Topic of the Week: Frontier and Southwest Brawl over Wisconsin Fliers

How is it a d**k move by Southwest? Frontier is the spoiled brat who lost big time in MKE, and then decided to do a final “F you” to Southwest by trying to transfer their FF members directly to Delta. Southwest made an offer to MKE customers just like Frontier did. Frontier lost at its own game, which is something you’d think they’d be used to by now.

Brett Snyder, author of the air travel consumer blog Cranky Flier, and CEO of travel assistance firm Cranky Concierge, offered comment on Southwest’s promotion: “It’s a great way for Southwest to attract Frontier loyalists [in Milwaukee] while also encouraging charity – love it.”

I’ll add that Southwest gets bonus points for its 2 free checked bags policy. If I were a MKE flier, I’d be firmly in the WN camp.

Ummm…Southwest didn’t dream this up. AirTran did exactly this to Midwest a few years back. And not only was it not something new they dreamt up, it took them 15 days to roll it out after the Delta/Frontier plan opened up. (Of course I know that Southwest took over AirTran, so the same people who devised this may now be employed at Southwest, but the point is this isn’t new.)

Back when AirTran did this to Midwest, YX did not pull the charity plug. Reports later indicated about 210 people donated YX miles to charity during the period. Of that 210, it’s likely that some (perhaps many?) had already moved their business from Midwest to AirTran, so the number of loyal YX customers who swtiched their business to AirTran as a result of this promotion is likely quite a bit less. It may have largely allowed customers who already left YX to move their miles to the carrier they were already flying. Hard to know exaclty how many new customers FL got, but it likely wasn’t all that many.

This is a somewhat different situation because Frontier has largely closed up shop here and their customers are looking for a new carrier to concentrate business with. But even if Frontier had not thwarted Southwest’s plan, they already lost a big chunk of potential because it took them 15 days to come up with something to counter the Delta offer.

As for who is getting the back eye out of this, I think it is indeed much ado about nothing. The huge bulk of Southwest and Frontier customers are likely not aware of this, or if they do they’ll soon forget about it. For those who do catch and remember the story, there are undoubtedly some who will villify Frontier for suspending the charity program. Others will view Southwest as a bully for trying to manipulate the FF program of a weaker competitor. In fact, the number of purchase decisions affected by this dust-up is probably close to zero.

Bottom line is that Southwest’s ace was trumped by Frontier. The sharp comments I’ve heard from certain Southwest supporters elsewhere supports this. And further confirmation comes from Southwest itself, as they are giving 5,000 RR points to people for proving they are Frontier Early Returns members. (I’m guessing this is a targeted offer, but I’m aware of a half dozen people who were offered this today.) Hard to know what’s really up here. Does Southwest really see Delta as reaping a lot of what Southwest left on the table in Wisconsin? Or is this more about ego and competitive adrenaline?