mke9499

Taking the prompt from MostlyAir for some board activity...

Which YX amenities do you miss the most (excluding the obvious, such as full meal service on china, champagne, etc.)?

Eaton

Signature seating

newsmanhoss

+1, although I realize that was an unsustainable model.

flyYX

Hard to say but I believe Midwest's downfall was the replacement of the DC9 fleet with the 717 fleet. I know, the DC9's had to be replaced sooner or later, but they were probably cheap to lease or were paid for. So, I miss the DC9's...

BlueHorseShoe2000

In no particular order:

1) Free coffee and newspapers at the gates.
2) Alterra coffee served on-board.
3) Signature seating and extra leg-room on the DC9s (legroom was reduced on the 717s).
4) Racine kringle on the morning FRJ 328 flights.
5) Loss of Best Care Cuisine
6) Catering food at the gate during extended flight delays (Legal Seafood was provided several times in BOS during extended delays).
7) Free wine (although I've heard that the quality had gone down in later years).

RSVP

Signature Seating, although the 2X1 cabin on the E190 is great.

Now if only the 319 had a 2X2 seating................................

Mostly Air, I hope your taking notes.

blucys

With the changes to the executive program you do get free wine if you are an executive...not sure about aspire.

-----------------------------------------------
Mine are the following:
1. I havent received any of these yet...from talking to other frequent flyers free signature upgrades were often sent in the mail, which makes me think that they are not doing this anymore.
2. Free check baggage, but this is an industry wide thing...Its a shame that the industry has hidden the true cost of a flight with low airfares and then sticking everyone with extras once they get to the airport.

I'll and think of more, but that is what I have now.

MELA

Signature seating.... even if I had to pay extra it was well worth it!

RSVP

As we know well Hoss, EVERY AirTran aircraft has 12 Business Class seats available. As good as, if not better than the old Signature Seats.

knope2001

By early February, Signature seats (for an upgrade fee) will be available on seven additional Midwest city pairs, bringing the total to 11. And there's more to come, so I hear.

newsmanhoss

Agreed. Biz Class is a great value on AirTran. That's why I have switched almost all of my flying to FL this year. In addition to that, AirTran's team does a great job at every point of contact. Customer service, gate agents and in-flight crews have all been outstanding from my point of view.

This is just anecdotal, but it also seems like my AirTran flights are on-time (even early) a lot more often than the Midwest flights I have taken in the past. Again, I have no data to back this up other than my own experiences, but it seems like being on-time is a much bigger deal for AirTran.

knope2001

Not anymore. By early February, 1/3 of flights sold as "AirTran" out of MKE will be on the 50-seat CRJ with no business class seats. From the passenger's perspective, this is pretty much like every other run-of-the-mill code share RJ operation. That in spite of AirTran's PR trying to spin it the other direction.

At least until more E190's come, fewer Midwest flights have premium seating than AirTran at MKE. And everybody (except Southwest) at Milwaukee uses at least some smaller aircraft with all-coach seating like the CRJ. So the RJ service itself isn't that big a deal. What does makes the black mark here (in my mind) is that AirTran has relentlessly pounded away at Midwest's reputation with claims that they are just a bunch of sub-standard regional jets sold as Midwest. That, in contrast to all-mainline AirTran, with business class and wi-fi and every flight. But now that they have a code-share CRJ regional partner who will be a major presence at their MKE hub, it's somehow different because the planes are painted in Skywest colors instead of AirTran. They still advertise that they have wi-fi on every flight.

If there was some advantage or cache for AirTran in Milwaukee derrived from having no RJ's, that's gone. Not sure if that's significant or not.

The move to bring RJ's to Milwaukee, and the financial risk sharing deal they inked with Skywest, might prove to be a fantastic turn. And as I mentioned above, having a mix of mainline and RJ aircraft only puts them (roughly) on par with...not worse than...much of their competition in Milwaukee. But it's the spin and PR, the truth-with-an-asterisk, the double standard double talk which doesn't exactly create a good impression.

hazelrah

As opposed to Midwest apologist's who always try to spin things in Midwest' direction?

You got that much right, and yet you can't resist trying to spin it as if it is a big deal. The fact is is that Air Tran is in it for the long haul in MKE. If it takes partnerships with Skywest for Air Tran to compete , in some instances, against Republic/Frontier/Midwest, so be it.

Republic/Midwest/Forntier needs to offer free upgrades for its executive members to the new premium seating. Maybe then it will be on a par with Air Tran.

RSVP

I was waiting to hear that from someone, I said, AirTran aircraft, not Skywest. Anyone that knows anything about the airline knows if they are getting on a 717/737 or CRJ.

knope2001

Two major differences here.

First, the only so-called "apologists" (in your book) sticking up for Midwest are people like me on message boards. I'm not a paid PR person feeding the media. The AirTran stuff I find objectionable comes directly from the company. If I, as a private person on a message board, choose to post even the most inflammatory rhetoric in support of Midwest, they are not responsible for my words and it does not reflect on Midwest. The highly debatable spin and truth-with-an-asterisk statements which I take issue with, are coming directly from the company. And they as a company bear full responsibility for what they choose to say.

The other major difference is that because the output of the AirTran PR machine lives in the media forum, it's impossible for so-called "apologists" like me to battle. I stand behind what I post in these forums, and people have the opportunity to call me out on things if they disagree. What AirTran pumps into the media takes on a life of its own through the news cycle, and goes unchallenged.

To equate what "apologists" post on message boards to what AirTran officially feeds to the media is a heck of a stretch.

I went to significant lengths in my post to point out that the CRJ's themselves are not what I'm taking issue with here, and that this move may ultimately be a fantastic one for them. But thanks for putting the opposite words in my mouth so you could then refute them.

I support this fully, and this is one of those differences between Midwest and Frontier which I hope will go Frontier's direction. I believe that the complementary elite upgrades should be at check in so there is an opportunity to sell anyone a signature seat before they start giving them away. But if Signature isn't full, it should be. The problem with the 40-seat Signature cabin on the 717 was that it was too large at 40 seats. This did a few bad things:

(1) Because it virtually never filled up with paid upgrades, if upgrades were free then there would be no incentive to ever pay for an upgrade. With a smaller premium section and a comparably cheap upgrade, the Signature section on the E190 sometimes sells out with paid upgrades, giving people the incentive to pay for it if you really want it.

(2) Only 45 of 99 seats were available for seat selection (regular travelers could not choose in the 40 Signature seats, the 10 exit row seats, and the four seats on the 2-side right behind exit row which were reserved for MME flyers.) What this did was make it hard for people to sit together, it sometimes caused frustrating problems with web check-in, it lead to too many people getting upgraded for free, and it lead to potential chaos and delays at the gate when the agents had sometimes dozens of people to seat and hand out boarding passes shortly before departure time. That was especially true on a quick turn when the inbound was delayed.

I don't know that the 11-seat Signature section isn't too small, but it cuts down on the counterproductive and problematic problems with the 40-seat Signature cabin.