Thanks for all of your provocative contributions on this board over the years, hazelnut. See you around in the other forms ;)

Hoss that was not nice. So how long will this thread be kept open? When will it be merged with Frontiers?

I hope so or a frontier animal eating a cookie

This is a good move (the only move) for republic. I was not surprised at all. Maybe we will see MKE-SNA, MKE-ANC or MKE-MSY. Airtran needs to start MKE_MIA next fall. It would also be nice for Airtran to keep SAN year round. I would like to see WN start MKE-OAK. As I may be moving to the Bay area soon the BART fair from SFO to east bay is expensive.

Here are my observations from the event
 

There have been a lot of great comments and analysis on this board already, but I will share a few additional tidbits. Many here saw the actual presentation, so I won't focus much on that. Instead, here are some things that may not have been noticeable from the webcast.

• Everyone was kept in a tent outside of the hangar until just before 11 when they lead people through a series of temporary "hallways" consisting of black drapery.
  
  
• It was a rather elaborate stage setup with two large screens. The logistics were well done and professional. Orchestrated much better than the seat sale earlier this year.
  
  
• Several hundred people in attendance, including employees, business leaders, media, and other invited guests. Big-name politicians were invited, but not one of them showed up to my knowledge. It was probably because they didn't have speaking roles.
  
  
• BB had a "clicker" in his hand that would be used to advance the slides. However, when the slide show went slightly awry, he admitted that he wasn't actually advancing them. So, what exactly was the point of that clicker? Was it a facade?
  
  
• Other than that faux paus, BB came across as very professional and clean as a tack. It was a different feeling than the more folksy (but still professional) manner that TH had.
  
  
• Unless I missed it, I didn't hear any details about the Live TV. I think that is a key asset from Frontier that they should keep, plus it's a revenue generator and perk for the elite flyers.
  
  
• I was really hoping they would have an actual aircraft as part of this presentation, but they opted against it. It would have been great theater to reveal the brand by opening the hangar doors or uncovering an actual jet with the branding on it.
  
  
• They served cheese, fruit and (cold) cookies after the event. Minor point, but the old Midwest always had warm cookies to reinforce the brand at events like this. Today, they handed out stuffed animals (dolphins and raccoons) to people on their way out. It's my understanding they had media kits on USB drives also.
  
  
• The BCC in DEN is a great move, and expanding the cookies to all flights will help give them a little differentiation, along with the TVs if they ultimately keep them.
  
  
• I hope they keep John Mahoney as the voice on the commercials, along with the voices of the Frontier animals. They are keeping "The Best Care in the Air" for at least some of their branding efforts. A Whole New Animal also appears to be sticking around. They might want to settle on one eventually, just to hammer it home in the minds of the flying public.
  
  
• As noted above, no announcement on a FF agreement. That is going to be a key issue for many flyers. The fact that the AirTran FF partnership is still around I find particularly intriguing. Will it still be in place after the integration? Perhaps they'll just keep it in place until something better comes along. For all we know, there might not be that many people who take advantage of it, so would be no urgency to eliminate it just yet.

So, in the end, our predictions were spot on. Although I agree that some additional details would have generated some more excitement today about the brand, Knope made some great points above. They can get some positive PR hits if they announce their enhancements one at a time every few weeks or so. That could be a good strategy for them.

Overall, I'm glad I was there, but I was hoping for a little bit more drama...at least some over-produced splashy video announcing the new brand would have created some good theater. When the Frontier name was announced, you could hear a pin drop. It's almost like people didn't know it was coming right at that moment. It was all very low-key, but professionally done, so that's all good. I'll stop rambling now...

I gave my pictures to BlueHorseShoe, so he will be making those available to all of you later. Thanks for reading.

The clicker turned on a light to notify the person to flip the slide. Had something to do with some sort of interference that may trigger the slides to progress on their own if the clicker was ir or radio. They said they encountered the problem before with wireless microphones interfering with a presentation clicker.

I just thought of something... I will need to change my FT nick now! It's a product of the AirTran hostile takeover attempt years back. :eek:

The YX code will likely remain, as used for Republic. And it appears that the Frontier E170/E190's will be Republic. So...your tag will mean Fly Frontier's E170's and E190's if you want to keep it!

My Take
 

Here are some of the highlights from the brand announcement today. I’ll add a few comments about the presentation since most already saw it and newsmanhoss already made all of the important points.

I arrived at the hangar about 10:30 am. Midwest had a tent set-up outside for guests until they were allowed inside the hangar for Bedford’s presentation. Coffee, bottled water, and cookies were available. By this time, the rumor mill was in full swing.

After mingling with some of the guests, everyone seemed to have a “good source” that knew what was about to come. One individual told me that the Midwest name was being kept but animals would be placed on the tails. There was also talk about Frontier serving as the mainline carrier while Midwest Express would serve as the brand for all regional jet flying (a la Alaska/Horizon). Someone even mentioned that a union representative had informed him that a Frontier jet flew into MKE during the middle of the night and was sitting inside the hangar waiting to be used as a prop during the roll-out. Oh how wrong and disappointed some must have felt!
Employees gathered at the hangar for the official unveiling at 10:45 am. As they left, community leaders, media, and other invited guests were allowed inside.

The presentation

At about 11:15 am, Jim Reichart took the podium, welcomed everyone to the brand unveiling, and then turned things over to Bedford.

I thought Bedford’s presentation started out strong but he seemed to get tripped-up when the PowerPoint slides weren’t synched up with what he was saying. This was around the time when Bedford announced that a Best Care Club would be opened in Milwaukee (he meant to say Denver but seem flustered by what was happening with the PowerPoint slides). Even though he appeared to have a “clicker” in his hands, there was a bit of back-and-forth as to what slide should be displayed.

Bedford seemed to be getting into some specifics about what the merged brands would look like when all of this unfolded and then seemed to quickly move on once the slide he wanted was found. Perhaps this is why no mention was made of WiFi, in-flight entertainment, LiveTV, etc.
When the Frontier name was actually announced, there was a brief moment of dead silence followed by some polite applause. Newsmanhoss was right when he said you could have heard a pin drop.

I was confused on what slogan will be used going forward. Will it be a "Whole Different Animal" or "The Best Care in the Air." It wasn't really clear.

Despite the issues with the slides advancing too fast, I thought Bedford’s delivery was strong and professional. However, the big unveiling was light on specifics and I honestly expected some more detail.

I also found it somewhat strange that there was no actual aircraft available to serve as a back-drop for the presentation. While having the aircraft in MKE may have blown Republic’s surprise, it would have been a great back drop for the media. Plus, Bedford could have given the media a tour of the plane, making a point to highlight the availability of LiveTV and cookies for every passenger. This would have generated some positive PR as well.

Afterwards

Once Bedford finished, he made himself available for the news media.

Newsmanhoss and I spent some time talking with Mostly Air, Steve Mathwig (Now heading up the combined Frequent Flier Program), Jim Reichart, and several other individuals at Midwest who are all familiar with FlyerTalk!

I had some general discussions with several of these individuals regarding a possible replacement for Delta. Work is actively being done on this front and a partnership/membership with a certain alliance is hoped for. Nothing is finalized yet and I won’t say anything more about it at this time.

When leaving the hangar, I grabbed a couple of cookies. Even though not warm, they were actually pretty good (much better than an experience I had on a MCI-MKE flight a few years ago…those cold cookies were truly awful).
After leaving the hangar, I turned Jeff Wagner’s radio program on to gauge how well the announcement was going over. He kept flapping his gums about how it didn’t have to come to this and he’s certain that people would have paid a little bit more (maybe $30-$40) for the extras Midwest once offered (as if that even came close to covering the costs). Of course, he also stated that Midwest would have had to cut back a lot of its flights and destinations to be able to do this. The calls are always interesting because they can be such a mixed bag of opinions. One man was complaining about how he couldn’t fit into the Saver Seat and Midwest wanted to charge him extra for the up-grade (contradicting his claim that he would pay extra for the bigger seats). What nerve! It’s not as if Midwest is responsible for the man’s size. Surprisingly, the most reasonable caller was an airline pilot who clearly articulated why Midwest fell on such hard times in the first place.

Here are some pictures that ‘Hoss and I took today:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39531954@N05/

Those are some pretty good updates Blue and Hoss. I'd like to add to the pin drop moment.

At the time I was hiding behind a curtain working with some other people on the communication part of the event. ie all the emails and frontiermidwest.com. Then I heard Bryan say the new brand name in a non-shaulent way, probably catching most people off guard and then the claps came, it was somewhat the same for the employee get together before. After the presentation when most people were gone and Bryan was done with the media he even mentioned the moment to us saying that he was thinking, "come on people give me some help here." Seemed that Bryan was a little bit nervous of the moment too. :D

A couple of more things I forgot ton add above.

I asked Reichart how the employee reaction to the name change had been at the event held right before the public unveiling. Overall, the response had been positive but he thinks it will take a bit to get everyone fully onboard with the change.

Also, Bedford said that loads for April in MKE are running about 85% so far. Obviously that includes Easter, but it's good to see Frontier filling so many seats in a very competitive environment.

cAAn you AAt leAAst give us ONEwor(l)d of AA hint? mAAbye?

Edit:
Forgot to put this. The article on jsonline.com has some interesting comments. Its about a 3 way tie. Some are happy to see it go. Some are ticked because they're losing the cookie (seriously, get over the bloody cookie!). And some could care less and will fly the cheapest carrier.
Take that back, there's a 4th one that is a group of people that are completely uninformed.

Do I think that its better that Republic bought Midwest? Yes. AirTran had some benefits, but the big benefit (that wasn't known at the time) is that we have now a western hub to go thru. AirTran would've either had to bulk up MCI or you'd be going thru ATL.

I'd still have rather seen an updated Frontier livery. Its decent, but kinda boring. They do have a lil lil duckie on the tai.

Thanks Hoss and Blue for your thoughts on the morning, as well as the photos.
The personal comments complement the media coverage.

Blue, thanks for including the photos from the Do last year. They really add a bit more nostalgia to the day. Maybe there will be a sale of all of the remaining Midwest-branded materials, once the brand-change is completed.

What kind of response did you observe from employees at your session?

I get the impression that a little extra time to organize the event might have been appreciated, but, once the date was announced, there was no going back. Perhaps this is one reason why the information was so limited. I also believe that trickling out the information over a period of time will keep the PR flowing and provide the most bang for the buck.

Thanks again guys for your reports.

Great update Blue and Hoss. Thanks for taking the time, and for the pics.

What does the future hold for MCI? We seem to have heard little if anything about MCI.

According to an interview with Bedford in the Denver Business Journal, some more announcements will be made within the next 7-10 days regarding some projects put on hold due to branding work including wifi.