Dumbest Cities to Receive Federal Airline Service Subsidies – BNET
And here are the SCASDP grants I like the least. Wish they hadn’t been given the grants.

Finding Help Booking Travel and Managing Irregular Operations -View from the Wing
Gary Leff gives Cranky Concierge a ringing endorsement, and I couldn’t be happier.

Will a New Bill to Boost U.S. Tourism Help or Hurt? – ABC News
I tell ABC News why I’m not a fan of the Travel Promotion Act. Mainly, because it sucks.

fly early, fly happy – BNET
Why flying early in the day is better.

Airlines Shovel Out as Winter Weather Pummels Profits – BNET
Winter storms suck for passengers but they suck for airlines as well. In fact, they’re going to be draining profits, and Continental tells us just how much.

Midwest and Frontier Airlines Have Big Plans for Kansas City – BNET
Midwest and Frontier are finally moving in together in Kansas City, and it looks like the beginning of an experiment to see if they can grow the place.

Continental Airlines to charge extra for exit rows seats – Cleveland Plain-Dealer
I talk about why I think Continental is starting to charge for exit rows and why I don’t mind it.

Alaska Airlines Snubs Wi-Fi Provider Row 44 — Not to Mention Its Passengers – BNET
I waited awhile before commenting on Alaska’s choice to go with Aircell instead of Row 44 for inflight internet. I still don’t quite understand what happened.

For Republic, this was probably a pretty easy decision to make. The order for 40 planes with 138 seats each is worth $3.1 billion at list prices, but that means they probably paid $29.95. Like Airbus when it first tried to break into the US market, Bombardier must have been willing to give a sweetheart deal to anyone who would take a chance.

The C-Series is the first non-Boeing/Airbus airplane in the 100-150 seat category to get an order in the US since Douglas back in the day. So maybe it’s fitting that the interior of the cabin looks remarkably like the MD-80. Try to ignore the hilarious rainbow of colors strategically placed by Bombardier in this shot (Asian, black, white, Indian, young, old, bald, gray hair, blah, blah, blah) and you’ll see that it actually looks like a vast improvement over the MD-80:

The seating is 2×3 across, just as in the MD airplanes, but you can see that the windows are nice and big, and, most importantly, so are the overhead bins. They show roller bags being placed wheels-in, so these should be just like what you’ll find on a new 737 or A320, just with only one middle seat per row instead of two.

The other thing that isn’t like the MD-80 is that the engines are slung under the wings, so you won’t be stuck in row 32 staring at an engine casing. The engines are really what have the chance to make this thing succeed. After heading toward the junk heap of formerly important aviation-related companies, Pratt & Whitney has decided to make a comeback with its Geared Turbofan. This is a complex engine that has never been able to be produced reliably for commercial operations before. (They can do it for military.) Pratt thinks it will make it work, and that means a 20% reduction in fuel burn. If it works, that’s huge, and this airplane will fly long before Boeing or Airbus even get close with their next generation airplane. If not, well, this plane may not fly at all.

So what will Republic do with this? Well, the plan is to put them into service in the branded operation – that means Frontier and Midwest. They don’t have much of a choice here. If any airline decided to outsource its 138-seat flying requirements, then there would be an absolute revolt from the front lines. Most airlines don’t have the ability to do it now anyway.

In the branded world, they won’t say if it’s going to be a Frontier or a Midwest product, but let’s be honest. By the time these things show up in 2015, I’ll put money down there’s really only one brand left (if any, I suppose). But there are some clues in the press release about where they’re taking their product.

The airplane will be configured with 138 seats. The first five rows will be in STRETCH configuration with a few inches more legroom and nothing else. That tells me that Midwest’s Signature Service days are numbered. They’ll end up standardizing with STRETCH as the premium option.

Will these airplanes end up replacing the Airbus fleet? It wouldn’t surprise me if that happens one day, but the C-Series can’t really offer the A320-size capacity that Frontier might want to continue to have at the upper end. For what it’s worth, Republic says that no retirements are planned because of this. Well yeah, it’s still 5 years away.

To sum it up, the planes must have been really cheap, and they won’t be delivered for 5 years. Might as well get in on the action now with the hope that this thing works as advertised. If it doesn’t, then I’m sure they can just walk away. If not, then they’ll be in a good place.

I have a trip coming up in a couple of months that will take me to both Chicago for a reunion of sorts and then Indianapolis to see the in-laws. The Chicago decision was an easy one – I’ll be on the JetBlue flight from Long Beach. But coming back, I had my pick of the litter. In fact, there were three appealing options, all within about $10 of each other:

1. Frontier Lv Indy 645a Arr Long Beach 1015a (1h7m stop in Denver)
2. Delta Lv Indy 7a Arr LAX 836a (no stops)
3. Delta Lv Indy 815a Arr Long Beach 1209p (1h7m stop in Salt Lake)

While I normally want to fly nonstop whenever I can, I’ll take Long Beach over LAX if the connection isn’t painfully long every time. The choice of Frontier over Delta was an easy one as well. Frontier is new to town, and I always want to support the new guy. We need to fill those planes if we’re going to keep them around. (Besides, I love LiveTV.) So I went to Frontier’s website to book.

Frontier deserves kudos for actually showing the full fare amount instead of the misleading pre-tax amount that other sites show. I saw the fare I expected to see, but then I saw more. In fact, I saw this (click to enlarge):

Hmm, I was going to buy an Economy fare, but for only $30 I could get a Classic fare. What was that again? Oh yeah, they have a link. Here’s the comparison:

It was time to break out the math. What mattered here? Well, I wasn’t checking a bag, but if I was, this became an easy decision to buy up to the higher fare. I was definitely going to pay for LiveTV, though I knew we’d only have it on one of our flights. So that’s a $6 savings. I might think about paying up for Stretch at the time of check-in, but I wasn’t ready to count that yet. Really, it came down to the seat assignment. I wanted that seat assignment in advance. Was it worth $24? Yep, I bought it.

While all this was going on, I had completely blocked the other flights out of my mind. Sure, I could have had an assigned seat on Delta at the cheapest fare level, but I had already made up my mind what I wanted to fly. Frontier was able to get an extra $30 out of me, and I had no problem paying for it. It was completely fair and I expected to get more out of it than the $30 it cost.

I hate when airlines throw fees at you every step of the way, but a product like this allowed me to pay for what I wanted up front and be done with it. I wish everyone would do this.

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.

September 2009 Traffic Numbers – BNET
September traffic numbers are out and the results are pretty good for JetBlue and Southwest.

Episode 68 – Cranky Yet Again – Airplane Geeks Podcast
For some reason, they let me back in the door once again for another fun-filled talk about airplanes. Giddyup.

Frontier President Sean Menke Heads to Republic – BNET
Frontier’s chief is heading to Republic to oversee all their brands. Consolidation seems to be happening faster than I thought.

Mokulele and go! Join Forces to Cut Capacity in Hawai’i – BNET
Mokulele and go! are done competing. They’re going to effectively combine to once again make Hawai’i and two carrier market.

Republic Adds 10 More Embraers to its Growing Fleet – BNET
This week, Republic continued to build its arsenal of airplanes here on the mainland. They acquired 10 more Embraers 190s from US Airways.

Why Being Geeky is Cool – JetWhine
Rob has a really nice mention of my Airplane Geeks appearance and he talks about Cranky Concierge.

JetBlue’s All-You-Can-Jet Pass Considered a Success – BNET
Friend-of-Cranky and Aviation Queen Benet Wilson talks to JetBlue SVP Marty St George about the success of the All-You-Can-Jet program.

The A319s will be doing the kind of flying you’d expect from Milwaukee – longer haul and Florida (where volume is king). The flights to Vegas, Phoenix, and LA (including my holiday flight this year) will be on A319s as will flights to Orlando. Later that month, another airplane will start flying to Tampa and Ft Myers.

You’ll remember that the LA flight was supposed to be operated by the long range Embraer 190s, but that’s not the case anymore. So where will those airplanes go? They’re heading to Denver to make up for the loss of the A319s. Those will be spread on flights throughout the Frontier system.

It appears that the A319 flights will be operated as Midwest Airlines flights but they’ll be flown by Frontier crews. Go to midwestairlines.com and do a search. You’ll see they say some flights are operated by Frontier Airlines just like you’d expect to see from a regional carrier. (Those flights don’t show up on frontierairlines.com.) This is just what I thought might happen to Frontier, and I think it’s smart. Putting the A319s on longer haul and high demand routes like Florida in the winter makes a lot of sense. It allows Republic to shift capacity to better match demand now that it has a more flexible fleet.

These flights were apparently just loaded because you can see the Embraers in Denver on frontierairlines.com and the A319s in Milwaukee on midwestairlines.com, but I don’t see them anywhere else yet. I imagine it will be loaded into the other reservation systems this week.

And now, to answer the most important question on all your minds . . . will there still be cookies on the A319? It seems the answer is yes. On the Midwest site, it clearly states that there will be “Best Care Cuisine” on these flights. That includes fresh-baked cookies. Whew. I know you were concerned.