Whats the deal with F9? Growing or falling? Was Lynx a bad move for them?

 

Reduced growth from around 10% to about 4% for 2008. Restructuring route system to focus on profit goals. Sold 4 old A-318s and A-319s and added 2 A-320s. Possibly trying to get rid of all the A-318s and replace them with A-320s. All future aircraft orders are A-320s.

Lynx has taken a massive toll on F9's balance sheet and operational numbers, and has been a huge short-term drag on the company. Long-term, they believe Lynx will prove its worth and contribute to the operation. Republic operates the jetexpress operation with E-170s but sounds like they want to bring E-170 flying in-house with either mainline or Lynx???

Management wants international operations as primary goal, probably through code-share or possibly in-house.

Fuel kicking everyone's butt, so future plans will evolve around fuel price for Frontier and every other airline.

 

I assume that they went with the 318/319 due to faster delivery times. (318/319 is manufactured in Hamburg vice Toulouse for the 320). IIRC, the difference in delivery times was significant when F9 made the change from guppies to fifi. That, and I'm pretty sure that EADS was cutting awesome deals on the 318/319s. I think that F9 got it's financing from GECAS; I seem to recall them switching their order from V2500s to CFM-56s due to incentives from GECAS.
F9ers, feel free to correct me on the above; I'm going off of memory and haven't followed F9 closely enough to know if the above is correct.

I found an old filing indicating deliveries. F9's fiscal year runs Apr-Mar; they're currently in the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2008. http://www.frontierairlines.com/secf...6/8k022206.pdf
You can see that the transition to deliveries of the 320 from 318/319's been programmed since at least Feb 2006.

 

I believe it had to deal with lower price on the airframes as well. I thought that Airbus was offering a cheaper price because it helped to "spread the wealth" if you will among Airbus plants and helped to keep jobs in Germany.

 

hard to bring the 170s in house when republic owns them...its a long term contract with RAH, not going anywhere unless F9 goes into BK

 

Right..... Just like the 7 year contract they signed with Horizon

 

I did not say F9 was going to bring Republic's Ejets in-house, I am saying they are considering bringing Jet-Express service in-house. Who knows what kind of airplanes they will use, maybe one of the new generation jobs yet to be certified. Don't kid yourself about voiding contracts, Frontier voided the Horizon 11 year contract after 3 years. I believe F9 wants to have full quality control to protect their brand and there is only one way to get that. But anything like this would be part and parcel to getting rid of the A-318s which were supposed to be used in the market development arena.

 

deleted double post

 

Had a chance at an interview last summer. Turned it down even though it was one place I wanted to work. I have been laid off for 9 months once already and did not want to take a chance.

I think Lynx overall is a good idea. They needed a way to feed mainline better on the short hall runs. However, like was said before the toll financially may have hurt more in the short term than was originally expected. I say if they can hang in there for 3 or 4 more years they can recoupe their money invested in Lynx and start turning a profit.

 

I ask because I am RAH and looking for the DEN base but Im like 100th in line. We are being told our ops there are going from growing to stagnant. Hope thats not the case for both my base choice and the overall industry.