Frontier President Sean Menke Heads to Republic

There was a very telling move by Republic last week when it named current Frontier President Sean Menke as Republic's Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer. What was most telling is that no replacement President of its Frontier subsidiary was named.

There was no doubt that some consolidation would occur when Republic scooped up Frontier out of bankruptcy, but this makes it look like they're moving much faster than I would have expected. Menke's job will now "include all aspects of strategy, planning, sales, marketing, distribution and customer experience for both the Frontier and Midwest branded businesses." In other words, Frontier and Midwest will be run jointly from above. But will everything be done out of Republic's Indianapolis headquarters? It's unclear.

Frontier has built itself a strong culture in Denver, and they have that "hometown airline" aura around them. If decisions start being made in Indianapolis independent of the brand, that could be disastrous for the airline's reputation.

At least a former Frontier person is in charge of the brand, but he's already learned some serious corporate speak. "I am also looking forward to working with the Republic leadership team to help diversify their revenue stream in order to better position all aspects of the business for continued success."

Uh, right. I have no idea what you just said. Have you been hanging out with United's Glenn Tilton?

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what remains in Denver after all is said and done. This announcement begs more questions than it answers.