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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
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According to a thread on airliners.net Frontier service to Cancun from Indianapolis is ending June 1st. It is part of a larger Frontier cutback nationally. Looks like they are ending all point to point service. I don't think this is a very smart move considering they are taking a beating in Denver going head to head against United and Southwest. They should be focusing on expanding outside of Denver instead of bringing everything back to it.

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Location: West Lafayette, IN

Is NWA going to add frequency? Anyone...Bueller?

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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
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Location: Indianapolis, IN

Well since they both ran Saturday service nothing is going to happen. I think NW can only run 1x daily to CUN. I think that is all their application allows. They already run an A320 so the only thing they could do is upgrade to a 757 and I doubt that will happen.

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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
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Most of the chatter on a.net suggests that a retreat to DEN is the right thing for Frontier to do. I tend to agree. And I don't believe they're getting clobbered at DEN by UA and WN. They aren't quite big enough to do all the non-DEN point-to-point stuff they've been doing. They were kind of setting up a sort of focus city operation in CUN, but never really got the critical mass to make it work, and didn't have the support services in CUN as they would have had with a domestic focus city. F9 just got a little overextended, and it's starting to hurt them, so they're retreating to what they do best - low fare hub service based in DEN.

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I don't know how wise it is to put all your eggs in one basket when you are the smallest of the three carriers in the trio. I personally think it would be best for them to consider a 2nd hub outside of Denver and position themselves to move if necessary. The DEN market isn't big enough to support the current level of service there. I'd guess they are over served by at least 25%.

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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
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But how much of the hub service there - both F9 and UA - is o&d versus connections? I'd guess that it's a lot. I've always thought of the hub ops at DEN as being similar to DL's ops at CVG, in that it is mostly connecting pax and the service level far exceeds the o&d demand in the market. DEN also acts a lot like MCO in that it is a tourist airport, particularly in the winter; so that would have to be considered in an estimate of whether the market is over-served.

I would bet that they will indeed establish a second hub somewhere and break out of their regional mold. But I think first they have to regroup and get back to basics, which is what they're doing now. Don't be surprised if they tie up - either via codesharing or via a merger - with either JetBlue or AirTran.

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Joined: 15 May 2006
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Location: West Lafayette, IN

JetBlue makes sense with fleet commonality...so they will probably merge with Airtran.

Seriously though, a merger with Airtran would avoid route duplication for the most part.

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Joined: 21 Dec 2007
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Location: Indianapolis International Baggage Claim

Idk,

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Joined: 14 Jun 2006
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Location: IND

Indy wrote:

Well since they both ran Saturday service nothing is going to happen. I think NW can only run 1x daily to CUN. I think that is all their application allows. They already run an A320 so the only thing they could do is upgrade to a 757 and I doubt that will happen.

The Wednesday service NWA did last year BOMBED. I would expect NWA to keep the Saturday only for at least this season (through August).

Something to note about the NW IND-CUN service on Saturdays: at least half of the plane is connection traffic coming from DTW and/or MSP.

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wanderer wrote:

Indy wrote:

Well since they both ran Saturday service nothing is going to happen. I think NW can only run 1x daily to CUN. I think that is all their application allows. They already run an A320 so the only thing they could do is upgrade to a 757 and I doubt that will happen.

The Wednesday service NWA did last year BOMBED. I would expect NWA to keep the Saturday only for at least this season (through August).

Something to note about the NW IND-CUN service on Saturdays: at least half of the plane is connection traffic coming from DTW and/or MSP.

I doubt they get rid of it. In fact they applied to renew the route for a couple more years. The beauty of them flying IND-CUN is that it allows them another frequency into a very restricted airport. I think its limited to 1 flight per airline per airport per day. I think its a 2 or 3 airline maximum per airport. This gives them additional seats into CUN.

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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
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Star News picked up on this story today.


â??We would hope that Northwest, which offers seasonal service now to Cancun, or any of our other carriers will look at the track record of local passenger demand for Cancun and pickup the opportunity to provide year-round service to our market," said airport service director Chris Matney.


Source: http://www.indystar.com/apps/p...ID=/20080321/LIVING03/80321043

There just wasn't enough demand for two flights a day. Losing the Frontier service will be good for NW. But I doubt they pick it up year round.

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Joined: 14 Jun 2006
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Location: IND

Indy wrote:



I doubt they get rid of it. In fact they applied to renew the route for a couple more years. The beauty of them flying IND-CUN is that it allows them another frequency into a very restricted airport. I think its limited to 1 flight per airline per airport per day. I think its a 2 or 3 airline maximum per airport. This gives them additional seats into CUN.

I believe you have to reapply annually or every few months.

As for the restrictions, I know during peak times (read: Spring break), Northwest has about five flights to CUN on saturday from MSP, three from MEM and four or five from DTW as well as the flight from IND and one from MKE. CUN is currently building a new terminal, and often has ATC delay programs every saturday.

Watch what times the Frontier and NW flight leave compared to scheduled....you will see they have delay "wheels up" times due to the ATC flow programs.

I have a felling with fuel at $110 a barrel, the lack of competition in the market and the lift NW has out of its hubs, IND may lose its seasonal service.

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I don't believe the multiple flights to CUN from a single airport for a single airline is correct. Unless they changed the rule in the last year or two. And the application is renewed every two years. The renewal is automatic with the submitted request. NW just recently resubmitted their request for the right to fly IND-CUN for two more years.

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I also beg to differ on the level of success of the CUN flight. When NW originally applied for and started this route it was Saturday only service that started around the 1st or 2nd Saturday of January and ran through some time in April. It had since been extended all the way through the end of the NW summer schedule.

BTW I checked and I see where NW is running 4x today to CUN. I wonder if the rules changed with the opening of the new terminal down there? The rules used to be far more restrictive.

But in any case I doubt they drop the route from IND. If I remember correctly from a news story that ran about CUN service from here it was said that something like 800 people a week make the trip between IND and CUN. I'm sure that is heavily seasonal. Certainly enough to support one carrier. Not enough in my opinion to support two. No longer having to split passengers with F9 should encourage NW to keep the service here.

BTW I wasn't aware until just now that they still run the service out of MKE as well.

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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
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Frontier has officially notified the DOT that they have ended IND-CUN service. I believe this surrenders their right to fly that route at the end of May of this year making that slot available to another carrier if someone were to be interested in the route.

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Joined: 11 Oct 2006
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Location: Lexington ky

since ATA quit flying did that surrender there slot

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ATA informed they were giving up the route when F9 was applying for it. So they gave it up a while ago.