U][U]I don’t care how cheap you make it; you don’t go there unless you have to, so there is no reason price stimulation will be a competitive advantage. But what we do have is a 1.1 million – which, by the way, is the same as the population there – frequent fliers who are willing to pay us a premium to get on Midwest because they love that cookie.”

Where are Republic CSR, Pilots, and Flight Attendants getting retrained to the customer service standards that earned Midwest loyality and multiple awards?






answer: They aren't!