BlueHorseShoe2000

With the announced increase in MCI flying, Midwest has had to do a lot of shuffling of the schedule to make everything work. After spending about 5 minutes or so on midwestairlines.com, I noted the following changes:

-MKE-MCO. Will be flown 3x daily with MD80s. The morning 717 is gone. Midwest will also have one of the planes overnight in MCO, allowing for an early morning return to MKE.

-MKE-FLL. Midwest is once again trying this route year-round from MKE. The biggest surprise is that it will be a morning depature with a 717 (Signature Service).

-MKE-DEN. Will be flown 3x daily with Saver Service MD80s. In some respects, this makes sense as DEN did so well for Midwest last summer that the extra capacity is certainly needed. However, I personally have some concerns about the switching back-and-forth between Signature and Saver. The 717s are scheduled to return in the fall, when traffic will drop-off.

-MCI-SFO. The second daily flight will be with a 717 (Signature Service). I'm really surprised by this as Midwest has been very reluctant to send the 717s to SFO due to the constant weather delays. MCI-SFO is pushing the limits of the 717 range, and any extended holding patterns enroute to SFO will result in costly diversions to refuel. We'll see what, if any, problems they encounter this summer.

With all of the changes announced, Midwest still has one of the "new" MD80s and a bunch of CRJs (12 to be exact) that are still unaccounted for. I'd expect an announcement fairly soon on some of the additions to begin this summer.

MKEbound

to MKE-DEN returning to Saver Service. If YX wants more seats flying into DEN that's fine, but reconfigure the MD80's all back to Signature Service first.

lebowski2222

I agree, i think the MKE-DEN returning to Saver is a stupid move, why not just fly one 717 6 times back and forth to Den and just use the FLL flights for Saver (Stupid Florida)

BlueHorseShoe2000

I'm not sure about this move, either. Denver has been pretty strong for Midwest the last year or so, but the yields are relatively weak. In the past, Midwest has had to do a lot of discounting just to fill the planes. That's one of the reasons Denver was switched to Saver Service during the initial roll-out in 2003.

During the past couple of summers, Midwest has thrown a Saver aircraft or two on the MKE-DEN route to handle the increased passenger volumes. They've done this with MKE-MCO as well. It doesn't make that much sense to me. The only thing about DEN during the summer is that business traffic falls off while leisure traffic increases. That may be why having Saver Service isn't such a big deal, yet I don't like the switching back-and-forth of the different brands.

MKEbound

That's the rub.

I don't mind if YX makes a business decision to fly to certain cities in Savior configuration, but the switching back and forth is a disservice to the customer who comes to expect a level of service when booking a ticket for DEN

BlueHorseShoe2000

I agree completely.

On the flip-side of the coin, have you ever flown on one of the charter configured MD80s??? Midwest has substitued that plane on a few of my flights, mainly to LGA or ATL. It only has 74 seats. I'm 6'3" and can literally extend my legs all the way and still have a foot or two of additional space. It's pretty sweet! There is actually a conference table in the back with a few seats. I ended-up playing cards with a few other passengers on my way to New York once!

lebowski2222

That would be a pretty sweet ride to do
Is this what the Bucks Fly to there games or do they even have a better one with PS3's at ever seat back, mini bars and there own personal chef on board

MCI777

The 74 seat MD-80's do most of the sports charters (Bucks, Brewers, Royals) I believe as well as some college sports teams. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

BlueHorseShoe2000

You're right. I think they might provide service for a few hockey teams as well. I read in a magazine awhile back that you can actually charter that plane for you and 73 of your closest friends. The article used the routing New York-Las Vegas as an example. The cost was ONLY $120k!

lebowski2222

I know they charter a lot of hockey teams, in fact the New Jersey Devils were on a YX charter that involved in a scary situation and they said they would never fly the YX charter again

That is not too terrible, it comes out to about $1650 bucks a person, I am sure New york - LAS in 1st class is about that much anyway.

I wonder who charters the Packers

BlueHorseShoe2000

Northwest handles all of the charter flights for the Packers. Midwest's MD80s are not big enough to accomodate professional football teams. I believe Northwest also handles some of the charters for the Badgers as well.

Global_Hi_Flyer

You mean there's something more scary that playing hockey?

MKEbound

We're starting to get OT here, but this post got me thinking about the Packers charter - NW used a DC10 for their football charters, and since they have retired that aircraft type, I wonder what they will do now? As you pointed out a DC9 or A319 won't be large enough, and I don't see them using a new A330. Maybe a converted 757 or a 747-200 pulled from the desert?