Frontier Trims Flights at Milwaukee Hub as Parent Republic Hunts for Buyer

[bluesideup1]

Frontier Airlines will cut daily departures from Milwaukee by 44 percent to drop unprofitable flights as parent Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (RJET) prepares to sell or spin off the carrier.

Frontier will end non-stop service to six cities by mid- April as departures from Milwaukee are reduced to 18 from 32 a day, Lindsey Carpenter, a spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview today.

Republic is close to naming an adviser to help divest Frontier, which it bought out of bankruptcy in 2009. Frontier faced competition in Milwaukee from Southwest Airlines Co., the biggest low-fare carrier. The city had served as a Frontier hub since Republic bought Midwest Airlines in 2009 and combined the two carriers under the Frontier name.

“We’ve been incurring significant losses on our flights out of Milwaukee,” Carpenter said. “We can’t continue to do that if we want to stay a viable airline.”

Frontier is still assessing how many employees will be affected by the changes and hopes to offer them other jobs with the airline, she said. Midwest’s Milwaukee departures peaked at 150 a day in 2007.

The carrier no longer will fly non-stop from Milwaukee to Dallas-Fort Worth, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Newark and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The cuts come as the airline expands flights from its main base in Denver.

Republic fell 2.2 percent to $5.87 at the close in New York. The shares have risen 71 percent this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mary Schlangenstein in Dallas at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at [email protected]

 

[Captain Morgan]

Retreat to Denver, regroup, go on the offensive. This should've been done a long time ago. Midwest Airlines has been an anchor weight for both Republic and Frontier. They need to just kill it.

 

[B52GUNNER]

Let it finally die by itself. They will probably blame someone else.

 

[Captain Morgan]

Let it finally die by itself. They will probably blame someone else.

They've wrecked/postponed more careers through their misguided anger and greed on both sides of the fence, Republic and Frontier. The icing on the cake is that they never really brought anything to the table, but they feel as if they're entitled to the most. Hold on, let me grab a kleenex, Kimberly-Clark brand of course; "The Milwaukee Experiment" is finally coming to an end.

 

[Jetjockey]

Retreat to Denver, regroup, go on the offensive. This should've been done a long time ago. Midwest Airlines has been an anchor weight for both Republic and Frontier. They need to just kill it.

Yeah, I'm sure SWA and UAL will welcome the competition with open arms......and lots of seats on duplicate routes.

 

[Grey Ghost]

I hope the whole Frontier thing completely FAILS!!!!! Karma is a bitch WANGER!!!!!!

 

[Propsync]

Retreat to Denver, regroup, go on the offensive. This should've been done a long time ago. Midwest Airlines has been an anchor weight for both Republic and Frontier. They need to just kill it.

I would disagree. Midwest was a great opportunity. They got an established hub on the cheap with little competition, and didn't do anything with it. Midwest was mismanaged and lasted 25 years. What's Bedford's excuse?

Bedford missed the boat on MKE. Renaming a convention center and putting a couple soundbites out is not continuing a 'heritage'. His lack of loyalty to a 'simple' Midwestern town was his undoing. I would have hired a few objective ex-Midwest people to figure out a way to make it work. Instead, they'll retreat back to a 3-way battle. Sounds like fun.

 

[N1atEcon]

I agree. Midwest had a nice niche and a loyal following. I spoke to an Ex midwest gate agent last week. She said all Bedford did was muck up a good thing. And the retreat, regroup comment is moronic. That is the last place I would want to be digging in for a fight for my survival. UAL and SWA have tons of cash and can play hardball for a long long time.

 

[brokedash]

The OP article qoutes a spokesperson saying, "We’ve been incurring significant losses on our flights out of Milwaukee,” Why don't they admit their bleeding green over all of the F9 operation?

 

[Captain Morgan]

Yeah, I'm sure SWA and UAL will welcome the competition with open arms......and lots of seats on duplicate routes.

It doesn't matter where Frontier goes, SWA will follow. It's a fact that SWA doesn't want Frontier in existance to be begin with. At least in Denver there is an established market. It's home turf. United tolerates Frontier because United would rather run RJs out of Denver and hold it's place that actually focus on it.

 

[Captain Morgan]

I hope the whole Frontier thing completely FAILS!!!!! Karma is a bitch WANGER!!!!!!

So by hoping that Frontier fails you've just done yourself in. Nice!

 

[Captain Morgan]

I agree. Midwest had a nice niche and a loyal following. I spoke to an Ex midwest gate agent last week. She said all Bedford did was muck up a good thing. And the retreat, regroup comment is moronic. That is the last place I would want to be digging in for a fight for my survival. UAL and SWA have tons of cash and can play hardball for a long long time.

Wow! You spoke to a Ex-Midwest gate agent, and she had fond things to say about Milwaukee and Midwest Airlines and bad things to say about Bedford?!? You don't say?!? History is viewed greatly through rose-colored glasses.

 

[Captain Morgan]

We need to all look at the reality of what's going on. MKE was a leftover from Midwest which was a dying airline in the form it was in. With 59 aircraft and various contracted RJ's Frontier was a chaotic mess at best. Siegal was hired to clean up the airline to attract investors/buyers. He's doing his job by axing MKE and restoring Frontier to simplicity. The only loss of service I think is a mistake is Aspen. How can you be "Colorado's airline" without Aspen? I do think operating the Q400 was expensive and operating a seperate type primarily for one destination was rediculous. They need to contract with colgan for the Q400 flying and be done with it. One thing we can all agree on is that BB didn't have a clue or direction and he's ruined 2.5 airlines.

 

[Grey Ghost]

We need to all look at the reality of what's going on. MKE was a leftover from Midwest which was a dying airline in the form it was in. With 59 aircraft and various contracted RJ's Frontier was a chaotic mess at best. Siegal was hired to clean up the airline to attract investors/buyers. He's doing his job by axing MKE and restoring Frontier to simplicity. The only loss of service I think is a mistake is Aspen. How can you be "Colorado's airline" without Aspen? I do think operating the Q400 was expensive and operating a seperate type primarily for one destination was rediculous. They need to contract with colgan for the Q400 flying and be done with it. One thing we can all agree on is that BB didn't have a clue or direction and he's ruined 2.5 airlines.

Amen, brother!!! thats what I meant to say.... In reality, I hope evreything works out for F9 and we can all just go our separate ways and be done with it! I'm just tired of hearing the bitching and complaining from both sides, thats all!

 

[USMC319]

The OP article qoutes a spokesperson saying, "We’ve been incurring significant losses on our flights out of Milwaukee,” Why don't they admit their bleeding green over all of the F9 operation?

Because that would be a false statement. The Denver operation, and in particular, the Airbus operation IS profitable. Its been profitable for the most part since Menke reorganized it in '09. The killer to Frontier has been the the small airplanes, the E170s, the E140s, the E135s. Trying to resurrect a once great but now dead airline (Midwest) with commuter airplanes and service in their bloodbath operation in Milwaukee. The E190 held its own but didn't contribute much to the bottom line. Frontier became the airline for the unemployed ERJs and it about took them under with their horribly high CASMs. Now Frontier is cutting back to its profitable core, which is the Airbus and Denver with a whole bunch of profitable contract flying on top.