More airlines ditch first-class seats as fliers get stingy – USA Today
USA Today did a story on the disappearance of First Class, and I weighed in on my take.

Frontier Airs its Issues on Prime-Time TV. Smart Idea. – BNET Headwinds
Undercover Boss has always been a guilty pleasure kind of show, but I thought Frontier did a good job of taking advantage of the opportunity this week.

The Return of Premium Air Travel May be Overstated – BNET Headwinds
IATA’s premium traffic monitor is out and the news is, well, ok. Premium traffic hasn’t fallen but the climb isn’t coming back.

JetBlue Tries to Build Buzz With a New Brand Campaign – BNET Headwinds
JetBlue has a new ad campaign out and it’s about time the brand gets a little refresh. Good stuff.

Delta Earnings: Great Numbers — Now You Have To Be Realistic with Employees – BNET Headwinds
Delta kicked off earnings season with great numbers (as did everyone), but all this talk of consistent profitability rings hollow.

American Pursues Low-Cost Carrier Partnership with WestJet – BNET Headwinds
American has decided to link up with all kinds of low cost carriers, the latest is WestJet.

By now, you undoubtedly know that the United and Continental merger has officially closed and United Continental Holdings is now the parent company of both airlines. But that was actually the third most interesting story on Friday, and of those three, the merger actually has the least impact on you as a traveler. The other two, one involving American and the other Frontier, have the biggest immediate impact.

See, the merger closing means absolutely nothing for you as a passenger. Ok, maybe that’s not true. It did mark the start of free beer and wifi in United’s Red Carpet Clubs. Nothing else has happened to impact you yet. That’s all coming later, and I’m eagerly awaiting details on what will happen and when. But for now, it’s all a financial deal and that’s boring. Let’s talk about the other two.

Use BA miles on American Transatlantic Flights and Vice Versa
To paraphrase Vince Vaughn from his earlier, funnier days, British Airways and American are now all growns up. Friday marked the day that American AAdvantage members could earn and use miles on British Airways flights over the Atlantic.

To those who don’t fly American, this may sound insane. You United Mileage Plus members and Delta SkyMiles members have been able to do this with your European partners for years, but BA and American have always been a pain in the butt. They didn’t allow “earning and burning” on each other’s flights because they weren’t able to get antitrust immunity. Nothing like punishing your customers, but hey, that’s all behind us now, right?

And yes, I have proof this works. My parents had been waiting for the day to book a planned trip to Europe in March, and I called American first thing on Friday to put it on hold. The agents said they had been receiving a lot of calls, and they seemed pretty happy about that. I got the seats for my parents without any trouble. Happy day.

The reaction has been mixed in the mileage community, but as usual, I look to Gary Leff at View from the Wing for his opinions as an expert. There are some goodies in here for BA Executive Club members, but in general, this is a very welcome move (except for those pesky fuel surcharges).

Midwest is Finally Dead
It seems like such old news, but Friday also marked the official (in my mind) death of Midwest Airlines. Oh sure, it had been left for dead years ago, but up until Friday, you could still book a flight at midwestairlines.com on flights with the old YX code. On Friday, the switch was flipped and that was gone. This is all good news for travelers, and to celebrate, I’m bringing back an old favorite image.

I’m very happy about this one, because it means all reservations are on a single (Frontier) system now and there are no confusing crossover issues. I had all kinds of problems before with a Midwest record locator on a Frontier flight operated for Midwest or something like that.. It was just a mess. No more. Thank you.

This does not, however, mark the official end of the Midwest Airlines website. It’s still hanging around for Midwest Miles redemptions for now, but that’s about it. If you try to book a regular flight, it redirects you to frontierairlines.com.

I suppose it’s an appropriate end for Midwest. The airline had long ago been forgotten about by most people in the US, so the fact that its disappearance was overshadowed by other news is quite fitting. It is important to remember that the one thing most people remember about Midwest, the cookie, will continue to live on. So this is all good news, except for those people who used to work for the airline, I imagine.

I’ve seen countless articles/posts/interviews talking about how the Southwest/AirTran merger is going to be terrible for every other airline out there. The newly-created behemoth will dominate and crush everyone around. Seriously? Don’t believe conventional wisdom here. This merger is actually good news for most airlines. And one of the biggest winners might be Frontier.

For Frontier, there are a couple of things that should help relieve some pressure in both its hubs. We can start with the most obvious place for gains to be made, Milwaukee. Frontier, Southwest, and AirTran have been in a royal rumble in Milwaukee for awhile now. There isn’t enough room for the three of them, but nobody wants to blink first. Now, there will only be two airlines and rationalization of the network can’t be far behind. Here’s a fancy-pants Venn diagram showing where things stand today:

Southwest and AirTran only overlap on four routes out of Milwaukee (three of which Frontier flies as well), but on those, capacity will likely come down and that can only help the situation. But that’s only part of it. There are another five or six cities that AirTran and Frontier both serve from Milwaukee that I expect will only be served by Frontier in the future.

Right now, AirTran has a deal with SkyWest to fly regional flights in Milwaukee. There is no way that deal is surviving the merger, so my guess is service to those cities will quietly disappear. Maybe we’ll see one or two stay on with larger aircraft (St Louis?), but the rest will probably go away.

Lastly, there’s DFW. Southwest will not serve DFW when the merger is complete, so the current flight from Milwaukee will go away. Maybe it will eventually be served from Dallas/Love, but that won’t be legal until 2014.

So in Milwaukee, things should start to look better. And then there’s Denver.

Frontier and Southwest are competing in Denver, but AirTran has only a token presence. Why is that a good thing? Distraction. Much of Southwest’s growth has been focused on Denver, and now Southwest will be busy bringing AirTran into the fold. I don’t expect we’ll see nearly the focus on Denver as we’ve seen before.

That’s bound to be good for Frontier. (And yes, United’s distraction from its Continental merger will help there as well.) But Frontier isn’t the only beneficiary. Sure, distraction can help everyone except for Delta, which will be the focus of the distraction at its Atlanta home base. But what’s the chance that Southwest continues to serve all those smaller cities from Atlanta that AirTran serves today? Delta might end up with more frequency to compete against on big routes but competition might disappear completely on smaller routes. And that’s where legacy carriers enjoy the highest fares.

Oh, and what’s the chance that AirTran’s challenge to Allegiant in Orlando with sub-daily flights sticks around? I’d be surprised to see Southwest stick with that strategy. Spirit will probably be happy as well assuming that Southwest’s higher costs make it easier to Spirit to compete in the Caribbean. In other words, there are potential opportunities for just about everyone here, even Delta.

As the Regional Flight Market Shrinks, Airlines Need New Strategies to Survive – BNET
Regionals have had a rough few years, and now they need to plot their strategies for survival. Some are more creative than others.

Summer air travel’s up, and so are fares – Marketplace
It’s summer, so it’s time for the obligatory “summer travel woes” stories. When Marketplace calls (or anything else I hear on NPR), then I know it’ll be a more interesting piece. Of course, it was.

cranky flier + anti-bride toast swiss international inaugural sfo flight – AntiBride
I went up to SFO for the inaugural Swiss flight and met up with AntiBride.

Atlantic Southeast Rebrands Despite the Fact that It’s Rarely Seen in Public – BNET
Atlantic Southeast has just finished a massive rebrand. Even though you’ll rarely see them in public, this is a good idea.

American Flees Washington-Boston Routes As JetBlue Comes In – BNET
You knew that slot swap would make American reduce flights in Washington, but did you think they’d basically hand over Boston to JetBlue?

Can you charm your way into upgrade? – CNN.com
It’s the age-old question – how can you get upgraded? It’s not easy, but it does happen on rare occasion.

Frontier vs. Expedia and Orbitz: How It Hopes to Lure Travelers Back to Direct Booking – BNET
It’s really more about Frontier setting expectations better and trying to get people to book direct.

May has been a really tiring month of travel for me, but the trips have all had good reason. This one was for the Regional Airline Association 2010 convention in Milwaukee. Since I was speaking on a panel, they purchased my tickets for me.

I opted for Long Beach on the way out, but I went for LAX on the way home. The flight via Denver would have left at 6a, and I had no interest in a flight THAT early. Instead, I took the nonstop out of Milwaukee an hour later.

As usual, I left home for Long Beach Airport an hour before departure. With only one security gate open, it took about 15 minutes to get through. I then sat for a few minutes before we boarded the rare A318.

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May 24, 2010
Frontier 196 Lv Long Beach 645a Arr Denver 1005a
Long Beach (LGB): Gate 22, Runway 30, Depart 2m Early
Denver (DEN): Gate A31, Runway 16R, Arrive 4m Early
N804FR, Airbus A318, Mo & Jo the Red Fox Cubs, ~75% Full
Seat 11F
Flight Time 1h52m

Frontier schedules a 645a departure, but the noise ordinance doesn’t allow a departure until 7a, so we sat at the end of the runway waiting. Once in the air, it was a quick ride over to Denver, helped by LiveTV (yep, $6 from me since this wasn’t a Classic fare). We had one drink service and that was about it until they cleaned up for landing. What were they doing? One flight attendant was in the back playing solitaire on his laptop.

They cleaned up the plane at the top of descent because it was expected to be a rough ride. Boy, was it. Denver had howling 35 kt gusts, but that was nothing compared to our descent over the front range. At one point, we had a good 10 seconds of at least moderate turbulence if not more where people were screaming.

After that, it was just a normal choppy Denver arrival and we taxied to the gate on time. I had a 25 minute connection and with the gate only a couple doors down, it gave me a couple minutes to catch up on email. Soon we were boarding.

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May 24, 2010
Frontier 370 Lv Denver 1030a Arr Milwaukee 144p
Denver (DEN): Gate A27, Runway 17L, Depart 3m Early
Milwaukee (MKE): Gate D49, Runway 7R, Arrive 3m Early
N924FR, Airbus A319, Klondike and Snow the Polar Bear Cubs, ~100% Full
Seat 13F
Flight Time 1h53m

We had one of “those” passengers on taxi out who refused to get off her phone. The flight attendant told her once and she hung up. Then she had the nerve to make another call. Since she was in the exit row and this happened during the safety briefing, the flight attendant stopped the briefing and said, “we’re waiting for you, ma’am.” She finally hung up, though not after getting some scowls from fellow passengers.

The First Officer warned us that it would be a bumpy climb, but after our roller coaster over the front range, I figured it wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad. I was right.

I paid for LiveTV again, though it made me realize that they could probably do better by doing a connecting flight bundle – $9 for two flights or something like that.

I had my customary ginger ale and was surprised when they also passed out the warm chocolate chip cookies. I guess this was a Midwest flight. Soon enough, it was time to descend.

This was a much nicer Milwaukee experience than my last one in December. I was on my way quickly and hopped on the city bus into town. (I love public transit.) The convention was a good one.

When it was time to come home, I went to check in and found myself in a world of trouble. I had the same confirmation number as my flight out, but the Frontier website didn’t recognize me. I tried multiple times before giving up and calling Frontier.

A nice agent answered and explained that my flight was actually “operated by Frontier for Midwest.” Um, ok. My flight out was operated by Frontier for Frontier I guess, but I didn’t know it. I had to go to Midwest’s website to check-in. Whew. I can’t wait until this integration is complete.

I checked in but since I was on a cheap ticket, no seat was assigned. They assigned me an aisle. Boo. I’m a window guy. And sadly there were no windows left . . . except up front. So I decided to pay $25 for a few extra inches of legroom in the Stretch seating section. I don’t really care about the extra legroom, but it is nice to be able to get out without making the entire row get up.

The next morning, I woke up early, hopped in a cab to the airport, and made my way through security without any trouble.

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May 27, 2010
Frontier 960 Lv Milwaukee 705a Arr Los Angeles 919a
Milwaukee (MKE): Gate D43, Runway 25R, Depart 3m Late
Los Angeles (LAX): Gate 67B, Runway 25L, Arrive On Time
N936FR, Airbus A319, Earl the Walrus, ~100% Full
Seat 2A, Stretch Seating
Flight Time 3h54m

The flight boarded as before, with people who didn’t have carry-ons going first and then from the back to the front. It seems to me that Stretch seating people should be able to board first as a perk, but instead, they board last.

I did find an overhead bin spot and took my seat with ample legroom. We took off into the morning sky and winged our way to the west coast. TV was free on the flight, because they needed a software upgrade for the system and it hadn’t been given yet. So they aren’t charging people until the plane makes its way to Denver for the upgrade.

I slept a little but not much. The last half of the flight was spent talking to a 20 year captain at Continental. That was an interesting discussion and it made the flight go by very quickly. I did a little work on my computer before being barked at to put my electronics away. (This was before the announcement was even made to put stuff away.) We landed in a surprisingly rainy LA and I headed home.