Susan Carey writes about Northwests’ “catering to travelers between small and midsize cities in the Upper Midwest. This “heartland” gambit aims to keep fares higher and discourage discounters from flying there. …. Going one big step further, Northwest also has been expanding aggressively with nonstop flights between nonhub cities, so that more passengers don’t have to make connections through one of its hubs when flying to some domestic cities.”

This strategy has manifested itself with 50 seat jet non-stop flights between Madison and Washington’s Reagan National Airport (though at inconvenient middle of the day times) and a variety of non-stops from cities like Milwaukee and Indianapolis to New York, Washington and other east coast destinations. This is also an attempt – futile, I think to kill Midwest Airlines.

Northwest is largely betting that flyers will put up with the small, uncomfortable jets in an effort to grow frequent flyer miles (the hidden secret here is that frequent flyer miles are growing more difficult to use by the day, unless you use a lot of them…..)

On a related note, the Boyd Group has written about the declining utility and economics of 50 seat jets for some time. They recently mentioned growing demand for 100 seat planes. I think, unfortunately, it will be difficult for Madison to grow service with 100 seat aircraft – I hope I’m wrong on this. Microjets will likely be one popular alternative in places like Madison.