Airtran adding MKE-LAS

[FlyAirtran]

also BMI-LAS and MLI-LAS

AirTran to expand three Las Vegas links
AirTran Airways is to expand options on three Las Vegas links this summer, adding flights to Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and both Moline and Bloomington in Illinois.
The low-cost carrier will introduce an additional daily flight to General Mitchell International from July 10, and four new journeys per week from McCarran International to both Quad City International and Central Illinois Regional Airport from August 15.
The extra flights from Milwaukee to Nevada's entertainment capital will depart at 9:58am once expanded service is introduced, with a return journey at 1:43pm, local time.

Additional flights to Moline will take off on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday come mid-August, with new flights to Las Vegas departing on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
For Bloomington-Normal, AirTran passengers can choose from new options on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, with extra flights to "Sin City" on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.
"Las Vegas has always been a hotspot for tourists looking to have fun, and AirTran Airways enhances that experience," insists Kevin Healy, Vice-President of planning at AirTran.
The Orlando-based low-fare airline currently lofts more than 700 flights per day to 56 destinations.

© Adfero Ltd

 

[Kharma Police]

also BMI-LAS and MLI-LAS

AirTran to expand three Las Vegas links
AirTran Airways is to expand options on three Las Vegas links this summer, adding flights to Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and both Moline and Bloomington in Illinois.
The low-cost carrier will introduce an additional daily flight to General Mitchell International from July 10, and four new journeys per week from McCarran International to both Quad City International and Central Illinois Regional Airport from August 15.
The extra flights from Milwaukee to Nevada's entertainment capital will depart at 9:58am once expanded service is introduced, with a return journey at 1:43pm, local time.

Additional flights to Moline will take off on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday come mid-August, with new flights to Las Vegas departing on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
For Bloomington-Normal, AirTran passengers can choose from new options on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, with extra flights to "Sin City" on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.
"Las Vegas has always been a hotspot for tourists looking to have fun, and AirTran Airways enhances that experience," insists Kevin Healy, Vice-President of planning at AirTran.
The Orlando-based low-fare airline currently lofts more than 700 flights per day to 56 destinations.

© Adfero Ltd

Why fly to Las Vegas from MLI when you have the wonderful riverboat casino down the road? BTW, what's up with the casino bartenders and the drink time limits?

 

[j41driver]

Why fly to Las Vegas from MLI when you have the wonderful riverboat casino down the road?

I really hope you're being sarcastic...

 

[gt1900]

Like I said earlier...You only have to attack a few routes to really hurt Midex, and you can make money while doing it... Is this the beginning??? Time will tell..

 

[CitationLover]

Like I said earlier...You only have to attack a few routes to really hurt Midex, and you can make money while doing it... Is this the beginning??? Time will tell..

yes it worked for northwest. my guess is this is more for their commitment pledge to the milwaukee area as part of the midwest deal. they are simply affirming what they have said they would do.

 

[Eagle757shark]

It has been kind of quiet of late regarding the merger. Tomorrow is the day when Midwest has to respond to AirTran's latest offer. Should be an interesting 30 days to say the least.

 

[CitationLover]

It has been kind of quiet of late regarding the merger. Tomorrow is the day when Midwest has to respond to AirTran's latest offer. Should be an interesting 30 days to say the least.

friday the 13th part XVIII - jason comes to milwaukee

 

[Taildragon]

Bring it, you tranny lovers.

 

[Lear70]

yes it worked for northwest.

 

[Patriot328]

I really hope you're being sarcastic...

Nothin to do in Vegas... kind of a boring city..

 

[CitationLover]

you roll your eyes, but is air tran in any position to lose money on any routes? we all can't be johnny o and start an unrealistic fare war. this route was more for pr in their takeover attempt to show their committment to milwaukee and in line with their leisure market strategy already in place in MKE (to the florida markets).

 

[Kharma Police]

you roll your eyes, but is air tran in any position to lose money on any routes? we all can't be johnny o and start an unrealistic fare war. this route was more for pr in their takeover attempt to show their committment to milwaukee and in line with their leisure market strategy already in place in MKE (to the florida markets).

Do you work for Midwest yet?

 

[CitationLover]

Do you work for Midwest yet?

what does that have to do with anything? perhaps you are not being objective looking at this from your perspective as an air tran ee? i do own shares in both companies.

read between the lines, goldman sachs feels they can get more money from air tran if they want the company. plain and simple.

 

[Kharma Police]

what does that have to do with anything? perhaps you are not being objective looking at this from inside?

read between the lines, goldman sachs feels they can get more money from air tran if they want the company. plain and simple.

Just asking a question. As for my opinion, I hope we (AirTran) do not purchase Midwest for various reasons that I have outlined in other posts.

 

[717capt]

you roll your eyes, but is air tran in any position to lose money on any routes? we all can't be johnny o and start an unrealistic fare war. this route was more for pr in their takeover attempt to show their committment to milwaukee and in line with their leisure market strategy already in place in MKE (to the florida markets).[/quot

Sorry Kharma, but he's absolutley right.

Now let's all be realistic here, does anyone think that MKE is actually a good place to have a major connecting hub? I think the folks at YX and the people of MKE have a genuine right to be concerned. Midwest has a special product and the people in MKE have become accustomed to it and more importantly if it is such a great place someone else would have done it a long time ago.
Whats to stop Airtran from buying YX and a year from now saying "you know what? MKE is not working out like we had planned, we are not getting the traffic from North Chicago, like we had hoped, however we are doing great in BWI and we'll just move the whole operation there."

You can try and sweet talk the locals all you want and try and convince the powers to be that your intentions are good but in the end it's all about business isn't it. Perfect example look at how US just abanded PIT over th elast few years. That used to be USAir central and now it is a ghost town.

Just my .02

by the way I agree with you that we should just forget about YX and move on. $390 million is way to much money... Drop the offer, watch the YX stock plummet and Tim can explain at the shareholders meeting why.

 

[CitationLover]

Just asking a question. As for my opinion, I hope we (AirTran) do not purchase Midwest for various reasons that I have outlined in other posts.

i hope both companies succeed in whatever they do. the market seems to be accepting this so far as a ploy for more money (MEH is down to $14.50 and AAI is up to $11.67) as if not i would have thought MEH would have fallen more. will be interesting to see if air tran states anything public today.

its up to the shareholders now on 6/14.

 

[Kharma Police]

you roll your eyes, but is air tran in any position to lose money on any routes? we all can't be johnny o and start an unrealistic fare war. this route was more for pr in their takeover attempt to show their committment to milwaukee and in line with their leisure market strategy already in place in MKE (to the florida markets).[/quot

Sorry Kharma, but he's absolutley right.

Now let's all be realistic here, does anyone think that MKE is actually a good place to have a major connecting hub? I think the folks at YX and the people of MKE have a genuine right to be concerned. Midwest has a special product and the people in MKE have become accustomed to it and more importantly if it is such a great place someone else would have done it a long time ago.
Whats to stop Airtran from buying YX and a year from now saying "you know what? MKE is not working out like we had planned, we are not getting the traffic from North Chicago, like we had hoped, however we are doing in BWI and we'll just move the whole operation there."

You can try and sweet talk the locals all you want and try and convince the powers to be that your intentions are good but in the end it's all about business isn't it. Perfect example look at how US just abanded PIT over th elast few years. That used to be USAir central and now it is a ghost town.

Just my .02

by the way I agree with you that we should just forget about YX and move on. $390 million is way to much money... Drop the offer, watch the YX stock plummet and Tim can explain at the shareholders meeting why.

I totally agree with you guy! I said in post after post that I hope that the deal does not go through for all the reasons that you stated (and more). I admire Midwest's customer service oriented business model and I think the people of Milwaukee will miss that great level of service. There is a reason that MKE is an underutilized airport, its called O'Hare. I don't think we can sustain the level of growth that Joe and Bob are promising.

 

[CitationLover]

pardon my ignorance, but what happened to the MDW plan? was it thrown out when the ATA deal went away? is Air Tran maxed out there already with their limited gate space? from the route map on the website it appears to be their largest non-florida/atlanta market (or pretty close to BWI).

 

[Kharma Police]

pardon my ignorance, but what happened to the MDW plan? was it thrown out when the ATA deal went away? is Air Tran maxed out there already with their limited gate space? from the route map on the website it appears to be their largest non-florida/atlanta market (or pretty close to BWI).

Good question. The MDW deal was a golden opportunity that we missed out on. Despite that, we have done well there with a few gates. We should have offered to take the ATA employees to help appease Mayor Daley, but SWA could always out bid us. We have four gates in MDW as opposed to eighteen (I think). There was a rumor about possibly one or two more gates but we shall see.

 

[crashpad]

Does anyone think MIDEX stock price will hold for more than a week before tanking?

 

[CitationLover]

Does anyone think MIDEX stock price will hold for more than a week before tanking?

pre takeover it was around $9 per share, i would expect it to fall back to there.

pre takeover AAI was down 50% in six months, is that tanking to you?
LCC down almost $20 since Nov is that tanking?
JBLU off $6 since february is that tanking?
Delta/NWA in bankruptcy screwing shareholders, is that tanking?

 

[Lear70]

you roll your eyes, but is air tran in any position to lose money on any routes? we all can't be johnny o and start an unrealistic fare war. this route was more for pr in their takeover attempt to show their committment to milwaukee and in line with their leisure market strategy already in place in MKE (to the florida markets).

I roll my eyes because you don't understand the financial situation behind the scenes and are making an apples - to - oranges comparison.

I also roll my eyes because I've gone through this before about a month or so ago, but I guess you weren't on here then.

NWA didn't work in MKE because they made 3 critical errors.

1. They used the CRJ which is a MONEY LOSER for EVERY single carrier that operates it when looked at as a standalone product. CRJ's were designed to do ONE THING: bring international feed into the hub. Period. NWA loses money on them every time they lift off the ground (fee per departure basis).

2. They priced the product lower than their cost to produce the product. You just can't do that long-term and expect to have a viable operation.

3. They thought it was going to take a very short time to run Midwest out of business (which was the entire point at the time). Obviously this didn't happen.

AirTran wouldn't do any of the above. You ASSUME that AirTran will lose money on these routes. You assume WRONG. We operate MKE with very high load factors and our fares are comparable with what everyone else is running, not to mention comparable with the rest of our city pairings.

Seeing as we've been profitable for several YEARS now, I think we've got our pricing pretty well figured out to make money.

Not trying to be rude; it just amuses me when people make comparisons they don't understand.

 

[CitationLover]

I roll my eyes because you don't understand the financial situation behind the scenes and are making an apples - to - oranges comparison.

I also roll my eyes because I've gone through this before about a month or so ago, but I guess you weren't on here then.

NWA didn't work in MKE because they made 3 critical errors.

1. They used the CRJ which is a MONEY LOSER for EVERY single carrier that operates it when looked at as a standalone product. CRJ's were designed to do ONE THING: bring international feed into the hub. Period. NWA loses money on them every time they lift off the ground (fee per departure basis).

2. They priced the product lower than their cost to produce the product. You just can't do that long-term and expect to have a viable operation.

3. They thought it was going to take a very short time to run Midwest out of business (which was the entire point at the time). Obviously this didn't happen.

AirTran wouldn't do any of the above. You ASSUME that AirTran will lose money on these routes. You assume WRONG. We operate MKE with very high load factors and our fares are comparable with what everyone else is running, not to mention comparable with the rest of our city pairings.

Seeing as we've been profitable for several YEARS now, I think we've got our pricing pretty well figured out to make money.

Not trying to be rude; it just amuses me when people make comparisons they don't understand.

i was responding to this.

Like I said earlier...You only have to attack a few routes to really hurt Midex, and you can make money while doing it... Is this the beginning??? Time will tell..

looks to me like he is talking about running Midwest out of business, which is what i responded to. he is not following Lear's Airtran rule i guess. NWA did try to do this and I responded.

sure you have great load factors in most markets (incl MKE), EVERY airline has seen increased load factors in the last couple of years. if Air Tran undercuts MEH on certain routes (like the original poster suggested) then yes they may lose money as a fare war may ensue.

 

[Lear70]

looks to me like he is talking about running Midwest out of business, which is what i responded to. he is not following Lear's Airtran rule i guess. NWA did try to do this and I responded.

sure you have great load factors in most markets (incl MKE), EVERY airline has seen increased load factors in the last couple of years. if Air Tran undercuts MEH on certain routes (like the original poster suggested) then yes they may lose money as a fare war may ensue.

Non-sequitur, sir.

His quote:

Like I said earlier...You only have to attack a few routes to really hurt Midex, and you can make money while doing it... Is this the beginning??? Time will tell..

HE never said anything about losing money over it. He never said anything about lowering the price of the product below what it would cost to produce it.

You took one part of his statement and went off on a tangent.

In fact, our CEO and CFO have repeatedly argued against that kind of b.s. from the very beginning and have, to my knowledge, never engaged in any kind of "fare war".

I also don't support any kind of turf war, and have spoken against it several times. I'd simply prefer to expand elsewhere and let the Midwest pilots keep producing the excellent product they are so well-known for.

p.s. Citation, do you even WORK for Midwest or are you on the RJ?

 

[CitationLover]

Non-sequitur, sir.

His quote:
HE never said anything about losing money over it. He never said anything about lowering the price of the product below what it would cost to produce it.

You took one part of his statement and went off on a tangent.

In fact, our CEO and CFO have repeatedly argued against that kind of b.s. from the very beginning and have, to my knowledge, never engaged in any kind of "fare war".

I also don't support any kind of turf war, and have spoken against it several times. I'd simply prefer to expand elsewhere and let the Midwest pilots keep producing the excellent product they are so well-known for.

p.s. Citation, do you even WORK for Midwest or are you on the RJ?

you are correct i assumed on that, and for that i was in error (mad an a$$ of me as it states). i am happy to hear your ceo/cfo feel that way, i wish more felt like that. however, pricing pressure when competing directly with someone would cause yields to be lower than expected and as such they might not perhaps make money was all i was trying to express.

i am in a hiring pool at midwest and am at eagle now on the crj. finally a light at being treated like a professional from my employer and not a 3rd grader.