ExitRowAisle

According to my Midwest Miles Monthly, the KLM affiliation ends on June 6, 2010. The announcement was tied to the end of the Delta relationship.

The one-sentence blurb is silent on whether you can book a KLM award for travel beyond June 6. Perhaps a YX insider can provide us additional details.

newsmanhoss

Wow. If that indeed happens, that will leave no air partners left for YX/F9.

I'm sure they are working hard in establishing a new partnership. Hopefully they can announce something soon.

mke9499

From the newsletter:

"Delta and KLM Flyer Affiliation Ending. Midwest Airlines' codeshare and frequent flyer partnership with Delta will end June 7, which means June 6 is the last day you can earn Midwest Miles or book award travel on Delta or KLM."

Another change adds Alamo as a FF partner.

Regarding the consolidation of the two FF programs:

"One Airline=One Frequent Flyer Newsletter. By September, you'll be receiving a combined Midwest/Frontier frequent flyer newsletter bearing our new brand name, EarlyReturns."

Hopefully, there will be no other FF partners dropped.

newsmanhoss

Now we know what the new FF program will be called.

mke9499

I think I am seeing a trend, here.

MikeFromMKE

Does that mean we can consolidate to the F9 forum now?

RSVP

PM the Talkboard members, they need to know we are ready to consolidate.

knope2001

It sounds like the consolidation plan on the FF side is just to merge the YX base into the F9 base. With the programs pretty much aligned, that's probably the easiest way, and the least distruption to the F9 cadre.

The consolidation into the F9 program, however, means that most likely all Midwest's partnerships come up for renegotiation or renewal to move them into Early Returns. Under normal circumstances partners occasionally come and go on a staggered basis. Maybe (for example) the KLM partnership was not likely to be renewed when the current term expired in (and I'm guessing here just for illustration) October 2011. But with the YX program going away, so do their partnerships unless they move over to the F9 program.

Midwest has long had a comparably robust FF program for a non-legacy carrier. Hopefully most of their existing non-airline partners will find their way to the F9 program, as well as a new airline partner of course.

Existing partnerships

Rental Car partners
Midwest: Hertz, National, Avis, Alamo
Frontier: Hertz

Hotel Chains:
Midwest: Hilton family, Hyatt family, Carlson family (Radisson, etc), Wydham family
Fronter: Marriott family

Other lesser partners (floral, cruise, dining, other hotels, etc)
Midwest: 14 partners
Fronter: 7 partners

Hopefully most or all of the YX partners join Frontier's program, plus some airline partners. If a major partnership isn't in the works, I'd at least like to see Hawaiian and someone to Europe like Virgin Atlantic. Obviously more options are better, but having Hawaii and something in the core of Europe (UK, France, Germany etc) would make a big difference. Sure, some FF membrs would specifically want to use miles for Argentina or Thailand. But being able to offer something to any one of the high volume Euro destinations would make a real difference. Personally I love Virgin Atlantic and would be thrilled to see them hook up. Nice connections to/from London at Boston...

Stumblefoot

Although I agree with the Frontier branding decision, I really felt that they needed to change the EarlyReturns brand to more accurately reflect the fact that it isn't early returns any longer (it was when an award was only 15,000 miles), as well as to better integrate the YX fliers into the program.

I think Hawaiian and Virgin Atlantic would be a good start. However, my fingers are stll crossed for oneworld, expecting that Star Alliance is totally out of the question.

And for those of us out west, Las Vegas isn't bad either.

Spent_All_My_Miles

Interesting -- I don't see any refernce to this on the frontiermidwest website -- under timeline, they still show only the weird three circle diagram.

knope2001

I, too, am very hopeful for oneworld or at least AA in particular. But we shall see.

I'd love them to partner with Virgin with or without AA/oneworld membership. But there is a significant problem with a Virgin partnership....Denver.


Milwaukee and London link up very nicely both directions at Boston.
Kansas City and London link up well eastbound and could link up westbound with a relatively small schedule twek (run BOS-MCI a bit later).
But Virgin's gateways to the US don't match Frontier's DEN markets.

Virgin flies to JFK, Frontier flies to LGA
Virgin flies to IAD, Frontier flies to DCA
Virgin flies to ORD, Frontier flies to MDW
Virgin flies to BOS, but too late so even if Frontier added a new BOS-DEN flight it would operate too late to hit Denver's last banks.
Virgin flies to EWR, but too late so even if Frontier added a new EWR-DEN flight it would operate too late to hit Denver's last banks.
Virgin flies to LAX, SFO, MCO, and LAS, but those are circuitous routings between LHR and DEN.

Unless Virgin adjusts some schedules specifically to help Frontier, options to serve LHR-DEN are not so good.

(a) Inter-airport connections in Chicago (5:00 hour connection) or New York (4:05 connection). Realistic but clearly unattractive -- a significant segment of travelers wouldn't even consider it.

(b) Connection via very out-of-the-way places like Orlando or Vegas (1200 miles longer than nonstop) or Los Angeles or San Franciso (1600+ miles longer than nonstop).

(c) Add JFK, Dulles or O'Hare, but there are various issues of gate space, slots, and cannibalization of existing markets at LGA, DCA and MDW. It doesn't make sense to open a brand new station primilary to serve a thin stream of connections to Virgin.

(d) Add a late-night MKE-DEN flight at about 10:30pm so that you can fly LHR-BOS-MKE-DEN. Of all the "add a new flight" options this is probably the most plausible for several reasons, but it means LHR-DEN is a two-stop flight, which is unattractive. The 10:30pm bank out of Milwaukee does have MSP, OMA, MCI and DSM westbound, and a Denver flight isn't implausible. But again,having two stops between London and Denver is not fantastic.

With two airlines flying nonstop from Denver to London already, I'm not sure that there will be all that many people flying a Frontier-Virgin connection between Denver and London no matter if it is 1-stop or 2-stop. But on the other hand it is problematic to have your biggest market not connect will with a new partner.

FYI for those who are less familiar with YX history, Midwest and Virgin did a full code share between Milwaukee and London (connecting via Boston or Newark) for several years in the early-mid 90's. When Virgin linked up with Continental in the mid-90's they severed their other partnerships, including Midwest. Midwest and Virgin annoucned a new code-share deal to link both Milwaukee and Kansas City to London via Boston in August 2001, but that was killed by 9/11 and never began.

Midwest had a FF agreement with Hawaiian quite a few years back but it was discontinued quite some time ago. YX has had links over the years with Northwest, American, Delta, Sabena, Swissair, SAS, Virgin Atlantic, Hawaiian, Air Jamaica, Air New Zealand, and....Frontier. There was a YX / F9 frequent flyer link for a few years -- I forget if it was late 90's or early 00's -- but obviously it's now back. The only code share links were NW, DL and VS. The rest were just mile deals.

BlueHorseShoe2000

The other big issue with a possible hook-up with Virgin Atlantic is Virgin America. These two don't even codeshare yet. I really can't see Richard Branson picking Frontier over one of the Virgin Airlines.

Of course, a relationship/codeshare with the Virgin Group would bring destinations like Australia to the table. However, you still have the problem with no Virgin service to Milwaukee or Denver, requiring one or more connections. Perhaps Frontier could add DEN-BOS/EWR flights???

I was told at the brand announcement that Frontier was trying to establish a partnership with AA/Oneworld. Despite being a loyal Star Alliance member, I really hope this comes to fruition. There are a number of benefits that would come with a relationship like this:

1) Frontier customers have immediate access to a global route network, not to mention dozens of cities in the U.S. not served from the DEN or MKE hubs.

2) American gets a big boost in Denver (a big hub for one of their major competitors) and helps solidify its standing in the greater Chicago market. This year American began adding flights/destinations from O'Hare to beef-up the hub and keep pressure on United. Being able to have a strong partner 65 miles to the north in MKE could help American win some more corporate contracts and pry business away from United. American can also put the screws to Delta, who seems to be losing its once strong grip on many upper Midwest markets.

3)With ATI nearly approved, American, British Airways, and Iberia will be able to better coordinate flights, frequent flier benefits, etc. British Airways already flies DEN-LHR non-stop. American is in a great position to add MKE-LHR non-stops with reconfigured 757s. We know that they are looking at connecting mid-size markets to LHR and MKE certainly wouldn't be out of the question, especially with feed on both ends.

While a partnership with AA/Oneworld would be great, I suspect at the end-of-the-day it will be something less than this. Bedford has said that Frontier customers will have "access to a global route network" later this year. What that means is really anybodys guess.

MikeFromMKE

I think you hit a solid point that for a good international partner to work they'd have to find someone that already flies to MKE/DEN or convince someone to start service to MKE/DEN.

I think you are right that AA/BA could fit this well since they are already going to be sharing the A concourse in DEN and if they could get AA to fly MKE-LHR they could have a good partnership. Frontier could also gain access to AA's south america network by flying MKE-SJU. Maybe they'd also start a DEN-ORD flight that was well timed for international connections.

Stumblefoot

I agree, but I've bought into what the good folks at Disney have told me about When You Wish Upon A Star.

I know... it's a major problem, especially when you consider all of the issues you noted between the gateways. That is why I'm holding out hope for oneworld since BA has DEN covered for Europe and American's flights from Denver to LAX sync up nicely to Asia.

It would be nice, but I have a feeling F9 already feels they have achieved this with their route network through MKE.

I hope this comes to fruition, because we really need access to a global route network, beyond the resort destinations of Mexico and Costa Rica. I know that I for one would immediately change my travels to Hong Kong from United to Cathay Pacific if a oneworld partnership were to happen.

Why?