Well, well. It looks like the Republic Airways integration has now begun. In November, we’ll start seeing Frontier A319s flying out of Milwaukee under the Midwest name. Later that month, we’ll also be seeing Republic Embraer 190s come out to Denver to fly for Frontier.
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.