mke9499

Newly-posted advisory, due to some delays at security, during peak travel periods:

http://www.midwestairlines.com/Trave...ports/MKE.aspx

I have found that the back-up is usually cleared by 8:00 AM., once the early morning bank of flights depart.

Any thoughts on your experiences?

newsmanhoss

Midwest has always been particularly heave on the morning bank of flights.

My guess is that, with all the low fares and competition, and combined with the economic slowdown, there might be a higher percentage of leisure passengers than there used to be. Of course, leisure passengers take a lot long to go through security. They typically have children, stollers, etc., and many of these individuals do not fly nearly as often as biz travelers. This is just a guess of course.

I looked at the link you provided, and there are a few things that jump out at me. Midwest says there are "more people than ever" using the D concourse because of YX/F9's expanded service. I'm notr sure if that's true. I would think that the traffic is comparable to the height of the old Midwest when the MD-80s were in use. Perhaps someone has those numbers handy. I also think the biggest reason the D concourse checkpoint is backing up is due to the arrival of Southwest.

The linked page also mentioned Milwaukee as a "vacation destination". Interesting...I thought people only go to Milwaukee if they "have to."

MKE 1K

I had to laugh at your final point - that was a great one. Maybe the people at YX did not see Bedfords comments or chose to ignore them.

MostlyAir

OLD copy, from back when Milwaukee use to be a hot spot for tourist activity.

lougord99

In an earlier thread on this topic, MMiles, a Midwest employee claimed that waits are rarely more than 15-18 minutes.

I have twice experienced waits significantly longer than 18 minutes. Both of these were during that first bank of morning flights.

knope2001

The worst of the backup seems to be in the 6:15-7:00 range, primarily since most of the early bank has been moved up to depart in the 7:00 - 7:40 range instead of 7:25 - 8:10 range.

I never use the MME line unless I absolutely need it, partly because I want to know how long the lines take. The very worst I’ve had in the morning rush is 35 minutes from the time I stood at the end of the long snaking line to the time I was completely clear and re-assembled on the other side of security. More commonly, the long lines in the morning take me 15-25 minutes, which sometimes seems forever, but isn’t horrible. I don’t usually use the ticket counter since I normally just carry on, but that can definitely add time.

It seems frequently (always?) that even during the busiest rush, that D doesn’t ever have every single one of the positions open. Usually most are open during the crunch, but opening those last couple would help. I suppose there are times when the equipment is out of service.

This advisory is probably as much about reducing passenger-caused flight delays as it is about people missing flights. In the past year or two – and this is at leave my own perception – YX focuses more on boarding and pushing early/on time than they did in the old days. Certainly there are exceptions, and obviously irregular ops are a different matter. But often, often in the past it seemed routine to start pre-boarding around 15 minutes before scheduled departure on mainline flights when there was no apparent reason for the sluggishness. And Skyway, if you started boarding anywhere from 10 minutes before scheduled departure to 10 minutes after scheduled departure, nobody batted an eye most of the time. (I believe that everything over 5 minutes late was tracked and written up, but it didn’t really change the culture of many gate and crew people.) These days, it’s not uncommon to see even the RJ’s with everybody onboard 15 minutes before scheduled time and pushing early.

So I think this advisory is really about three things:

--Security might take longer than you were used to in Milwaukee
--Flights board and push earlier than you were used to from Midwest
--Midwest is trying harder to avoid late-passenger-caused delays

knope2001

I would agree with this statement as most of the time accurate, even in the morning bank. Even some pretty scary looking lines will usually get you through in 15-25 minutes.

Also, there might be some disconnect in what "wait times" mean. It starts with when you first stand in line, but does that "end" when your ID is checked? When you walk through the metal detector? When you have reassembled yourself and are walking away? Depending on where you measure can easily add or reduce 5+ minutes in some circumstances. The inclination is to think total time start to finish, but that could be a couple of minutes even if you're the only passenger, especially if you're a slowpoke.

If 15-18 minutes is the normal maximum time to wait until you can start the normal security process then I'd say that is nearly always accurate, even at peak times.

MostlyAir

One Friday when I was going to head to Denver in the morning they had all the lines open. There were a lot of people trying to flow through security so it still took awhile, mostly because of the leisure travelers trying to get to their vacations.

lougord99

If the TSA is measuring anything other than from the time you enter the line until the time your bags are through x-ray, then they are 'cheating' in their measurements.

RSVP

I have noticed that beginning in February, some of the 7:00 AM flights will be departing at 9:00 AM. (West Coast)