Originally Posted by zoooropa

As a Frontier pilot I take exception to the above paragraph.

The FAPA LOA with RAH began prior to RAH's acquisition of YX and ended after the actual official YX purchase.

Bedford purchased YX as a backup plan in case he did not prevail in the F9 auction. Bedford had already announced the 170/175 MKE flying months before F9 even had an exit sponsor.

My point is that the YX death spiral had already begun, months if not years before FAPA had any dealing with RAH.

It is impossible to convince the gentlemen at YX that their fate was decided long before skywest showed up, let alone RAH.

It is a very simple math exercise. FAPA was preparing the membership for a CH.11 filing prior to the actual announcement last year, the airline was running low on liquidity and numerous covenants were about to be triggered. One of FAPA's consultants had some fancy graphs that included a historical representation of GDP vs airline profitability. When GDP was above +2.7%, the airline industry as a whole was profitable, when GDP was lower, the industry began to hemorrhage cash.

If you take a look at YX's cost/revenue structure, you will see immediately that it would require a level of positive economic activity never before achieved in this country for that airline to break even.

How could YX continue to be a viable operation, regardless of the existence of RAH?

Why did Boeing take the 717's back? No one talks about this very much, but TH played this card back in 2001 when he refused to make a lease payment on any of the midwest and skyway fleet. He basically said, renegotiate my leases or take the planes back. At that time YX had a bastard fleet of dc9's, md80's, d328's and 1900s. There were no other takers, and the lessors were forced to renegotiate. Timmy tried that tactic again, and it blew up in his face. Boeing obtained market rates for the 717's from another airline, end of story.

I hopped on a YX tangent there because it is a soft spot. FAPA had nothing to do with the demise of YX. We also have had nothing to do with the choice of MKE as a new focus city, but that doesn't make it any easier to go in there and fly when hundreds of professionals are losing their jobs.

Originally Posted by Dirty Rat

WRONG.... It is impossible to convince of us what you are saying because you don't know what you are talking about. Midwest had more cash on hand comparatively than any airline in the country as late as June of 2008. We only had 36 airplanes yet we had 185 million in cash. That is until our friends and co-owners NWA came in and took their share to fund their merger with Delta. After Delta and TPG looted it, there was nothing left except for BB and his sleazy outfit to come in and take it over for his benefit. We lost the 717's due to Timmy low balling Boeing and Boeing walking away. This airline made money for 25 years. It always made money. The way the money was handled is a different story. If we were a losing proposition like you say, MKE would not be such a coveted hub now and we would not have lasted 25 years which is more than I can say for F9.

Originally Posted by zoooropa

While you never know what Bedford is going to do next, one thing is certain.

Replacing expensive 100 seat jets with less expensive 100 seat jets, logical.

Replacing efficient 130-160 seat jets with more expensive 100 seat jets, illogical.

While our 320 rates are not the highest in the industry, they are slightly above average. Yet our block hour cost is the lowest thanks to a well written contract and the number of hours that we fly.

Bedford doesn't want to fly only EMB 190/175/170 because he realizes that some routes can make money with 100 seats while others can accommodate a larger gauge aircraft.

If you are trying to say that the EMB's will be utilized in denver while the buses will be moved to other cities, then you are correct.

If you are trying to say that the EMB's will replace buses and the number of buses flying around will decrease, then you are incorrect. There are actually more buses being delivered, as well as more 190's.

Pilot rates are not the "end all be all" numbers that determine operating cost. It is actually more expensive, at RAH rates, to fly a 190 than it is to fly a F9 318. Again, don't take my word for it, the data is all publicly available.

You also mentioned "a year or so". I believe in one year all FAPA pilots will be recalled and we will be mired in a SLI quagmire, or the dust will be settling from an arbiter's decision on SLI.

Originally Posted by Dirty Rat

Bull. Thousands have all ready lost their jobs thanks to Republic and their willing low ball employees. I should know, I am one of them. Go spout your garbage somewhere else.

Originally Posted by Bwipilot

Haven't seen anyone at RAH complaining about what happened to Midwest :/