NutinGTMO

More "uh oh" for Lynx. Looks like the Q400 won't be going to Jackson Hole next year...

"Frontier Airlines said Thursday it plans to resume seasonal service to Jackson Hole, Wyo., next year.

The Denver-based airlines will fly once a day each way between Denver International Airport and Jackson Hole from May 14 to Sept. 12, 2010. It will use 99-seat Ebraer 190 aircraft provided by its new parent, Republic Airways Holdings Inc.

Frontier launched seasonal service between DIA and Jackson Hole in 2008."

Flyboyrw

yes indeed, another ah oh, or uh oh. or I guess we are all screwed.

TheDashRocks

"In the case of Midwest, we were buying a revenue stream that was hostage to an uncompetitive cost structure which we’ve now liberated."


What a humanitarian! Thank you for liberating Midwest employees from the drudgery of having to go to work. I am sure they are soaring like eagles now that they are free from the burden of health care insurance and a regular paycheck.

PinnacleFO

Seriously - an operation that has an infuence on its competitors because it also flies with them. Something is up - either all of the mainline "partners" are encouraging bedford to do this so that they can farm out 100 seat flying to the regionals to stay competitive or republic just has better lawyers. Its not like the majors can put pressure on republic because they would be hurting themselves since repulblic flies for them as well. This whole thing is incredible.

3XLoser

I don't remember the exact number, but CASMs at Midwest were among the lowest in the industry, so I'm not sure in what way Bedford was liberating the cost structure other than pilot pay rates which are a very small percentage of CASM. Bedford also mentions replacing Midwest's 50 MD80s and 717s. In my eight years there, I never counted more than 37 airplanes in the fleet, and when the purchase supposedly happened there were only 9. How does he justify his numbers, and how long has he had his hands in this?

Dougdrvr

Many people have been saying that all along, but obviously, we are just paranoid conspiracy theorists.

John Pennekamp

Bingo!!!!!!!!

MaxQ

Since Midwest was taken private by TPG we can't know for certain about the costs. However, since this is a webboard, since when did not having the facts prevent anyone from posting speculation? So here goes.
TPG is a private Equity firm. In the eighties they were called leveraged buyout companies. They got a bad name from their practices, so they just reinvented themselves with a new name and packaging. They are the same parasites on society now as they were then. What an LBO firm does is take a little money and buys a company with mostly borrowed money. The company purchased then has to service the newly incurred debt, not to mention the fees paid to the hedge fund and its managers. If it works out, they manage to limp it along for a while and resell it, either with an IPO or to a competitor or even a new hedge fund. Almost without exception a purchased company ends up weaker, mostly due to lack of R&D and long term investing. Most profits go to servicing a new debt load plus parasite fees. ( for a similar story , remember Checki and company who bought out NorthWest? A cash rich company turned overnight into a weakened, debt ridden airline)
Did this happen to Midwest? Don't know, but it fits. We had , if memory serves, over 180 million in cash at the purchase. By summer we were in a cash crisis? You bet fuel was high, but it was for everyone else as well.
Combine these things with the bizarre decisions of Seabury to eliminate the MD-80,s and replace 99 seat aircraft with 76 seaters that often couldn't fly full with all the bags.
It is true that employee costs were higher at Midwest. I do think if there had been more trust that could have been addressed, but Seabury and other past behaviours had pretty much squandered any trust.
What we have witnessed is a continuation of the massive redistribution of wealth from the whole of society to the top 1%. This has been going on for about 30 years or so. A generation ago it would have been labeled (and rightly so) graft and corruption. This corruption today, however, has become legalized.
And so it goes.

John Pennekamp

Every time I read the words "harvest synergy" I threw up in my mouth a little bit. I love when CEOs spew MBA school mumbo jumbo.

Also a nice crack about "nobody goes to Milwaukee unless they have to". I hope the 1.1 million residents of the great city of Milwaukee protest by boycotting the Reverend and flying Airtran. How very callous of him to say that Midwest was all about the cookie. This clown is truly America's Michael O'Leary.

iPilot

I swear this corporate raiding will the the death of this country. Well, that and our national debt, cumbersome labor laws, outsourcing, and eroding morality. But certainly corporate raiding is in the top 5. :-D