Skywest wins Midwest Airlines 50 seat RFP
 

Might be waiting a little while for calls from ATW, Air Wisconsin poolies...

Midwest Airlines Selects SkyWest Airlines to Provide 50-Seat Regional Jet Service
Thursday December 21, 8:42 am ET
MILWAUKEE, Wis., Dec. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Midwest Airlines, Inc. (Amex: MEH - News) today announced that it has reached agreement with SkyWest Airlines, Inc. to operate 50-seat regional jet service beginning in April 2007. SkyWest will operate a minimum of 15 and up to 25 Canadair Regional Jets for Midwest during the five-year term of the agreement.


Midwest Airlines has reached agreement with SkyWest Airlines.

Flying as Midwest Connect, the SkyWest jets will allow Midwest to add new destinations, increase frequency on existing routes and upgrade several regional routes to all-jet service. Under the agreement, St. George, Utah- based SkyWest will provide aircraft, flight crews and maintenance services for the 50-seat aircraft. Midwest Airlines will oversee route planning, scheduling, marketing and sales for the new flights.

The aircraft will be painted in the Midwest Connect livery and feature Midwest's brown leather seats, buy-onboard Best Care Cuisine meals, and popular baked-onboard chocolate chip cookies.
Specific routes from Midwest's Milwaukee and Kansas City bases of operation, as well as schedules, will be announced at a later date. Detailed terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"We chose SkyWest because of their experience, their excellent record of operational performance, and a commitment to customer service that mirrors that of Midwest" explained Scott R. Dickson, Midwest Airlines senior vice president and chief marketing officer. "We're excited to partner with one of the highest quality operators of commuter aircraft to offer greatly expanded travel opportunities to our customers. We're confident this program will be popular with passengers, and successful for both Midwest and SkyWest."
Midwest Airlines' wholly owned subsidiary, Skyway Airlines, also operates under the Midwest Connect brand. Skyway will continue to operate its fleet of 328JET and Beech 1900 aircraft as a vital element of Midwest's route network.

The new regional jet program is an essential component of Midwest's growth plans, according to Dickson. The airline's comprehensive long-term business and strategic plans provide Midwest with a capacity increase of 15% in 2007 and averaging 10% per year over the next three years, as well as significantly greater growth in profitability. The planned expansion will result in an increase of employment of approximately 8% in 2007, not including staffing associated with the new regional jet program. Two additional MD-80 series aircraft and one additional 328JET 32-seat regional jet are also expected to go into revenue service in the first half of 2007.

What does this mean for hiring? Are we talking about 150+ new hires? Good news for SkyWest, but terrible news for AWAC.

Where do they plan on flying? Are we looking at routes like:

DCA-MKE
SYR-MKE
PVD-MKE

Routes like that, or will the RJ replace those awful 10 minute 1900 hops?

Cool this is good news and made my day. skywest is now getting a total of 40 planes in 2007. I just wish it had been 700s.

I wish it had been a union airline

Why would you wish that? Its not like you get paid any more to fly them....

[QUOTE=Slaphappy;94382]Cool this is good news and made my day. skywest is now getting a total of 40 planes in 2007. I just wish it had been 700s.[/QUOTE]

Ya, because you are dumb like most others. RJ's must be limited to 50 seats max. Do you want to spend your career at the "regionals"? You are the epitime of the modern day RJ driver. Have a nice career. Merry Christmas:)

We get an overide and thats just fine by me. The 700 is a better plane to fly and I would rather fly that than the 200.

not me

What a whole $1 an hour? wow dude that would make me want to fly an airplane that is almost 50% bigger too, and I am glad that this "great news" made your day, because the folks at AWAC and XJT who refuse to fly for less were just delt another blow

Congrats on winning this RFP, Skywest. You've already taken the heart of Air Wisconsin pilots, now you get to take the soul...so please don't gloat.

That said, its not SKW pilots' fault ZW management couldn't put together a winning bid in its own friggin state.

I don't really care about any other pilot groups I only care about mine and rightnow my pilot group is getting more rfps than we know what to do with. XJT and AWAC are our competators so It would be silly for me to "pull" for them to get more flying.

Upgrade time just went to 20 months here on the jet and less than 6 on the e120. I'm happy and I know many of you get jelious about that but thats ok. Its human nature to hate the sucesses of others.