Frontier, Nonstops to LAX, Omaha a focus city, etc.

NovakOmaha · Post by **NovakOmaha** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:28 pm

http://omaha.com/article/20110212/MONEY ... since-2001

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 1:07 am

Three day weekends o' fun.

OMATOL · Post by **OMATOL** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 11:09 am

Nice headline in the article. Omaha has a had non-stops at least twice to the Los Angeles area since 2001. Midwest flew a daily OMA-LAX for about a year around 2007 or so. ExpressJet flew to Ontario for a period of time as well.

omaja · Post by **omaja** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 8:07 pm

Long overdue. Â Growing in Omaha is going to be much easier than Denver, Milwaukee or Kansas City.

Hopefully it actually becomes a reality. Â Flights to BOS, SFO and others would be amazing.

icejammer · Post by **icejammer** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 8:24 pm

omaja wrote:Long overdue. Growing in Omaha is going to be much easier than Denver, Milwaukee or Kansas City.

Hopefully it actually becomes a reality. Flights to BOS, SFO and others would be amazing.

Boston wouldn't be so surprising, considering Midwest offered that for a number of years. Â Regardless, all of those mentioned in the article would be great non-stops if they transpire.

Omababe · Post by **Omababe** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 8:32 am

It's about time!

Changing in Denver to get to El-Lay is a pain!

Now let's see how the pricing goes ...

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 8:43 am

Omababe wrote:Now let's see how the pricing goes ...

Out of curiosity, what additional price or percentage do you consider fair for a direct flight?

Omababe · Post by **Omababe** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 8:52 am

Big E wrote:
Omababe wrote:Now let's see how the pricing goes ...
Out of curiosity, what additional price or percentage do you consider fair for a direct flight?

For personal travel to the LA area, I think that anything $300-ish is fair for such a flight, and you can almost always get those if you look around. Southwest seems to run anywhere between the mid $200s to the $400-ish lately.

For business, I have to use a TA who will usually select the lowest priced flight. Lately to El-Lay it's been Frontier via Denver on a teeny-tiny plane on the Omaha to Denver segment. If the direct non-stop is competitive, I can probably get that option, but if skipping the stop doubles the price, no way.

mrdwhsr · Post by **mrdwhsr** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:45 am

$229.90 each inclusive of taxes and fees was the introductory round-trip fare offered last fall. Travelocity is quoting $509 for the same flights today (2 seats left) but under $350 for July. Looks like we have a bargain air-fare for spring break. Â 8)

omaja · Post by **omaja** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:23 pm

icejammer wrote:
omaja wrote:Long overdue. Growing in Omaha is going to be much easier than Denver, Milwaukee or Kansas City.

Hopefully it actually becomes a reality. Flights to BOS, SFO and others would be amazing.
Boston wouldn't be so surprising, considering Midwest offered that for a number of years. Regardless, all of those mentioned in the article would be great non-stops if they transpire.

They did? Â I flew direct/no change of plane OMA-MCI-BOS, but I don't recall them offering OMA-BOS nonstop. Â The market between Omaha and Boston seems a little on the small side for a nonstop (only 75 passengers daily each way in Q2 2010). Â A once-daily Embraer 170 or 190 would definitely compliment existing service via Milwaukee, though, in addition to stimulating the market somewhat. Â I would certainly love it. Â :;):

Big E wrote:Out of curiosity, what additional price or percentage do you consider fair for a direct flight?

Just using OMA-BOS as an example, Delta had 27 percent of the market with an average fare of $221 in Q2 2010. Â I'd say $280-300 or so round trip is very reasonable for a nonstop. Â Considering I have paid upwards of $450 for a connecting itinerary on random, non-peak travel times, the market can likely be stimulated quite a bit if they price nonstops to the coasts reasonably. Â San Francisco, Seattle, Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Baltimore, Portland, Sacramento, Boston and Philadelphia all have pretty sizable markets to Omaha. Â

Will be interesting to see how serious Frontier actually is about growing in Omaha. Â There is definitely market share up for grabs, especially without a very substantial Southwest presence (unlike DEN, MKE and MCI). Â Now if only Frontier would join an alliance so the miles are actually worth a little bit more.

icejammer · Post by **icejammer** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 8:58 am

omaja wrote:
icejammer wrote:
omaja wrote:Long overdue. Growing in Omaha is going to be much easier than Denver, Milwaukee or Kansas City.

Hopefully it actually becomes a reality. Flights to BOS, SFO and others would be amazing.
Boston wouldn't be so surprising, considering Midwest offered that for a number of years. Regardless, all of those mentioned in the article would be great non-stops if they transpire.
They did? I flew direct/no change of plane OMA-MCI-BOS, but I don't recall them offering OMA-BOS nonstop. The market between Omaha and Boston seems a little on the small side for a nonstop (only 75 passengers daily each way in Q2 2010).

Yeah, back in the late 90's and early 2000's, Midwest had a nonstop OMA-BOS; I don't recall if it was offered daily or just certain days of the week.

joleo · Post by **joleo** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 7:23 pm

icejammer wrote:
omaja wrote:
icejammer wrote:
omaja wrote:Long overdue. Growing in Omaha is going to be much easier than Denver, Milwaukee or Kansas City.

Hopefully it actually becomes a reality. Flights to BOS, SFO and others would be amazing.
Boston wouldn't be so surprising, considering Midwest offered that for a number of years. Regardless, all of those mentioned in the article would be great non-stops if they transpire.
They did? I flew direct/no change of plane OMA-MCI-BOS, but I don't recall them offering OMA-BOS nonstop. The market between Omaha and Boston seems a little on the small side for a nonstop (only 75 passengers daily each way in Q2 2010).
Yeah, back in the late 90's and early 2000's, Midwest had a nonstop OMA-BOS; I don't recall if it was offered daily or just certain days of the week.

Nope...never a OMA-BOS nonstop. Â One stop in KCI on Midwest but that was it. Â Maybe you're thinking of the 5x weekly flight on Midwest from OMA-EWR that lasted a few years in the mid 90's.

icejammer · Post by **icejammer** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:56 pm

joleo wrote:Nope...never a OMA-BOS nonstop. One stop in KCI on Midwest but that was it. Maybe you're thinking of the 5x weekly flight on Midwest from OMA-EWR that lasted a few years in the mid 90's.

Hmmm, now I'm going to have to dig out those old flight itineraries...

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:38 am

One of these days... to the moon!

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110216/N ... vel-coming

omaja · Post by **omaja** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 2:26 pm

DepartedFlights.com has some old route maps showing that Midwest started service to Omaha in 1995 flying OMA-DCA/EWR/LAX/MKE/SAN. By May of 1997 they added Kansas City and in 1999 they dropped San Diego in favor of Orlando. The direct OMA-MCI-BOS flight was pretty seamless so it almost seemed like a non-stop. The NYC-Omaha market is substantially larger than Boston (around 400 passengers daily to NYC compared to 130 or so to Boston), so it would make sense that they operated EWR non-stop.

Omaha is a solid market from every major coastal city so it is a little surprising that it has had such on-again off-again service to California, Florida, NYC, etc. Sucks to be sandwiched between Chicago and Denver (and Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis...) I guess.

mrdwhsr · Post by **mrdwhsr** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 4:10 pm

The Frontier flights to/from Los Angeles on March 11th/18th were full. Plenty of demand, but since Omaha is not a hub, there are some details to be worked out. There was no ice on the outbound flight which left 15-minutes late..not really a bad turnaround performance by the Omaha crew considering the flight from Orlando was closer to 30-minutes. I'd give Frontier a B+. I'm sure they will improve performance with some more practice. The plus for Omaha - quite a few on the flights were from the Des Moines area.

omaja · Post by **omaja** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:15 pm

OmahaBen wrote:
mrdwhsr wrote:The plus for Omaha - quite a few on the flights were from the Des Moines area.
Considering Des Moines is the 2nd most expensive airport in the country...not surprising.

Where did you see that? Â Maybe top 10; doubtful it has ever climbed as high as number two though.

joleo · Post by **joleo** » Tue May 03, 2011 8:26 pm

Frontier Airline's Omaha-Orlando (MCO) will now become daily nonstop (except Sunday's) starting on October 6th of this fall. Â Service is on a 100 seat Jet with 2 x 2 seating. Â

The service did really well this past winter at 3 times or 4 times per week service so it will be 6 times per week starting this fall. Â

No word yet on weather Omaha-Tampa/ St Pete will return. Â Should know in a couple of months.

almighty_tuna · Post by **almighty_tuna** » Tue May 03, 2011 9:18 pm

Thanks, Joleo! Definitely good news.

omaja · Post by **omaja** » Wed May 04, 2011 1:16 pm

joleo wrote:No word yet on weather Omaha-Tampa/ St Pete will return. Should know in a couple of months.

They are suspending Milwaukee-St. Petersburg so I don't think we'll see OMA-PIE return. Â No sense in keeping a station open to serve less-than-daily service from Omaha.

Post by **Coyote** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 3:46 am

Frontier cuts back on nonstop flights

Michaela Saunders WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER wrote:Frontier Airlines will cut its nonstop routes from Omaha to Los Angeles and San Diego in mid-August. The Omaha Airport Authority and Frontier, based in Denver, announced the changes Friday. Frontier said high gas prices made focusing on the new market expansion in Omaha difficult.

omaja · Post by **omaja** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 10:17 pm

Sorry to hear that. But honestly they needed at least one daily nonstop flight to either city in order to compete. Three times a week just doesn't cut it for frequent travelers who are fiercely loyal to United and Southwest on Omaha-West Coast routes.