There has been a great deal of talk about Midwest Airlines and Republic Airways’ intention to consolidate that brand with its Frontier brand in the near future.  Most notable is that few people seem to be decrying the loss of Midwest Airlines anymore.  Certainly not like they were when Airtran attempted to take them over a few years ago. 

Midwest ceased being an airline last year and became a brand only.  When Frontier and Republic equipment began to fly its routes, the distinguishing features of that brand were eroded heavily.  Now it’s basically a logo and a location and no one seems to care anymore and that means the brand has little, if any, value.

Will Frontier be the new brand?  No one has really said much about what the plans are but there have been a few vague hints that it might be a new brand altogether.  The fact that anybody is talking about this in vague public hints really shows just how much Sean Menke is already missed in getting this thing figured out. 

Frontier has an excellent brand and one that could well work in Milwaukee just as good as it has in Denver.  Frontier had better service differentiation and a better selection of products than Midwest ever hoped to have.  It’s nationally known and folks in Denver have learned to be very loyal to it.  Others could too.

A new brand is the mis-step that I think many are wondering about.  You can only have so much of a “virtual” airline in operation until people begin to wonder who they’re flying with.  Dilution of both brands in favor of a much more generic but new brand is not a good idea. 

There are signs the industry is, perhaps, starting to slowly recover.  That recovery is likely to be slow and painful and it isn’t the time to be trying to introduce yet another new airline brand to the country and compete against established airlines who are arguably better situated to compete already (SWA, Airtran). 

Republic would be far better off to work on consolidating the operations between both Midwest and Frontier and standardizing on the Frontier brand which means getting the Frontier services onto all aircraft too.  Marketing and sales then will have much better guidance on what they’re selling and who they are selling it to.   No matter what the brand’s name, it’s time to get a cohesive marketing plan together and begin executing it on all fronts including online social media as well as local sales efforts.  Wait too much longer and Frontier, as a brand, is liable to go the way of Midwest and I’ve already pointed out that that brand suddenly has no value to anyone anymore even in its home market.

Filed under: Airline Service by ajax