Not all airlines are doing bad!

Timbuff10

Timbuff10

Well-Known Member
For people in search of a career in aviation iit has been pretty easy to read about all the doom and gloom that the industry is currently experiencing. Well, I figured I would share a positive story that you may be interested in.

As some of you know, I work for Denver based Frontier airlines as an ops agent up in the tower here at DIA. Well we have managed to make money and be profitable for the past few quarters and on Friday every employee was rewarded for their hard efforts with a bonus! Yes, there are airlines giving bonuses instead of laying employees off. I must say it was a pretty good feeling. All those times I spent a few more minutes playing with the numbers to get that better trim finally paid off a bit.

Hopefully this is a sign of things to come for the industry as a whole.

Well back to work, the MCO release is hot off the printer!

Tim Samples
 
Well isn't Frontier one of the airlines doing better then the majors. From what I hear the low-cost carriers are stealing the major routes. On the JetBlue flights I've been to every seat is taken. When I traveled United (3 months before 9/11), there were like 20 people on the airplane.
 
Well, I kinda consider Frontier to be a major airline doing better than most of the other major airlines. I don't know all the financial facts about other airlines but I do know Frontier is holding its own while managing to grow at a pretty good pace.

As far as low cost carriers stealing routes from airlines like United, Frontier started off serving cities that no one else flew to so many of the routes were not stolen but created. Right now we have many flights that United doesn't fly on but if you want to look at it like that then you need to look through both sides of the window. Ted/United is trying to start up the same routes that we created by trying to fly the DEN-Mexico destinations among others.

I've been on plenty of United flights and plenty of Frontier flights. If given the choice I will take F9 any day if the option is available. And yes that includes United F-class.
 
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From what I hear the low-cost carriers are stealing the major routes.

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Stealing? Two companies offer basically the same product, and the consumer choose one over the other and it's called stealing? Theft involes taking property, I didn't know airline routes "belonged" to anybody.

Time for ECON 101.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
 
I think I know where he is coming from and I think tradition has alot to do with it. I think Southwest has alot to do with it too. Frontier is not Southwest though, far from it.

The funny thing is, before I started working for F9 I just considered them another LCC. After working there for a while and actually flying on Frontier my opinion changed big time. I was blown away by the service and the product that Frontier offers and I think most of our pax are too!

Kinda like, you know how when you go to McDonalds or Panda and you get some pissed off employee that takes your order but can't or doesn't want to speak english? Kinda ruins your whole experience. Then to top it off when you get a burger that was old, cold, crushed, sitting under the lights for so long, you are pissed. Well, our FA's are great and our burgers don't sit under the lights at all. Everything is fresh unlike most of my experiences on Northwest and United.
 
It's great to work for a growing company and have all the employees striving for a common goal. No company can be successful if most of the energy is expended on internal fighting between management and workers.

That's what went on for years at UAL and that's one of the major reasons they were headed for Ch. 11 even before 9/11. I saw it at TWA back in the 70s.

The current industry chaos will be a golden opportunity for some companies, like Frontier. That's why Branson wants in.

Too many of the legacy carrier employees think this is all some kind of union-busting ATA plot and it will all go away soon. The truth is that those who aren't rowing hard right now may not get to see the other side of the shakeout, at least not with their current employer.

BTW I don't know if current Frontier employees appreciate the legacy of the original Frontier. It was one of the finest airlines in the industry. Very profitable. Good service. Very high morale. Then de-regulation hit and their management made all the wrong moves. Frontier was gone almost overnight. It got my attention because Frontier was one of my two top choices to make a career with. It was just luck that I ended up somewhere else.
 
I must say, Frontier is a great airline and I always enjoy flying with them. The people who work there always seem very happy and have a good time at work. I always try to fly Frontier when I need to travel somewhere. Great Airline.
 
I didn't really mean stealing like that. I actually meant taking over. Overcoming the major's routes.
 
An airline is called a "major" based on how much money it makes. Hence even though we call SWA a regional....it's a major. IIRC.
 
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An airline is called a "major" based on how much money it makes. Hence even though we call SWA a regional....it's a major. IIRC.

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nobody has called SWA a regional in years...except for jealous dinosaur airline folks....
grin.gif
 
Tim! I've never put two and two together until today, but I see your pictures all over the airliners.net site all the time. You have a lot pictures on there. I'll have to chat with you sometime about getting some of mine on. I have a great shot of a DAL 757 that they've rejected 3 times.

I just want to say again, that an airline is considered a major by the amount of money it makes...Frontier is actually considered a "national" airline because it doesn't make enough money to be considered a "major," but makes enough to be out of the "regional" category. Oddly enough, American Eagle is considered a "major" although I wonder how much of that is attributed to being grouped under the AMR banner with American.

I've never flown Frontier, but hear that they have great service. Just to clairfy, Frontier is not the only airline giving bonuses to employees...SkyWest is doing the same thing. And the last I checked, Frontier actually lost money in a recent quarter...or maybe they just didn't make as big of a profit as they did last year.

ttfn
 
Yup. And they really need to revist the "major" title. Major means that you've got a billion in revenue. Of course, that hasn't been indexed for inflation, and a billion bucks today versus a billion bucks back when they came up with the definition isn't the same.
 
I didn't know they classified them by how much money the airline makes. I figured we fly large aircraft, we fly coast to coast, we have several different international destinations, and we fly to Alaska.

I don't think we lost money in the past year as I heard the requirement for employees to get the bonus was that we had to be profitable in the last 3 or 4 quarters.

Anyway, didn't mean to turn this thread into something other than a "news is not all bad" kind of thing.

And if you want some help on that 757 photo send me the original file and I will see what I can do with it if you want me to. Every now and then I can work some photoshop magic.
 
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