The folks at Frontier announced their summer schedule yesterday, and there are a whopping 7 new cities joining the Frontier network. You know what they have in common? Not a single one of them is served by Southwest. Ah, very smart.

Here’s the list of newbies:

• Branson (Missouri)
• Grand Rapids (Michigan)
• Green Bay (Wisconsin)
• Long Beach (California)
• Madison (Wisconsin)
• Newport News (Virginia)
• Santa Barbara (California)

As you can see, not only are these not served by Southwest currently, but it’s highly unlikely that Southwest will start serving them any time soon. That’s a good strategy. And it won’t surprise you to know these are all being served by Embraer 190s. Those planes provide much greater comfort than the Bombardier regional jets that United flies on some of these routes and they’re much smaller than anything Southwest operates.

Long Beach is obviously the most exciting to me personally. Six slots were raffled off and Frontier picked up two. Allegiant also picked up two, and I find myself wondering what the heck they’re going to do with them (if anything) while SkyWest and JetBlue picked up one a piece. Southwest certainly won’t be coming in to Long Beach, though United could use commuter slots if they really wanted to fight Frontier.

Branson is the other really interesting one to me. When I visited those guys in 2008, Denver was one of the big markets they identified as being important to them. Sure enough, they’ve found their Denver entrant, the only flight that goes west from the new airport. It’s only operating four days a week for now, and I think it’s a good test. Even better, I know Branson has no qualms about offering exclusivity, so there’s no threat of competition coming in if it works out, at least not for awhile.

Newport News may seem kind of goofy, but I imagine there’s a fair bit of traffic on Lockheed Martin alone between the two cities. It just might work with all the military stuff going on there.

Grand Rapids, Madison, and Santa Barbara already see service from United Express, but that clearly doesn’t concern Frontier, and for good reason. They’re looking at different flight times and sometimes superior aircraft.

Grand Rapids sees a single daily Embraer 170 from United Express. Frontier will run it once a day at opposite times, so it provides a good balance. The equipment is basically the same on the inside, but the different times should help this out.

Madison and Santa Barbara are different. United flies Madison three times a day, but two of those are on cramped 50 seat CRJs and one is on an only slightly less cramped CRJ-700. That’s two long hours on those little tubes. Santa Barbara is similiar although it only sees two flights a day. So now Frontier can come in with one a day to Madison and two a day to Santa Barbara and provide a much better experience for a two hour flight.

They really are focusing on the onboard experience here, which is funny because they still haven’t addressed the fact that the onboard experience is much different on the Airbus aircraft with LiveTV than on the Embraers without. Why do I say they’re focusing on the onboard experience? The new routes are only part of the change here. They are also getting rid of their turboprops entirely – Lynx is toast. Yes, the 11 Q400s will go away and they will be replaced by either Embraer 190s or the smaller Embraer 170, something that hasn’t been seen flying out of the Denver hub yet. In the process, both Fargo (North Dakota) and Tulsa will lose Frontier flying completely.

Why are they doing that? In their words, “The transition to jet service will improve the Company’s ability to operate in highly contested markets in which the Q400 operates at a competitive disadvantage to jet service offered by competitors.” My guess is that they couldn’t find enough profitable markets in the West and figured the fleet was so small, they might as well just kill it off instead of trying to port it around the country looking for markets. Too bad. I like that plane.

They are also getting rid of their 7 orphan CRJ aircraft. They fly a boatload of Embraer regional jets, but they had this once 24-strong CRJ fleet buzzing around for Continental for awhile. It’s now down to 7, and there’s no reason to keep that either, so they can now unload one certificate (Lynx) and two aircraft types.

Lots of changes here, and I like what I see. Adding those non-Southwest competitive markets will not only strengthen the fares they get onboard the local flights, but it will also help with the mix on the flights to big cities. It will help them fight Southwest by not fighting Southwest. See, the more flights they have in these smaller markets, the more flights they can support in the larger ones even with the competition.

This is really the closest I’ve seen to a low cost carrier operating a true hub and spoke model. They have the large markets covered, and now they’re looking at the smaller ones. United should be concerned. I look forward to seeing their response.

Notes:
*Original Frontier Airbus photo via Flickr.
*I recently began a short term social media consulting stint with Long Beach Airport (full disclosure and all). It’s noted on my code of ethics page.

US Airways Pilots Infighting Grows Worse by the Day – BNET
It appears the US East pilots are tired of fighting the west pilots. Now they’re turning on each other. Unreal.

Airline Capacity Cuts Slow in December, Some Carriers See Growth – BNET
December traffic numbers show some interesting trends.

United Pushes International Presence with Muddled Marketing Message in Denver Fight – BNET
United is heading back to its Independence Air playbook in its fight in Denver.

Boeing’s Loss of 787-3 Orders is Good News – BNET
When is a canceled order a good thing? When it allows Boeing to walk away from the 787-3.

Sean Menke Leaves Frontier Airlines, This Can’t Be Good – BNET
Sean Menke is leaving Frontier and Republic, and that doesn’t bode well for the airline.

Frontier has been surprisingly quiet about its latest product change, a new premium economy section called Stretch. I saw it mentioned on their Facebook page, and I believe they mentioned it on their earnings call, but I haven’t seen much else. This will be good news for some and not-so-good news for others. Still, I think it’s a smart move that will have many benefits for the airline.

Stretch is pretty much the same as Economy Plus on United and Even More Legroom on JetBlue. You’ll get 4 more inches of legroom than you get today (36 inch seat pitch) if you sit in the first four rows, but the service is the same as coach. Of course, if legroom goes up on some seats, legroom goes down on the rest of the plane. Good news, bad news, see?

Originally, Frontier had 33 inches of seat pitch (the distance between a point on your seat to that exact same point on the seat in front of you). A year or two ago, they reduced that to 32 inches throughout the airplane. Now with this new change, Frontier says the number of seats won’t change, so as long as you can operate a calculator, you can figure out that this means legroom is going down in the back. They say most seats will have 31 inches of pitch but there will be some with 30 inches and some with 32 inches.

So how do you get those seats up front? Well you have to start by getting an airplane that has them in the first place. The Embraer 190s that are flying for Frontier have them now. The few A320s in the fleet will be done by December 15. The A319s will be done by February 1, and the lonely remaining A318s will be done by December 24 . . . 2010. My guess is they’ll be out of the fleet before they even bother with those. 2009. Looks like it was just a typo on their part.

If your airplane has Stretch, then there are a couple ways you can sit there. Remember, Frontier follows the Air Canada model of having distinct fare classes with different benefits. So if you’re in the top tier class (Classic Plus), you get to sit up there without additional charge. That’s the only way to get up front at the time of booking.

At the time of check-in, there are a bunch of other options. If you’re in the middle tier (Classic), you can sit up there for an additional $15 per segment. If you’re in the cheap bastard tier (Economy), it’s $25 per segment. Remember, that’s per segment so it could be $100 on a roundtrip with a connection.

The only other way to get up front (besides begging the gate agent and possibly showing some skin) is to be an elite member in the EarlyReturns frequent flier program. Actually, only the top tier Summit members get to sit up front, and they only get it at the time of check-in. The lower tier elite Ascent members have to pay just like everyone else. Same goes for the unwashed masses who have no elite status.

Overall, I like this plan. It provides a tangible benefit to those who purchase the Classic Plus fares. Creating value to encourage people to buy up is a good thing. And since they aren’t reducing the number of seats, it takes very little for this to be a revenue winner for them.

There’s also one more benefit. You know all those flights Frontier is operating for Midwest? I bet this ends up being sold as Signature Service when using the Midwest brand name. Of course, that’ll be a shadow of what Signature used to mean, but at least it’s something they can, pardon the pun, stretch across the brands.

[Updated 11/11 @ 746p to fix date on A318 reconfiguration date]

We’ve talked about how Republic’s acquisition of Frontier and Midwest has given the carrier tremendous flexibility in moving its airplanes around between its different subsidiaries. We’ve already seen announcements that Frontier will operate aircraft under the Midwest name, and some of the Republic-operated Embraer aircraft will come to Denver to operate for Frontier. Now, we’re seeing something even more interesting. Republic will have a single airplane operate for both airlines on the same exact day.

Dan Webb picked up on this one in his Things in the Sky blog. Midwest has announced it will fly from Omaha to both Orlando and Tampa using Embraer 190 aircraft. You might remember seeing that Frontier will fly from Oklahoma City to Orlando and Tampa. Hmm. So here’s how the aircraft is scheduled for the Orlando run. (Tampa is virtually identical.)

Midwest Lv Omaha 750a Arr Orlando 1150a
Frontier Lv Orlando 1220p Arr Oklahoma City 215p
Frontier Lv Oklahoma City 250p Arr Orlando 630p
Midwest Lv Orlando 7p Arr Omaha 905p

Pretty crazy, right? I mean, it may make a lot of sense, but I have so many questions. I assume that they can operate both brands out of the same gate in Orlando and Tampa fairly easily, but there is still the potential for customer confusion. And what about the onboard product? If they are going to keep flipping between airlines like this, they’re going to need to seriously consider the product that they’re offering. It should require a closer standardization between Frontier and Midwest, because otherwise they could create some real customer service issues.

Also, how did they decide to make Oklahoma City on Frontier and Omaha on Midwest? I know that historically Omaha has had a decent Midwest presence, but I would hardly call it a stronghold. They’ve apparently created a line somewhere breaking up the territory, I suppose.

I must admit, it’s pretty cool to see an airline try something like this. It really does show the flexibility of brands, but it requires a certain skill when it comes to implementation. We’ll see if they can pull it off while still maintaining a good customer experience.

United Learns That Some People Don’t Want Free Upgrades – BNET
United has now made upgrades free for all elites, but that doesn’t mean everyone is happy. They’re taking away benefits as well.

Slight Gains in Premium Traffic in August – BNET
The IATA premium traffic monitor is out again and the news is, well, slightly better? Yeah, I guess so.

Complaints Go Down as On Time Percentage Rises – BNET
This shouldn’t be a surprise. On-time performance goes up, complaints go down. Go figure.

how not to check a bag – Anti-Bride
Some tips and tricks for avoiding having to check a bag.

Frontier Airlines Tries To Diversify Away From Denver . . . Again – BNET
Frontier has decided to add flights between Oklahoma and Florida. Hmm, this could work.

Lufthansa Brings Back Internet Over the Oceans – BNET
It’s been a long time since you could use the internet on an intercontinental flight. It’s coming back.

Road testing the Cranky Concierge – Gadling
Grant Martin over at Gadling took Cranky Concierge for a spin last weekend. He liked what he saw. Read the details.

Expert travel assistance from a travel dork – Musings of The Global Traveller
Another look at Cranky Concierge. Come on, give it a shot if you haven’t yet.