Frontier Airlines Begins Layoffs in Milwaukee

Frontier Airlines has begun the layoffs it announced in February. The airline will lay off 446 workers in Milwaukee. About half are flight crew members who will be reassigned to bases outside of Milwaukee.

The other half will come from several departments, including mechanics, customer service representatives, baggage specialists and operations staff. Tom Barnett, Milwaukee’s mayor, said the job losses were a blow to the city, and that he hoped that other airlines would move in.

Frontier said recently that it is dropping nonstop service from Milwaukee to six cities, cutting the number of daily flights nearly in half. Effective in April, the airline will end direct flights to Grand Rapids, Dallas-Fort Worth, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Newark. Frontier’s daily departures will be reduced from 32 to 18.