SAWS News: Frontier Airlines Partners With The Wilderness Society

SAWS Members,

I felt you all would want to know about this new partnership announced today between Frontier Airlines (FA) and The Wilderness Society (TWS). As my letter to FA states below, please be sure to add FA to your personal and business “DO NOT FLY” lists.

Also please share this with others that you know that may not be SAWS members.


Sincerely,

Snowmobile Alliance of Western States

*****************************************

April 12, 2011

Lindsey Purves, 720-374-4560
Frontier Airlines Contact
media@flyfrontier.com

Lindsey Purves,

I can’t believe what I just read in your company’s press release below. Either a very bad business decision by individuals at Frontier Airlines, possibly based on not understanding all of the facts about what a wilderness designation really means, and the fact that many forms of recreation are not even allowed in designated wilderness areas, or just a plain dumb decision.

My name is Dave Hurwitz and I am the Chairman of the Snowmobile Alliance of Western States (SAWS). SAWS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was formed in the summer of 2004. Our mission is to provide education regarding public lands policy and outdoor recreation ethics in order to preserve and protect access to traditional trails and terrain on public lands, so that future generations will be able to enjoy nature through snowmobiling as generations have done in the past. SAWS currently has over 4000 individual members, not including the thousands more affiliate members of state snowmobile associations and snowmobile clubs that are also members of SAWS, from across mainly the western United States.

Extreme groups such as The Wilderness Society (TWS) have been attempting to close out recreational lands to all forms of mechanical transport for many, many years. Although our organization is most concerned with snowmobile access, do you realize the mountain bikes (pedal version), fishing boats with electric or gas motors, automobiles, motor homes, jet skis, motor bikes, ATV’s and off road vehicles are all banned from designated wilderness areas? We already have 109.5 million acres of designated wilderness in the United States, yet organizations like TWS keep pushing for more and more every year. How much is enough? If you look at the number of people across the United States that participate in one or more of these popular forms of recreation that are banned in wilderness areas, that is certainly a lot of folks to alienate from wanting to book flights on Frontier Airlines.

“Frontier will support The Wilderness Society through financial contributions…”
Since Frontier Airlines plans to provide financial help to TWS, I will be sure to contact all of our members and request that they put Frontier Airlines on their personal and business “DO NOT FLY” lists.


Sincerely,

Dave Hurwitz
Chairman, Snowmobile Alliance of Western States


Frontier Airlines Press Release Follows.

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http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110412006663/en/Frontier-Airlines-Partners-Wilderness-Society

April 12, 2011 12:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Frontier Airlines Partners With The Wilderness Society
Commits to protect wilderness and connect people with wild places

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In further support of the communities in which it flies, Frontier Airlines is pleased to announce a partnership with The Wilderness Society, a leading public-lands conservation organization working to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. Frontier Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of Republic Airways Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: RJET), will serve as the official airline of The Wilderness Society and support its ongoing efforts to protect America’s great places.

“Frontier is more than an airline with animals on its tails, we are a Company with an intense passion for the communities we serve and a real responsibility to help protect the incredible wilderness habitats our guests travel to each and every day and in which our ‘spokesanimals’ call home”

Frontier’s partnership with The Wilderness Society will support wilderness and wildlife protection in communities across the United States, including areas within the White River National Forest region of Colorado, the San Gabriel Mountains in California, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, among others.

“Frontier is more than an airline with animals on its tails, we are a Company with an intense passion for the communities we serve and a real responsibility to help protect the incredible wilderness habitats our guests travel to each and every day and in which our ‘spokesanimals’ call home,” said Bryan Bedford, chairman, president and CEO of Frontier Airlines. “We are so pleased to work together with The Wilderness Society in their effort to protect the nation’s wilderness and inspire people to connect with these great places.”

“The partnership between Frontier Airlines and The Wilderness Society enables people to experience first-hand nature’s treasures,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “Together we can protect the places we love by connecting people to iconic American landscapes that sustain Frontier’s ‘spokesanimals’.”

Frontier Airlines and The Wilderness Society will be celebrating America’s wilderness through the my wilderness campaign. An interactive campaign launching on April 18, my wilderness asks individuals to share their favorite stories of experiences in their own wilderness – from hiking in a national park, fishing on a favorite river, camping with friends or simply throwing a ball with their daughter in a neighborhood park. With my wilderness, people can participate in contests to visit wild locales, watch videos featuring wild places of the month, get outdoors tips and learn more about the places they love.

Frontier will support The Wilderness Society through financial contributions, creative fundraising efforts and employee volunteerism. For more information, please visit FrontierAirlines.com and wilderness.org.

About Frontier Airlines
Frontier Airlines is a wholly owned subsidiary of Republic Airways Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: RJET), an airline holding company that also owns Chautauqua Airlines, Lynx Aviation, Republic Airlines and Shuttle America. Currently in its 17th year of operations, Frontier employs more than 5,500 aviation professionals and operates more than 550 daily flights from its hubs at Denver International Airport and Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport. Frontier offers routes to more than 80 destinations in the United States, Mexico and Costa Rica.

For more in-depth information on Frontier Airlines and to book tickets, please visit its website at FrontierAirlines.com.

About The Wilderness Society
The Wilderness Society is the leading public-lands conservation organization working to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. Founded in 1935, and now with more than 500,000 members and supporters, TWS has led the effort to permanently protect 110 million acres of wilderness and to ensure sound management of our shared national lands. To learn more, please visit wilderness.org.

Contacts :

Frontier Contact:
Lindsey Purves, 720-374-4560
media@flyfrontier.com

or

The Wilderness Society:
Jennifer Stephens, 206-605-2411
JStephens@TWSNW.ORG

Conservation groups back Polis wilderness plan for Eagle, Summit counties CO

For those in denial, this article confirms our SAWS News email concern regarding “Frontier Airlines Partners With The Wilderness Society”.

Have the "barf bag" close by as you read the article...

http://coloradoindependent.com/85480/conservation-groups-back-polis-wilderness-plan-for-eagle-summit-counties

Conservation groups back Polis wilderness plan for Eagle, Summit countiesBy David O. Williams | 04.23.11 | 9:46 am

Environmental groups Friday praised the renewed efforts of U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, to protect more than 160,000 acres of public lands in Eagle and Summit counties as either wilderness or special management areas.

The Wilderness Society, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Wilderness Workshop and Colorado Mountain Club – backers of the original Hidden Gems wilderness proposal – issued a statement of support after Polis on Friday announced plans to reintroduce his Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act.

Polis first introduced the bill late last session only to see it fizzle in the lead-up to midterm elections. Still, his goal was to get the language on the record and start building political support for compromise legislation derived from months of negotiations with various user groups. The bill includes a significantly scaled-back portion of Hidden Gems, which proposed more than 300,000 acres of new wilderness in Eagle, Summit, Gunnison and Pitkin counties.

“Congressman Polis has worked hard to gather citizen input and craft a wilderness proposal that reflects the desires and needs of his district,” Steve Smith, assistant director of The Wilderness Society in Colorado, said in a release. “He has created a proposal that deserves to be moved through Congress with bipartisan support.”

Polis, who announced the reintroduction on Earth Day at the state capitol in Denver, did not include Hidden Gems lands in Gunnison and Pitkin counties because they’re outside of his 2nd Congressional District. Conservationists remain hopeful they can see those lands included in a bill by 3rd Congressional District Congressman Scott Tipton, R-Cortez. Both Gunnison and Pitkin counties have voted in favor of increasing wilderness locally.

Polis is optimistic that even with Republican control of the U.S. House his bill can be included in some larger wilderness proposal or as part of an omnibus lands bill. He said it should be viewed as legislation that supports the state’s $10 billion outdoor recreation industry and therefore enjoys wide-ranging bipartisan support.

“Preserving our natural resources strengthens the economic resources that support Colorado jobs,” Polis said. “We also ensure that generations of Coloradans can enjoy these special places for fun, adventure or just enjoying the peace of the outdoors. That’s why this bill, which is the product of months of consensus building, enjoys such broad support.”

Outdoor photographer John Fielder and adventurer Aron Ralston, along with conservation groups and state and local politicians, joined Polis for Friday’s announcement.

“Only 5 percent of Colorado’s 66 million acres is legally designated wilderness,” said Fielder. “It’s simply not enough for a state whose economy is so dependent upon the integrity of its ecology. Wilderness protection makes people healthy, wealthy, and happy from an economy that is sustained by clean air and water, parks and trails, cobalt blue skies, and wilderness.”

Polis cut more than 80,000 acres from the nearly 245,000 acres of public lands in Eagle and Summit counties first proposed for wilderness protection under Hidden Gems, which generated heated controversy over the last several years, particularly from off-road motorized vehicles advocates. Eliminating some of the more contentious areas of the plan considerably cooled the rhetoric, but now Polis faces a steeper uphill climb in the GOP-controlled House.

Tipton and other Republican members of Colorado’s congressional delegations have been questioning U.S. Bureau of Land Management plans to begin protecting appropriate BLM lands under the Interior Department’s “Wild Lands” policy. They decry limitations on motorized vehicle travel and road building that would curtail mining and oil and gas drilling.

However, the Polis bill has considerable local support, including from both the Eagle and Summit County boards of commissioners. Vail Town Council member Kerry Donovan spoke Friday at the capitol.

“My family has a strong history with wilderness,” Donovan said. “From my grandfather shaping and defining wilderness boundaries because of his beliefs in the power of meeting nature on its own terms, to my parents introducing sustainability and recycling – it is this legacy that inspires me to be a part of this legislation. To add these proposed parcels to the existing wilderness completes a project started a lifetime ago.”

The bill would expand the Holy Cross and Eagles Nest wilderness areas, which surround Vail.

“We’re in the tourism business and people come to the mountains to experience the natural beauty of Colorado, so it only makes sense that we preserve the scenic, wild areas near Vail for posterity,” Vail Town Council member and former Vail Resorts president Andy Daly said. “Polis’ bill captures what we hope to achieve to protect our community’s best interest.”

Conservation groups and Hidden Gems backers cited the protection of areas like Castle Peak north of Eagle, Red Table Mountain between Gypsum and the Fryingpan River and Spraddle Creek just outside Vail.

Frontier needs deep concessions, millions in cash to stay aloft

I don’t usually enjoy reading about US Companies on the brink of bankruptcy, but I got to admit I got a little pleasure out of reading this article.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_18267755?source=pkg

Frontier needs deep concessions, millions in cash to stay aloft
By Ann Schrader
The Denver Post

Posted: 06/14/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 06/14/2011 02:12:05 AM MDT

Frontier Airlines must get deep concessions from employees and vendors and raise $70 million as part of a financial overhaul to keep it in business.

Without the restructuring, "Frontier would no longer be viable," the chief executive of Frontier's parent company, Republic Airways, wrote in an e-mail sent to employees Friday.

High fuel prices were a major contributor to a "disappointing" first quarter, in which Frontier had a $51 million pretax loss, CEO Bryan Bedford told employees. Frontier's fuel expenses in the quarter were 24 percent higher than in the same period in 2010, causing a $30 million increase in expenditures.

Until December , Frontier was the second-largest airline at Denver International Airport, but it lost the position to fast-growing Southwest Airlines. Indianapolis-based Republic Airways bought Frontier out of bankruptcy in 2009. Frontier has about 4,900 employees, with the majority based in Denver, where it has its major hub.

Bedford said there must be a cost savings of $120 million. The company must have commitments for at least half of that before the board will allow Frontier to raise the additional $70 million in the financial markets.

The extra cash is "critical to fund the airline this coming winter as we complete the remainder of our restructuring program," Bedford wrote.

Between $25 million and $30 million of the $120 million already has been trimmed through fleet and network changes, Bedford said. Another $25 million is related to labor costs.

"The remaining improvements will result from work we're doing with several key stakeholders," Bedford wrote, such as aircraft lessors, distribution partners, maintenance suppliers, and sales and ticket distribution groups.

"What we're making are difficult changes so that we are viable in the future, rather than viable next week," said Jim Reichart, Frontier's vice president of marketing and sales.

The nearly 700 Frontier pilots are voting through Friday on a package of concessions including wage deferrals, elimination of a company 401(k) match this year, and sick-time and vacation reductions.

In exchange for ratification, the pilots would receive an equity interest in Frontier and Republic would have a minority interest by the end of 2014.
The amount of that stake hasn't been determined, said Jeff Thomas, president of the Frontier Airlines Pilots Association.

Other large stakeholders, such as Airbus and General Electric, are watching the vote. The pilots association said it will not participate unless all the other stakeholders participate.

"Our goal, first and foremost, is to provide the steps necessary to continue the operation of Frontier beyond the next few months," leaders of the pilot association told members in a recent letter.

Bedford said similar agreements would be sought from other Frontier employees if the pilots ratify the plan. They would receive equity and profit-sharing like the pilots.

Effective Friday, Bedford said he was reducing his pay 20 percent and will forgo any bonuses until all employee groups receive bonuses. Bedford received $1.2 million in salary, options and bonuses last year.

"This is a real challenge," said aviation consultant Mike Boyd of Evergreen. "I give him (Bedford) credit for standing up and saying, 'I've got a challenge.' "

But what concerns Boyd is the labor situation, made messy after Republic bought Frontier and Midwest in 2009 and became a full-service airline in addition to its regional carrier service.

The employee unions still have not successfully integrated the pilot groups based on fractious seniority issues.

Reaction to the proposed restructuring was mixed Monday on Wall Street.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch issued a report upgrading Republic from "underperform" to "neutral" as the result of "management's efforts to reduce the risk from its branded business."

Helane Becker, aviation analyst for Dahlman Rose & Co., repeated the "hold" notice she put on Republic Airways in April.

"We believe investors should remain on the sidelines in the short term as there are economic concerns, volatile fuel prices and short-term revenue issues," Becker said, adding: "Frontier is likely to flounder this year."