RAH gets Frontier flying

[climb2slow]

well, at least it's not MESA again!

 

[RobCat]

Wow wow wow stop wait. You got RAH, flying what a/c? Exactly, We do have a hell of a product. Many of us put alot of pride in the service we provide. Give us a chance you may be impressed. Until then climb onboard, come up and say hi, and let it do what it do. We're happy to get you to where you have to go. Kick back relax and enjoy the flight. We will do great out west.

 

[buckdanny]

It's stuff that ASA does already in the 700. No overnights... don't cream your pants over it.

Yeah, the STX run we do isn't an overnight either; just an out and back one day deal with overnights in ATL. Still currious to see where all of this is going, I have friends at ASA and I would hate to see their flying being reduced...

Buck

 

[TOGA]

8HourPilot -
Thanks. I'm trying to do just that. Then, I get this:

Your hand-wringing over who might replace QX providing feed is pathetic. Now you get to, once again, deal with the consequences, good or bad. Don't act like RAH isn't good enough for you. You had good -- now you get cheap.

Sweet. I can't wait to work together toward our mutual prosperity. If caring about the future of my career is "pathetic", so be it. BTW, we had "cheap" before "good", and they got the boot.

RobCat, that's a little more what I was hoping to hear.

 

[buckdanny]

http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf99/434085_web.pdf

http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf99/434576_web.pdf

Very interesting document indeed. I went on deltanet to look at nonreving to KIN from ATL in early April and what comes up makes you wonder:

0917 ATL KIN 8APR 1102A 8APR 110P DELTA M80 x/x (0) N/A xx/xx (70)
(I put x's to hide the actual numbers)

An MD80 with 70 seats? So it's like they know i will be a 70 seaters but put MD80 because it's not a done deal yet?

Buck

 

[ReverseSensing]

Sweet. I can't wait to work together toward our mutual prosperity. If caring about the future of my career is "pathetic", so be it. BTW, we had "cheap" before "good", and they got the boot.

Fair enough. Glad you care. Hope you get a great product with RAH.

I just found it ironic that all those things in your original post that you were concerned about were already sorted out with QX. Quality may be your first priority, but your management has proven it is not theirs.

Buy hey, you're a LCC. With tough competition, and only one hub. I guess on balance, you've got to take your chances with another cheap feed provider and hope it works out. Good luck.

 

[PGTB]

If not for the airline, at least it will be a little more seamless between an airbus and an E170 and not the CR7.

 

[aewanabe]

So, is this official or what? We're not hearing anything at Frontier yet. Do any of you have any operational stats for your 170s? Dispatch reliability, completion factor, on-time %, etc? What kind of mountain flying are you expecting to see? What training do you think would be provided in that regard? What mountain flying does RAH currently do? For those of you who would be doing the DEN flying, how do you feel about the Frontier product? I'm very interested to see what will be done to bring you guys (more specifically the FAs) into the loop as to what our pax have come to expect (or, in some cases, hope for ). Anyone have any input on any of this?

Toga: I'm a senior 145 pilot at RAH who is about to transition to the 170 (not the F9 operation though). We have a lot of people who are familiar with the Frontier product and enthusiastic about the new relationship.

Unfortunately we are used to receiving little to no operational support from the airline. Shuttle America does a decent bit of mountain flying mostly on the Delta side of the house; when they headed out west the company gave them a photo-copied packet on mountain flying and said "don't break anything". Additionally the current S5 (Shuttle) pilots who would like to transition to Republic/ Denver will likely not be allowed to do so; the Denver base will most likely be primarily senior 145 captains transitioning plus a couple current Republic pilots who want to head west.

For FA's, well, they start at 16K a year and are treated like second-graders. We have several who are professional and motivated and do a great job, but serveral more that act like they work at Burger King. When US sold the Mid-Atlantic operation to RAH there was a noticeable drop off in the onboard service from the US crews to ours, unfortunately. I'm expecting that some current RAH FAs will head west and that most of the operation will be staffed by people recruited locally. Frankly unless F9's contract with us has stringent service-delivery guidelines there will probably be a noticeable difference. I truly hope I'm wrong here...

The aircraft itself is a fantastic product that the passengers will probably love. The cabin has a mainline-style planform with fantastic head-and-shoulder room and huge windows, there really is no comparison with the CRJ product. It does burn more fuel, however. Reliability has improved markedly in the 2 plus years we've been operating the aircraft, though I don't have current stats. I believe the dispatch reliability averaged around 95 percent completion when it started and is hovering around 99 percent now.

Bottom line our pilot group is motivated, very professional, but we're used to making due with not enough support from the airline. You'll probably notice some transitional difficulties compared to Horizon, and then we'll catch on to the little tricks and nuances and provide the kind of service (mostly) that you've come to expect.

 

[crashpad]

Oh, come on TOGA: your company wanted cheaper feed. F9 had a quality product ....

I disagree, the CRJ is not a quality product no matter who's flying it.
Horizon did nothing better than anyone else. In fact, they cancelled flights when the seats weren't filled and feined maintaince as the cause.
In the face of being told 'take a hike', I've encountered a much different attitude from their pilots...like it was our fault!
If you work for a commuter, you're going to have to accept the nomadic lifestyle which comes with it.... because that's what you are:
Nomadic gypsies serving companies who undercut eachother to pick up the leftover flying of big money makers.

Pretending you have some semblance to a big airline is living in denial and you'll always get dissappointed when reality slaps you up the side of your head.

 

[mrnolmts]

I disagree, the CRJ is not a quality product no matter who's flying it.

No doubt the 170's will be well received by the passengers. However, it seems to me the CRJ did a decent job for you guys, which brings me to the next point of yours:

Horizon did nothing better than anyone else...

Really? I thought Horizon met every performance goal that was set, so please elaborate...

...In fact, they cancelled flights when the seats weren't filled and feined maintaince as the cause....

First of all.. aren't you missing a "g" somewhere?
I don't know about the F9 side of things, but at QX cancelling a flight because of feigned maintenance is not an option. Now, what they might do, is move an airplane from one flight to another, keeping the "moneymaker" running if one has to cancel. If you call that "feigned" maintenance, then so be it. I'd call it business sense.

...Pretending you have some semblance to a big airline is living in denial and you'll always get dissappointed when reality slaps you up the side of your head.

I'm not even going to dignify that one with a response...
Like someone mentioned before, I do hope your "new" relationship works out.