I don’t have a crystal ball, I can’t see the future. I do know this.

When SM was appointed CEO at Frontier, I was excited - I wanted to see what airline he would create.

He didn’t get a chance. The oil price and the ecoonmy crushed whatever dreams of the future he had and he became concerned with saving the airline from extinction.

He has done that, and, for the first time since then, this week he started to talk about the futire again, of his excitement and of his vision.

It is, in his mind, a single airline - whatever its eventual name - and the process of integration is gathering speed. There has been no press release about it, but it is now common knowledge that as of January 1, Midwest staff will move to the Frontier payroll.

This “new airline entity” still has to be accepted by the public, though, and the public process of that began this week in the Milwaukee/Wisconsin press with the final flight of “old” Midwest’s last 717.

The many articles were all quite sentimental, and, to a some extent, negative to Republic. This was pushed along by the Midwest pilots, with some deeply pessimistic (bitter?) comments about what is happening, and, of course - Republic.

Well, well, it is what it is and it had to happen, I guess.

Of all those articles, I think this one from Oshkosh - the least negative - said it best:

http://www.thenorthwestern.com/article/2...

<<“Midwest Airlines: Fun while it lasted.......Midwest Airline set a standard for the airline industry that will never be repeated.”>>

It is true. In its day, Midwest was a terrific achievement, probably “the best care in the (US) air.”

But as the article points out, that was then, this is now. That Midwest died some time ago, probably with the introduction of the Saver program, which seriously diluted the brand.

It is right and proper to salute that past, but many of the farewells have now been said..

It is time to embrace the future. And that future is as SM describes it - exciting.

mariner