Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
ahj2000 wrote:A few reasons:
Historically, they have always been a second carrier at DEN, but within within past 5-10 years WN has exploded in Denver and taken a bunch of ince-loyal Denver pax. The switch to ULCC also alienated many F9 Pax.
When the Midwest merger happened, they looked further out of Denver and Florida, even though they did not keep much of the Midwest network.
In 2012 (11/13?) they started TTN and ILG bases trying to replicate Ryanair's successful secondary airports.
After that, they started some flights radiating from IAD and CVG, iirc, and then the DLartbord approach started. I think Frontier has yet to find a true niche outside of Denver, and they keep trying (FWIW, though, almost every CLT-MCO flight I've passed by walking down Concourse A at CLT seemed like the gate was full, so maybe they are starting to get the hand of it)
They are definitely moving away from hub and spoke, so I wouldn't see a return any time soon.
*All this is based off of my own not grand memory of the event so of the past few years, so some or all of it may be incorrect
WaywardMemphian wrote:Let's see, they tried Dulles out of Memphis, didn't last. Why, Southwest expanded service to Baltimore. They started Dallas service from Memphis, cancelled when they got wind that Southwest was going to Love Field from there. They tried Altanta and it didn't last. They have found it's Denver nonstop popular and upgraded to an A320. Shocked Southwest has let that happen. Now they are trying this and it may have a chance:
https://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2 ... -to-vegas/
ytib wrote:WaywardMemphian wrote:Let's see, they tried Dulles out of Memphis, didn't last. Why, Southwest expanded service to Baltimore. They started Dallas service from Memphis, cancelled when they got wind that Southwest was going to Love Field from there. They tried Altanta and it didn't last. They have found it's Denver nonstop popular and upgraded to an A320. Shocked Southwest has let that happen. Now they are trying this and it may have a chance:
https://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2 ... -to-vegas/
Memphis to Vegas was also tried in 2007 when it was a whole different animal than it is right now.
http://www.denverpost.com/2007/02/14/fr ... his-route/
mcg wrote:Calling Mariner.............
jfklganyc wrote:Their move was the WN buyout. They didnt do it.
What you're seeing is an airline that got pushed out of their hub and now has a lost in the woods approach to new routes. It is a dart board approach with few routes lasting long and few routes flown with frequency.
As others have noted, it has been more profitable for now.
717atOGG wrote:Why has Frontier been trying so many routes recently that haven't worked out? Shouldn't they just stick to a few hubs and make it work from there? It seems like they were doing just fine at DEN, but now it seems like they're trying so many P2P routes.
jfklganyc wrote:Their move was the WN buyout. They didnt do it.
intotheair wrote:The WN buyout is a very important and often forgotten detail in F9's history. In hindsight, that was certainly a mistake, though perhaps the biggest blunder was the delusion that RAH, an RJ operator, was going to somehow save them.
intotheair wrote:looking back now, my God, what a mistake it was to think an RJ operator in this country could run a branded mainline business.
intotheair wrote:The current business model seems to work. Instead of being at the JetBlue level like what they were 10-15 years ago, they're now the bottom feeder of airlines along with NK and G4. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It was probably time that the ULCC model that's been so successful in Europe made its way to the U.S, and it's the only way to differentiate themselves against UA and WN at DEN. There was a time not too long ago when the competition was so bad that UA, F9, and WN were matching each others' fares to the penny on many routes. DEN is certainly a big market, but obviously something had to give with three hubbed airlines in a market that size.
enilria wrote:The legacies have a lot of power. If you only compete with one or two of them, you are at their mercy. This is what F9 always faced with UA. Whenever F9 did well and announced fleet expansion plans, UA just determined where F9 was making money and inserted enough capacity to make sure they could no longer make enough money to justify growth.
commavia wrote:I agree. It seems like Frontier has finally gotten back to a business model that works financially. It's quite different than the one Frontier started with, but at least it's profitable. Personally, though, I'm still unsure of whether Frontier as a standalone brand will exist in 5-10 years - I could easily see it combining with another carrier, with Spirit being the most obvious potential partner. Frontier and Spirit already look and act so similar in so many ways, and I must admit that a combination into one single ULCC flying 200 or more A320s all across the U.S. and into Latin America - if managed well - would be quite the impressive ULCC powerhouse.
commavia wrote:enilria wrote:The legacies have a lot of power. If you only compete with one or two of them, you are at their mercy. This is what F9 always faced with UA. Whenever F9 did well and announced fleet expansion plans, UA just determined where F9 was making money and inserted enough capacity to make sure they could no longer make enough money to justify growth.
I disagree. Let's dispense with the network carrier boogieman myth. What happened to Frontier had virtually nothing to do with United or any other network carrier. In fact, if we go back 10+ years ago, Frontier was actually holding its own against United - to the point that analysts and the press were openly speculating, unrealistically and incorrectly, about whether United would keep the DEN hub open.
The damage done to Frontier was first and foremost internal - the company lost all focus and strategic direction. That facilitated the external shock that sealed the fate of Frontier's original business model - the loss of direction helped facilitate the massive growth of a competitor that undermined Frontier's strong position in its most important market. But that competing hub carrier that inflicted such immense damage on Frontier wasn't United - it was Southwest. The DEN market is not big enough for three hub carriers. In the modern era, it's proven big enough for two, but not three. And as soon as Southwest came into DEN and, in an incredibly short span of time, built it into one of the carrier's largest hubs, the writing was on the wall for Frontier.
intotheair wrote:I agree with pretty much everything you said (as I pretty much always do), though I'm not so certain a F9+NK tie-up is a foregone conclusion. We'll see what happens at the IPO, but if F9 is doing as well financially as they're leading on, there may not be much pressure to sell out right away like with VX. Maybe there would be some synergies with such a tie-up, but with such decentralized route networks, I'm not so sure it would produce as dramatic cost savings as the last several large mergers have.
Not that I'm saying F9 and NK will never get together or that it's intrinsically a bad idea, but I'm remaining cautious as to whether it would be the slam dunk that it appears to be upon first glance, or if they do merge, whether they would merge anytime soon.
Boeingphan wrote:They are just getting ready to launch DSM-LAS which would be the 3rd carrier and at absolute awful times. I'm not sure how 3 players can via and be competitive on that route. I'm all for driving down fares to the secondary markets but with the schedules I'm guessing this is a 6 month trial and error set up.
intotheair wrote:I'm not so certain a F9+NK tie-up is a foregone conclusion.
flyby519 wrote:One huge part of VX's valuation was the gate space in SFO/LAX. F9 has very little of that valuable real estate.
flyby519 wrote:Additionally, a merger of two ULCCs would be expensive, and go against the basic business model in my opinion. NK would be better off, financially speaking, to keep growing on their own without bringing on the expenses of merging another company.
phluser wrote:Boeingphan wrote:They are just getting ready to launch DSM-LAS which would be the 3rd carrier and at absolute awful times. I'm not sure how 3 players can via and be competitive on that route. I'm all for driving down fares to the secondary markets but with the schedules I'm guessing this is a 6 month trial and error set up.
F9's flight schedules change, but the schedule on 10/9-10/11 is:
12:45pm-1:50pm DSM-LAS
7:05am-11:55am LAS-DSM
It doesn't seem bad from scheduling. You know LAS is a 24/7 city and you can get hotel rooms for cheap there? If the issue is an early morning flight out of LAS, spending an extra night in LAS isn't a big issue for most pax.
MCO-ATL has an awful time schedule, at 5:32am. It's likely better for most pax to do a one-way car rental, but anyways, F9 might be repositioning an aircraft for more ATL destinations, and the pax that buy tickets for that particular flight is just a bonus.
commavia wrote:Frontier's business model is built around the relentless pursuit of low costs, whereas Virgin America's definitely was not. Frontier today can run a flexible, asset-light business as a result. That manifests itself very visibly with routes all over the place and flights starting and ending regularly, but what that also means is that Frontier is far less tied to any given market or airport and can adapt to market changes very quickly.