New Frontier for area travelers

Local residents continue to benefit from lower airfares   

The pending loss of the Midwest Airlines name has been difficult for some area residents to accept, but if the fusing of the brand with Frontier Airlines creates a more formidable competitor in the Milwaukee market, travelers will continue to benefit from below-average airfares.

“There’s going to be some sadness from seeing the brand go, but I think the most important thing is that we continue to have viable airlines at our airport,” said Paul Upchurch, president and chief executive officer of Visit Milwaukee, the local convention and visitors bureau.

Strong airlines are key to keeping airfares competitive in the Milwaukee market, which makes it easier to attract tourists and conventions to the community, Upchurch said.

Convenience, cost and availability of flights have become the most important factors to both business and leisure travelers, not necessarily the name on a plane, he said.

Midwest forged a strong and important bond with the community during its 26-year history, Upchurch acknowledged.

Once clearly the dominant airline at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport, Midwest has seen its market share deteriorate in recent years. It still holds the No. 1 position at the airport, maintaining a slim lead over Orlando, Fla.-based AirTran Airways, which has been aggressively expanding in the market.

“We are extremely lucky to be talking about lower airfares because of competition,” Upchurch said.

The arrival of Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, the nation’s largest discount carrier, to the market late last year has created even more intense competition at Mitchell, he said.

Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings Inc. announced April 13 that it would eliminate the Midwest Airlines brand and merge the airline’s operations with sister carrier Frontier Airlines. The Frontier name will be maintained. Republic acquired Midwest of Oak Creek and Frontier of Denver in separate deals last year.

“It was going to be cost inefficient to maintain two brands,” said Bryan Bedford, Republic’s chief executive officer. “There will be a natural sense of a feeling of loss. Midwest has been an iconic brand that has been part of this community.”

The decision to eliminate the Midwest brand had area travelers reminiscing about the period when the airline, which previously operated as Midwest Express, served complimentary wine and champagne on all flights, provided free gourmet meals served on fine china and white linen, offered wide leather seating in a two-by-two configuration, and served baked-on-board chocolate chip cookies. All of those amenities, with the exception of the cookies, have disappeared over the past decade.

As a result, Midwest had lost much of its loyalty and allure over the past several years due to service cuts, said Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

Business executives make their travel choices based on price and convenience, not loyalty to a given airline, he said.

“It has become a whole new world for air travel,” he said. “Business executives are going to make their decisions based on what is best for them and their budgets.”

The challenge for Republic will be to win back some of the business executives who have switched to other airlines over the past few years, Sheehy said. With increased competition at Mitchell, it won’t be easy, he said.

“Business travelers have lots of options now, much more so than other cities our size,” he said.

The struggles of the airline industry that first began with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States forced Midwest to make changes to the amenities it offered. Even more changes to the brand occurred later in the decade as the airline dealt with record-high fuel costs.

“It was hard to maintain the essence of the brand,” said Carol Skornicka, former senior vice president, general counsel and secretary for Midwest Airlines, who is now retired. “A lot of the product amenities had gone away and the product had morphed into something else.”

The decision to eliminate the Midwest Airlines name “is obviously sad for those who worked so hard to create the brand,” Skornicka said.

“There’s certainly a regret that the glorious days of the past aren’t possible,” she said.