IAH Base…
 

… is a purely speculative dream of which would do wonders if brought to fruition!

In all seriousness though, Houston is growing just as rapidly as DFW in terms of population influx and there is an indisputable ULCC market with Spirit having opened an IAH crew base. In May ‘23 F9 will have crew bases established in the fortress hubs of both DAL and AA. Could UAL be next in the proverbial crosshairs and if so could IAH reasonably become a focus city for F9?

Fingers crossed

We have a hard-on for AA, not UA. PHL, MIA, DFW, LAS, PHX,...

have you seen AAL’s balance sheet?

With 49b in new aircraft acquisitions over the next 5 years I can’t imagine UAL is far behind though.

I haven’t seen AA’s balance sheet but I hear it’s scary.

AA has been through BK before and came out fine. We should all hope they don’t again. They get to destroy labor contracts. Since they don’t have to pay all their creditors, they then have an advantage other airlines don’t. It doesn’t help our situation.

Undoubtedly true. That said, IAH is already a line maintenance facility and would likely have strong demand for South America flying once the XLR’s arrive.

Bumping this incredibly important thread for management to see… make it happen!!

Management already made Texas dreams come true with DFW. Let’s make MDW happen and restore the good will of the people they screwed, then we can talk about everyone else.

Don't hold your breath.

no. Not a dream come true, but it is better then nothing. But what a joke. 20 to open.

That’s pretty standard first bid

Much better than opening with 100 and have a system wide bump and flush drawing down other bases to staff it.

Ya seriously. How else were they supposed to do it?

I keep hearing from several people that Barry comes into new hire classes and says the next new base will be in Ohio which leads me to believe it’s CLE or CVG.

Our class was told they're looking at CVG.

I don’t understand why it would be CVG considering CLE has way more daily operations than CVG.

But CVG=cargo so freighter 321’s confirmed. We’ll be flying combis soon enough.

At the moment CLE does have more but this past summer for several months CVG had a few more when I looked. CVG may be cheaper to operate out of considering is more centrally located in the country therefore having shorter legs and may decrease the need for company paid hotels. Also, I would imagine a much lesser frequency of de-icing in the winter at CVG. The company probably doesn't care but if you had to commute to one or the other, CVG would likely be easier given the high volume of freight.

some things which are factors when deciding a base

hangars available for on-site maintenance, to include jacking plane and tire, engine changes

number of hotel/overnights in that city (base status reduces this cost)

local economy, potential

gates, jetbridges, costs associated with the local airport board/committee/authority

other airlines operating there = not revinventing the wheel, a pool of passengers to steal from, etc.

that said, my crystal ball says CVG

https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/lo...s/95-479010736

https://www.cvgairport.com/about

Pre-Covid article but still good: http://www.usmayors.org/wp-content/u...-July-2018.pdf

Remember Frontier's passenger demographic is not really "brand loyal" they are "cheap loyal" so the more to steal from other carriers, the better. Business 101. McDonalds does it with Burger King (this is why a McDonalds is one block away from a Burger King). Also, big Fortune 500 HQ hub cities typically have employees with families and kids, and some income to travel. Again, Cincinnati.


My crystal ball....

Allegiant has a CVG base there and they’re pretty cheap also. CLE has spirit but they may get smaller with the JBLU merger. Does frontier utilize any hangars besides denver and Tampa ? I thought it was all outside and idk if cvg has any hangar space.

All great points. I wonder what timeline they would be looking to open another base if they did?

Honestly had no idea that NK had CLE. I'd be curious about the hangar space as well (CVG). The whole airport besides the cargo ramp seems very underutilized for that amount of real estate. After Delta and PSA closed its CVG base, I would bet there would be some hanger/ramp space available

Agree. CVG is a growing city and area and is a better base all around for the crew as well. Much easier commute to/from and a much larger pilot pool with the surrounding areas of Day/Col/Lou/Lex within easy drive.

Don’t think Spirit has CLE… maybe you’re thinking of DTW? Unless APC, and myself, isn’t up to date.

United is the only Major/Legacy with a pilot crew base at CLE. It’s very small.

Pretty good articles. wonder when and if they would want to open a new base? does anyone know a timeline or a ballpark idea?

who knows. when you see "Flight Attendant Information Event" in a major city, you are 6-12 months out from a base announcement.

[QUOTE=hercretired;3574515]some things which are factors when deciding a base

hangars available for on-site maintenance, to include jacking plane and tire, engine changes

number of hotel/overnights in that city (base status reduces this cost)

local economy, potential

gates, jetbridges, costs associated with the local airport board/committee/authority

other airlines operating there = not revinventing the wheel, a pool of passengers to steal from, etc.

that said, my crystal ball says CVG

https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/lo...s/95-479010736

https://www.cvgairport.com/about

Pre-Covid article but still good: http://www.usmayors.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Ohio-Metro-Economies-Report-July-2018.

Leave it to the company to pick CLE and deal with lots lake front weather!! Cincinnati is booming, however on paper Cincinnati for us has slowed down significantly. Cleveland has twice as many departures in a day. However, Cleveland and Midway would be awful close. 40 min flight? No Midway I know, but I bet it’s in the pipeline in the future. Can’t grow 3 times our size and not have a good presence in Chicago. I know I know, PHX and LAS are fairly close also.

I thought I’d heard something about BOS as a potential as well, supposedly being said by BB to new hire classes. Is there any latest/greatest with that?

You're right they don't have a CLE base. I meant they have quite a few departures like F9 does. So if they were to reduce the departures with the merger it could increase Frontiers.

Wouldn't be surprised, I think everywhere AA has a base we will too within a few years.

That sure seems to be the trend. MIA, PHL, PHX, DFW.

What else does AA have?

ORD. Oh, wait…

in my opinion it is not "Does AA have a base there" = Yes then Frontier is coming to town

It is ----> "do other majors" have a base or extensive activity there = We can steal from the pre-existing pile. "there" being the city/metro area not the exact airport itself.

Business 101, not "bad"- just business

Oh yeah... my bad. And my apologies to the displaced Chicago crews

Yes, but....

It certainly seems like Frontier is choosing to seek out AA hub cities. Easier pickins'

We were talking About that, and surprisingly we have almost as much if not more overlap with southwest cities; phx, mco, las, den, mdw, dfw

Yeah except Southwest has about 4x the gates as us at every single place. Even in Denver. ALTHOUGH, I did hear recently from some exec that we are keeping our gates in DEN, using the stairs as overflow when they are built, and I wouldn't be surprised if they got AAs gates they are leaving (anyone know who gets those gates?)

SW is 8 times our size. The CP town hall said we are getting the AA gates but we are giving up gates on the west side of A concourse. Just a gate swap.

But the town hall also said we are going to have a thousand planes…so we need those gates! :p