We had some interesting announcements from Republic/Frontier yesterday. Frontier issued a happy press release entitled, “Frontier Announces Summer Schedule with New Service,” while the Republic side of the house’s news was called, “Republic Airways Announces Fleet Simplification Plan,” which is PR-speak for “we’re dumping Lynx for Republic.” Nevertheless, these moves show Republic’s growing influence on the airline, and it also show Frontier’s new strategy – looking for smaller markets that Southwest and United aren’t all that excited about serving. So let’s take a look at the changes.
Eliminating Lynx
Frontier-subsidiary Lynx aviation, which operates eleven Q400s, is being eliminated, and will be replaced with Embraer 170 and 190 aircraft. Service will remain at all Lynx destinations except for Fargo and Tulsa, which will see their last service on April 5th, and Lynx will be completely gone by mid-September. Frontier has had some E190s in Denver for a short while now, so it’ll be interesting to see some 170s come over as well.
At first, this move actually made me chuckle. Let’s review Frontier’s regional carriers. First Frontier worked with Mesa in 2002. But that lasted a whole two years. Next was Frontier JetExpress, which was a service flown by Horizon, then Frontier used Republic E-170s, but that was cut in favor of Lynx Q400s, which will now be phased out for Republic E-170s…again. But to be honest, the move makes sense. The Q400 fleet is small, and Republic can use its own aircraft and crews, and it already has a bunch of E-Jets as well. From an economics perspective, having a small fleet of Q400s just didn’t make too much sense.
When it comes down to brass tacks, however, 175 Lynx employees are losing their jobs. They’ll be offered positions at Frontier and Republic if available.
New Markets
Frontier announced a bunch of new routes yesterday, which is certainly fun to watch. One of them is Ft. Myer’s – that’s been seasonal for awhile, so apparently the market is strong enough for a few flights a week with an E190/A318. But let’s take a look at the brand new markets. All of them involve Embraer 190 aircraft. So now we know what Republic wants to do with those aircraft from US Airways – looking for smaller markets where it can avoid competition. And the 190 seems to be the perfect aircraft to do it.
Anyway, here’s a chart of some O&D data for these markets to/from Denver – the average daily passengers each way, the distance, average, fare, and then an average yield. The data is from the third quarter of 2009.
Branson
Well, Branson is still a very new airport, so there’s not a whole lot of data. In fact, Denver isn’t even listed as an O&D market, so the best we can do is look to Springfield – it has a good yield but it’s a small market, though Frontier is only flying there four times a day. And, if I had to guess, the airport is going to give them a great deal from a fee perspective (probably none), and will advertise it for them as well. But this is great for Branson – there aren’t a whole lot of great connections to the west with existing service, so Frontier can help them there.
Madison/Grand Rapids/Green Bay
I’m going to group the two of these together because they’re both existing Midwest markets that have ERJ service to Milwaukee. Since there’s already good brand awareness here I think they’ll work, as the service to Denver gives existing Midwest fliers better access to the combined route map of both airlines. Plus, the costs probably look good here because Frontier will probably lose existing airport space and employees. Madison and Grand Rapids will get one daily flight year-round, Green Bay will get seasonal service with three flights a week. (It should be noted that Grand Rapids and Madison have Denver service from United.)
Santa Barbara
To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about the market other than United has a couple of CRJs a day there to Denver already. Frontier will have two daily E-190 flights, except on weekends. So maybe they can make it work.
Long Beach
Well, this one is certainly interesting. Alaska gave up a few slots, and Frontier picked up a couple as well. Yeah, it’s a small market (just LGB), but the entire LAX market is big. So, might Frontier cannibalize it’s existing Los Angeles service? Perhaps, but Long Beach is more convenient for many so I think it could work. Plus, because Long Beach is slot controlled, there’s a bit of protection from a competitive standpoint.
Newport News
I’ll be honest, this one had me scratching my head. It’s a small market. But, if we look to very-nearby Norfolk, the market makes more sense. There’s not a whole lot of capacity coming from Frontier with only four flights a week. For all I know, maybe Frontier wanted to avoid Norfolk since it’s a Southwest city.
This market, like Ft. Myers, goes to an A318 in June. That’s nice because passengers get the full Frontier product (i.e. DirecTV), though I have to think this might an operational move more than anything since the longest routes are seeing the A318 service. I’d have to see an airport planning manual to confirm, but I suspect the E190 might not work over the summer on these long routes since Denver is hot-n’-high.
Concluding Thoughts
So, these are interesting moves from Frontier, and I think they could work out. The markets to Denver alone might not be strong, but I think if Frontier can attract connecting traffic, it can work. And Southwest and United probably won’t even touch these markets.
Meanwhile, there’s no official word yet on what the E190s will look like. Right now, the E190s in Denver are wearing Midwest colors. Will the 190s be painted in Frontier colors? Will they get Frontier interiors? Will they ever get DirecTV? Right now, the only Frontier touch the E190s have gotten is STRETCH seating.
Meanwhile, where are those Lynx Q400s gonna end up? Six are owned, five are leased. Horizon? Porter? Someone else?
Photo Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/question_everything/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
Just another note. Republic will most likely dropping flying to Aspen at some point, most likely in Sept. Aspen is a market which has some of the highest yields in the country. The reason for the pulling out of Aspen is because and E170 and E190 lack the performance capabilities to fly in and out of the mountainous airport. The Q400 out performs the every other plane that flies to Aspen. Lack of weight restrictions, enhanced tailwinds capabilities, and the ability of circle-to-land in Aspen are the reason the Q400 belonged in Republic’s fleet. In my opinion with its fuel burn and speed, the Q400 is the only aircraft that should be flying any route under 500 miles in the United States. That just doesn’t fit in with Bryan Bedford’s shiny jet syndrome.
I’m not surprised to see the Fargo route getting dropped. Seemed lie it was either goig ot get droped or cut with a fligh tor three a day added for milwaukee. Sorta an all or nothing choice for Republic. But with Delta , American and United all serving Fargo it was hard to see how Lynx was going to make a go of it.
I’m not sure this dropping of he Q400 is the right move. Frontier just started Lynx a year ago (more or less, correct?). I think they realized that to compete in Denver they’d need to be able to funnel through some passengers going to or from places like Grand Junction, Cheyenne, Billings and others small markets. If Republic is trying to find ways to not go head to head with SWA like the the Newport News Lynx would be the way to do it.
@Larry – that’s very interesting. I guess we’ll have to see what happens then.
@Allen – Lynx started operating in December 2007. I think Republic still sees those small markets as important, but having a small fleet of Q400s when they have 170s available didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
The Denver to Canton-Akron flight has the E190′s. Leather seats are comfortable but no TV and the flights are COLD. Br-r-r. Bring a sweater.
@Larry the Lynx! “That just doesn’t fit in with Bryan Bedford’s shiny jet syndrome”
We love it!
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