If I had to guess it was to lessen the impression of D being abandoned. The airport took action to lessen the empty look of D such having empty podiums removed, putting marketing images on unused gate monitors, moving chairs, etc. Obviously they can only do so much. But they're trying to avoid the appearance of being abandoned. Short of walling off the lower level, I suspect they'll keep them running.

I wonder if any of the escalators or moving walkways shut off during off-hours?

Well we know at least some passengers use them, and I assume more than a few airline employees as well. The moving walkway was intended to get people to/from the hammerhead more quickly without adding to the congestion in the stem -- they were there for quite a few years before D27/28/29 were built and aren't there for those gates. What's different is that the upper level of the stem doesn't have activity of its own, so congestion on the stem isn't a big issue.

That has actually been pushed up to 9/1 now. Starting 9/1 each weekday the 9:00am MKE-LGA flight has the 717, with the other four flights being large RJ.

Delta has monkeyed with the schedule a bit -- there are a handful of days mid-month with only 4x MKE-LGA, but it's not consistent. On at least one of those days they have an A319, a 717 and two large RJ's. But other than those handful of oddball dates, the rest of the month is 5x with one 717.

I noticed starting in October one of the PHL flights in the late morning will be on a Republic E175. We have not had anything bigger than a CR2 in several years.

Nice to hear. We get more than our share of 50-seat RJ's with ZW and OO bases in MKE, so it's good to see larger RJ's getting rotated in during the day.

I'm assuming that you're talking about American.

I wouldn't mind avoiding delta, they've been no fun lately.

I think they specifically mean MKE-PHL being all CR2 normally.

MKE-CLT commonly gets some larger RJ's mixed in...at the moment I think only the two MKE originators are CR2 and the other three nonstops are CR9. On the AA* side MKE-DFW gets a CR9 mixed in with the mainline, but MKE-ORD is all CR2.

Is there any news on how OneJet is doing? Are the finding the passengers? Are they flying daily?

Nothing of public record yet -- the April MKE and IND airport traffic reports did not include OneJet stats, though I've heard that issue will be remedied with the May stats. Neither PIT, IND, nor MKE numbers are out for May yet.

That being said, I've kept a close eye on things myself, both seeing if they fly and also checking Expedia to see how many seats appear to be open. Here's a summary of what I've been seeing:

1. I've not seen any days where they appear to have not flow a segment due to no bookings. There was one day in April where they didn't fly but that was a stormy day. Then in May there were a couple flights canceled when one of the two planes was out of service, mostly IND-PIT-IND. But I haven't seen anything apparently cancel due to no passengers.

2. With the way the network has developed, I don't think there are/will be many no-fly days due to no passengers. For example one aircraft does IND-MKE-PIT-MKE-IND. If one or two of those legs are booked to zero they still have to fly them to get the aircraft where it needs to be.

3. From what I find when I look at Expedia searches (which I do daily) most flights have 0, 1 or 2 open seats on the day before they operate. It seems they are selling five seats per flight based on what I've seen and what I've heard from a couple of flights.

So...I think they are doing okay so far. I have no way to know about revenues, profits, etc. of course. But their fares continue to be generally competitive with other airlines for business travel -- I haven't seen them push fares a lot higher at this point, so if they are indeed filling planes reasonably well they are either okay with the revenue or are holding fares to "introductory" levels for now.

I always hated flying on US BGR-PHL-MKE, the first segment would usually be on an E-Jet, the 2nd always a CR2. And it seemed like I could never get the CR9 on MKE-CLT, again CR2. DL has been putting a lot of mainline back into MKE, or at least larger regionals, which is great. I was on an all mainline MKE-DTW-BGR earlier this month. But, sadly, since it is all snack basket service, the UA BGR-ORD-MKE flights are better both as far as times go, and onboard service. (I do miss the WiFi options, even if I just use it for SMS.)

A morning flight to LGA, on a 717, leaving from the D4x gates. I might get nostalgic :D Anyone want a cookie?

They are flying daily. A flight I saw inbound only had 2 pax deplane.

Well I lost ;) G2 is doing the AS flight. GSE equipment arrived recently and they were painting lines at D51 today.

And continued painted them the next day.

Today they had the County crew removing them and painting a new J line. That's going to be an expensive mistake.

Aircraft arrived about 30 mins after paint crew left.

Per MKE's facebook page, the baggage claim area is now fully open, at least on the inside. The post says that the baggage roadway is open only to shuttles and buses (I presume still on the outer roadway?) and the drive will open to all traffic "at the end of July."

Dunno why.. Buses were seen today using the inner roadway. Everything seems complete other than construction equipment blocking one lane on the outer side.

OTOH that's a former Airtran bird. BC upgrade at check-in when available for $49 including 2 free bags and free drinks. (free for Elites at T-40)

Cookie? Wasn't anything compared to the upgrade.