1 SUMMER 2001 VOL. 1 ISSUE 4 HISTORY ANOTHER LOOK AT WHAT SIGNIFICANT Frontier Airlines was offi- CHANGES cially born on June 1, 1950 KILLED FRONTIER In 1978, the Airline Deregula- resulting from the merger of by Dena Andrews, et al tion Act brought about a dramatic Monarch Air Lines, Challenger change in the industry such that Airlines and Arizona Airways. airlines could expand their routes simply by giving a ninety-day The new company’s home base was in Denver, Colorado servic- notice. This environment encouraged fierce competition among ing the Pacific Southwest Region. During the 1950’s new routes some carriers fighting to dominate the Denver hub. Between were added to their distribution network, as well as new 44- this period and 1982, Frontier dropped 39 routes from their passenger Convair 340 aircraft to serve most of Frontier’s network and added 29 new cities with further emphasis placed system. on their Denver hub. In the 60’s the company introduced a special fare plan called Given the changing environment, Frontier placed additional “21” to cut the cost of travel, resulting in a 26% percent increase attention on restructuring and gaining a competitive edge needed in passengers enplaned. All time records were experienced in in a deregulated market. Mr. Lowell Shirley, who had worked 1963 with passenger boarding up 44% and growth exceeding all with Frontier’s data processing system in the past, was recruited other 23 regional airlines in the United States. Frontier later in 1981 to help Frontier achieve its objectives. In 1983, Lowell became the technical leader by acquiring jet power aircraft Shirley restructured management’s goals and drew up four com- including the Boeing 727 and 737, along with being the first to mitments: introduce a computerized reservation system. To further aug- a) Reduce maintenance of old applications from five ment their growth, Frontier acquired Central Airlines advancing person-years to three their routing network to 114 cities covering the Midwest, West b) Reduce the cost of Frontier’s voice communications and Southwest. network by $30,000 per month The 70’s brought a slowdown in the industry resulting from c) Relocate data entry to user departments depressing economic conditions and excessive competition. d) Relocate hardware to the new facility and complete a However, Frontier Airlines was able to continue expansion of new set of applications their routes, including the addition of international destinations with Canada and Mexico. The airline’s superior customer service lead to them outperforming their competitors and achiev- HARDWARE ing an all time high in paying passengers. This period also Frontier’s hardware included three IBM System 38s, one IBM introduced the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, providing an Series 1, and several stand-alone minicomputers for marketing, environment full of opportunities for stronger competition budgeting, maintaining personnel records and domiciling flight among the carriers. attendants. The System 38s were employed in production, In 1980, Frontier Airlines became the prime subsidiary of the software development and remote job entry, while the Series 1 newly created Frontier Holdings Inc., and became an all jet handled remote computing and communications routing using airline with the retirement of the Convair 580s, which were X.25 packet-switching protocol for linking outlying stations. replaced with McDonnell-Douglas MD-80. But the 80’s also The advantage of Systems 38s was that they were modular and marked a decline in traffic with the termination of service to 11 could be expanded for growth. Control Data Corporation main- smaller cities, fierce competition and financial distress. Net tained the hardware that facilitated Frontier’s reservation system losses of $13.8 and $31.3 million were incurred in 1983 and until 1976, when a decision was made to begin purchasing 1984 respectively. reservation services from Continental Airlines. The prevailing environment presented by deregulation and The use of standardized IBM microcomputers at the manage- technological innovation imposed a managerial challenge for rial level was also an important topic introduced under Frontier’s Frontier, as they sought alternatives to improve operations and policy. However, only divisional data was allowed to be used in successfully compete in the industry. (Continued on page 3) 2 The FRONTIER NEWS is published quarterly and dedicated to ex- employees, friends, family and fans of the “old” Frontier Airlines which “died” on August 24, 1986 and was “buried” on May 31, 1990. TIME It is a non-profit operation. All income goes into keeping the NEWS going. Opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the author and not the editor or the publication. Publishing dates are October for Fall, January for Winter, April for Spring and July for Summer. Articles and TABLE photos are welcomed and subject to editing and space requirements. This is the information we currently have. Coordinators of FL We cannot pay for such items but will give credit as appropriate. All events, please let us know the details so we can post it. submissions should deal with the “old” Frontier Airlines. Especially welcomed are stories of personal experiences with a humorous slant. All airline employees have a treasure trove of such stories. Please share DEN REUNION PICNIC them with the rest of the FLamily. We also want to publicize ALL 2002 event to be announced. Contact Lanette Duncan at 5901 “old” Frontier gatherings. Be sure to notify us with details: place, date, El Diente Ct., Golden, CO, 303-216-0600, [email protected] contact and so forth. They will be published in the “Timetable”. Subscriptions are $10 per year. Back issues are $2.50 each. Text ads are $5 for 20 words, $10 for 40 words, $15 for a business card, $20 for FRONTIER AIRLINES RETIRED PILOTS 1/8th page and $40 for a quarter page. Tell others in the FLamily about DFW: Luncheon, every odd month, 3rd Monday, noon @ the FL NEWS. Give a subscription as a gift. Ernies, 8206 Bedford-Euless Road, North Richland Hills, TX Contacts: Don Adams 817-282-3542, Bill Blackmon 817-282-3105 DEN: Luncheon, every second Tuesday, 11:30am @ Mr. Panda Chinese Restaurant, 2852 S. Havana, Aurora, CO Contacts: Ace Avakian 303-688-3852, Jim Hanson 303 750 6478 SLC: Luncheon, every third Thursday (except Jun-Aug), 11:30am @ Little America, 500 Main St., Salt Lake City, UT Contact: Jack Schade 801-277-5479 FRONTIER BASH September 16-17, 2001. Coordinator is Rusty Lambert, 6790 Ann Drive, Murchison, TX, [email protected] This issue marks one full year of editing/publishing the newsletter. It has suceeded far beyond what we envisioned last FYV-FSM MEMORIAL PIGNIC Summer at the FYV-FSM PIGnic FL Reunion when we took up August 25, Sat., 11am-5pm, Burford Pavillion near FSM airport. a collection to get it started. Many thanks to all of you who have Coordinators are Phil Green, 2101 Packard Pl., Ft. Smith, AR supported our efforts by subscribing, buying ads, sending in 72901, 501-783-2981, [email protected] or Jake material, information & letters. It’s greatly appreciated. Lamkins, 365 Wallin Mountain Road, West Fork, AR 72774, The event that launched the newsletter, the FYV-FSM PIGnic, 501-839-8556, ExFAL @Yahoo.com This will be the 33rd year is set for August 25. See the announcement on the back page. It for the event! will be the 33rd year for the gathering. It originated in 1969 because the two cities had to work so much together due to the KANSAS CITY REUNION over-fly situation Tentatively scheduled for 2nd weekend in September at Barry at FYV. Drake Platte Park in Gladstone, MO. Coordinators are Reva Burke at Field sits in a bowl 15 years later!! 816-436-3670 or Rose Dragan at 816-741-1995 or MDra- and with the 800 [email protected] feet minimums of those days there were many overflies due to weather. Usually FSM ended up with the FYV passengers. The coordination required to handle those situations led to many E-LIST friendships between the two stations. That led to an annual These folks are online and would like to hear from you: picnic which has been memorial in nature these past 15 years. Ron Abfalter - [email protected] Several folks have reported that the gatherings in DEN at the Joe Crider - [email protected] end of June worked out well and many of the FLamily attended. Steve Gustafson - [email protected] Anyone having some photos - please send to me & I’ll publish DaveKoepp - [email protected] what I can in these pages and on the internet. Al Krauter - [email protected] A DEN station agent is sending me a huge collection of photos Rusty Lambert - [email protected] taken on the DEN ramp in 1986 and the early 80s. What I’ve Jake Lamkins - [email protected] seen so far is very impressive. Dozens of faces that were Eldon Lietz - [email protected] starting to recede from memory and vivid reminders of the Frank Monheiser - [email protected] congestion and anthill atmosphere of the DEN ramp. They will Darrell Robson - [email protected] be posted on the internet FL photo albums and used in the Fred Schubel - [email protected] NEWS. Many thanks to this agent who wishes to remain Ken Schultz - [email protected] anonymous. Terry Shadden - [email protected] 3 (Continued from page 1) a reservation system. Because of this, Frontier had to rely on the each microcomputer, and all other required applications needed systems of other airlines. United Airline’s APOLLO reserva- to be approved by technical specialists. tions system was the most widely used system. However, United SOFTWARE refused to allow Frontier to become an APOLLO co-host for Technical personnel, most of whom did not have airline expe- competitive reasons and Frontier was left without a reservations rience, developed distributed system software in-house.