Since its merger by parent Republic Airways with the late lamented Midwest Airlines, it was inevitable that Frontier Airlines would start to trip marginal or loss leader services out of Milwaukee. Their recent announcements reduce services to two major Wisconsin cities and of course a corresponding reduction in jobs.
Frontier Airlines plans to cut nearly a third of its 67 flights from Milwaukee in November in a move it says will eliminate routes that lost a total of $25 million in the first six months of this year.
Frontier’s service to six cities will be grounded. Frontier is the only carrier between Milwaukee and three of them: Green Bay, Madison and Dayton, Ohio.
The free market reigns…another corporate merger costs Milwaukee and Wisconsin, jobs, services, and revenues. And the growth of Mitchell International, a crown jewel in Gov. Walker’s time as Milwaukee County Executive, takes it on the chin.
And if you want to go to Madison but don’t want to drive, well, I guess you could take the train…
I don]t think there was much direct airline traffic from Madison – Milwaukee – Madison. Consumers were using the Madison Frontier (Midwest) flights to connect with the hub in Milwaukee that gave them an alternative point of connection to a broader network then direct flights out of Madison. While I certainly lament the current demise of the high speed train service between Milwaukee and Madison, there still is the option of taking the Badger bus. They’ve increased their service between Madison and Milwaukee and in Milwaukee have added service to/from the UWM Union on weekends a nice addition to the service. You can see their schedule here: http://www.badgerbus.com/images/BadgerBusSchedule.pdf Once the Milwaukee street car comes into existence, I would hope that the Badger Bus would consider moving their freestanding terminal into the multi-modal terminal where connections might be easier to make.
Your point about it being a link to their hub is why I am surprised they dropped it. Yes the short hub may not have been profitable, but in the whole scheme of things it made it easy to fly to MKE and catch another flight on Frontier. If you have to drive to MKE or ORD, you are just as likely to select a different airline…
OTOH: since my employer has a regional office in Dayton and a major HQ here, the Dayton flight was very important to us. Oh well, we’ll probably use a different carrier now.
Are there no other airlines serving Madison from Milwaukee?