AirTran Reporter

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 341
Location: Indianapolis

Looks like a lot of the airlines are now looking for "dates." One of the ones i was thinking would pop up again was the offer from AirTran to merge with Midwest. I think it is a good fit..they both have the 717s which is good. Then obviously there are the 737s and the Dornier jets but all in all i think it would be a good match. It would give AirTran the "2nd" hub that they need. Although, i wonder what it would do to the plans for IND (or any plans that they might have had). What does anyone else think?

Member

Joined: 15 May 2006
Posts: 728
Location: West Lafayette, IN

I don't know about the merger, but if they do merge, they better never get rid of those cookies on Midwest.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

I think Frontier would be the better match. Look how far they have gone. They have added each other's destinations to their sites. At least I know AirTran has. If they merged I feel pretty confident that IND would become the airline's 3rd hub. That would give them ATL, DEN and IND. That is a pretty complete national network.

Member

Joined: 11 Oct 2006
Posts: 248
Location: Lexington ky

yes that would be good i wonder if airtran adds some east coast destionations it could sell tickets to cun via indy

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Apparently AirTran really wants Midwest. That will likely be the demise of the MKE hub.

Member

Joined: 27 Jun 2005
Posts: 333
Location: St. Louis, MO

If AirTran takes over Midwest, they would keep Milwaukee and probably keep Kansas City right where it is, and then some. I could see most points from Milwaukee being connected to the operation in Baltimore and Ft. Lauderdale almost immediately. Same with the Kansas City services.

The pipe dreams for a hub at Indianapolis would go right down the drain.

The M80's would go away rather quickly (maybe two years, tops) and would be replaced by 737's. I'd even venture to say that the M80's would be "restricted" to Kanasas City and special point to point operations, allowing better integration of the fleet and systems.

I could think of a few carriers that would be interested in the M80's. Don't have to go digging too far down the alphabet for this one.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

I disagree. MKE is a poor location for a hub. Grabbing YX is a quick and easy way to get a number of jets. I think MKE and MCI get hacked. MKE because of the bad location and MCI because the airport design makes for a very poor hub. Let us not forget that MKE has pretty poor O/D numbers. They are at the very low end of the hubs and expansion just would make things worse. I see this as a jet grab.

Member

Joined: 27 Jun 2005
Posts: 333
Location: St. Louis, MO

Milwaukee is a GREAT location!!!!

You have virtually no competition extremely lowering the costs of hubbing passengers.

You have the entire Milwaukee metro area, an established passenger base that will segue way into the AirTran frequent flyer program and northern Chicago burbs to draw from -- an alternative to O'Hare.

Milwaukee's potential runs a marathon around Indianapolis.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Yeah right. That is why MKE barely cleared 7 million last year.

MKE Passenger Stats for 2004 & 2005

The market has 1.5 million people. The population increased by 100,000 over 30 years! The Indianapolis metro area increased by 225,000 in 10 years. The catchment area for IND is over 2,000,000 people. It comes close to 2.5 million if you include Ft. Wayne. The catchment area being the population where IND is the closest major airport. IND runs rings around MKE in terms of passengers served. And in 2008 it will have better facilities as well. It is positioned better for FL connections as well. MKE is too far north and too close to Chicago. You have to look at SLC and MEM to find smaller markets. And at least those two have location as an advantage. MKE does not.

Member

Joined: 27 Jun 2005
Posts: 333
Location: St. Louis, MO

Your knowledge of geography is severely lacking.

If you want to discuss "catchment areas" for Indianapolis...and including a distance of Indy to Ft. Wayne at being over 2 million, then Milwaukee's sits at well over 5 million...and that's being cautionary on my figures.
Now that there is rail service to and from the Chicago area with the airport's new Amtrak stop, the convenience factor weighs in and bumps that number up another 1 million.


Milwaukee is better prepared. The routes and business are already established. There is little or no other competition on the most important routes to make the operation sustain itself.

Statistically, when aligning the number of flights & seats to the number of passengers out of both airports? Milwaukee wins.

Oh, and while we're at it, Northwest isn't starting nonstops to Amsterdam, either.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

I don't care how many seats MKE has. Fact is their O/D is less than here in IND. Nothing else matters. I don't care if their catchment is 500,000 or 5,000,000. People aren't flying out of there in numbers that they do from here. Why is that? If they are so well prepared why do their O/D numbers hurt so bad? Maybe because their appeal isn't as great as the appeal is here.