Sentinel Chicken

Although Frontier will always best be known as a 737 operator, they did operate in the post-deregulation era a small number of MD-82s. The background story of how these Frontier MD-82s came to be and how they could have ended up in United colors is only but one of the tragic sagas of the airline industry in the years following deregulation in the late 1970s.

At the end of 1979 Frontier was operating the world's largest fleet of 737-200s and was making a healthy profit since the early 1970s. Al Feldman, who had been at the helm of Frontier since 1971 and had skillfully guided the airline from the brink of failure to a major and successful player, resigned in '79 to move over to Continental and Executive VP Glen Ryland took over.

As the early 1980s came on, Frontier had grown to the point that it came into direct competition with both United and Continental out of Denver. By 1982, the majority of Frontier's 38 nonstops out of Denver competed with either or both Continental and United- compared to 2 years earlier when only 9 routes had competition. Competition drove down prices and coupled with a recession, Frontier's earnings went south. Ryland was desparate for more capacity to match the United and Continental's frequencies out of Denver on key routes.

Ryland wanted the upcoming 737-300 and at one point offered to trade-in all of his -200s if he could get -300s. Impatient with Boeing's progress, Ryland turned to McDonnell Douglas and the first of the MD-82s went into service in 1982.

As the 1980s wore on, competition, costs, and bad business plans ate away at not only Frontier's profits, but the workforce as well, with layoffs and service terminations. Ryland finally got booted in 1984 and replaced by Hank Lund and he fought hard to get Frontier viable again. In 1985 an ESOP plan was floated and 5 of the MD-82s were sold to United, who in turn leased them out. Boardroom shuffling began and in 1986, threatened with liquidation, Don Burr and PeoplExpress outbid Frank Lorenzo and Texas Air (holding company for Continental and Burr's former employer).

Burr wanted to use Frontier to move East Coast passengers to vacation spots in the West, but PeoplExpress was in as much red ink as Frontier and by that summer, Burr tried to sell Frontier to United. That sale flopped when United's employees objected to how the workforces would be integrated. Time ran out and Frontier shut down in August of 1986 and PeoplExpress again tried to sell Frontier to United, but the deal was dead from the start. The assets were acquired by Frank Lorenzo and integrated into Continental in 1987.

What I've depicted above is one of Frontier's MD-82s (N9801F) in both the Saul Bass livery of United and the current colors. Had United either kept the first 5 MD-82s or agreed to buy Frontier from PeoplExpress, they would have undoubtedly wore the Saul Bass colors of United. This one is in the later variation with the dropped cheatlines and larger fuselage titles. Had they continued to stay on the line for United, some of them would have also ended up getting repainted in United's current colors as the second rendering depicts. Unite d might have even kept these on longer than the 737-200s!

Enjoy the first of two Chicken Works twin packs!

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Piss on noise abatement!

Romania is #1

wow those look so cool, to bad the planes didn't sty with UAL.

ANTHONY F DUVA JR

Of course, you just know United kept Frontier's Convair 580s, painted them up in United colors and flew them for another decade!

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smoothjazz

I really like the NC version... Very impressive...

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BENJAMIN

MY COLLECTION
http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/...tion-1179.html

Chansen

Great planes SC, Doc!

United caused more hardship to Frontier employees I have heard. Damn Frank really brought the moral low after taking up UAL's slack.

Chansen

Thanks Doc! I like obscure aircraft and well this takes the cake.

NEADC9

I like it. It would have been nice to see.

Travelin' Man

Would have been cool! Probably would still be flying today if it hapened. Nice work Doc.

AirDar

Well, another now typically fabulous job by the Doc! I really like the way the NC version looks and I'm not really a fan of that scheme! GREAT attention to detail on both of these Doc! It looks like you had alot of fun making them. Thanks for sharing as always!

...and MAN! WHERE DO you get all the history you quote in these things? If you've got that stuff floating around in yer head, I'd hate to be your patient when you're giving someone the "scope" and decide to "throttle up!"

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Dar~

Yours is not to question why,
Yours is but to BUY or DIE!

Chansen

smoothjazz

UAL MD-80s would've been classic models...

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BENJAMIN

MY COLLECTION
http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/...tion-1179.html

funbird

nice job Sentinel! What program do you use for your illustrations. I'm an artist who paints aircraft in oils and acrylics. I'd really like to know the program to try it out for thumbnail "sketches".

General Buck Turgidson

Stupendous history lesson. The General would enjoy the posting even if there weren't any of those fine MD-80s included.

Read and learn. Emulate, if you can.

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"I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them."