Makes it easier to make money on if passenger numbers aren’t there for a flight or two…or three.
Well, the airline has decided they want to get into the public charter business and will be chartering a Sun Country 737-800 to fly the following exciting and high-demand routes:
LAN-BWI
LAN-EWR
RFD-BWI
RFD-EWR
SBN-EWR
TOL-EWR
EWR-MLB
Probably are exciting for the folks in LAN, RFD, SBN, TOL, and MLB. No longer do they need to pay high fares or travel long distances to other airports tin order to to to BWI or EWR.
The LAN market struggles to fill RJ’s to large hubs. There aren’t that many passengers there who want to go to EWR or BWI.
Numerous public charter airlines have tried and failed at the RFD and TOL markets. I don’t expect this time will be any different.
I’m not sure about your statement regarding the airlines having a hard time filling flight at LAN. If they were having this problem then why do they have so many flights?
Weekdays sees UA operating 4 CRJ flights to/from ORD. NW has 5 CRJ flights to/from DTW and 1 flight to/from MSP.
Weekends have the expected reduction in flights. UA has 2 and 3 flights on Saturday and Sunday respectively to/from ORD. NW operates 1 less flight each Saturday and Sunday to/from DTW, although one arrival on Saturday and one departure on Sunday is a DC-9-50. It maintains the once daily flight to/from MSP.
What it boils down to is marketing. I believe the flights from LAN, RFD, and TOL can be profitable if they are marketed correctly.
I’m in the industry and have access to loads.
They operate several frequency because yields tend to be pretty good and they want the ability to connect the passengers to multiple banks for transcon and international flights. They can do this inexpensively because the stage length LAN-DTW and LAN-ORD is very short, requiring very little expense in a/c time or fuel to access those pax. However, loads remain fairly low on virtually all LAN flights.
When you’re talking about a much longer stage length, with a much larger aircraft, with much lower yields, the business case for service to places like that falls apart.
Also, from a “marketing” standpoint, Air Azul has no brand recognition whatsoever and the flights will not be sold through any external distribution channels, meaning that Air Azul will have to drive enough passengers to their website to book. That is very costly and for a website with virtually no marketing experience, very difficult, even if the airports are giving them some money to market the flights, they will have trouble doing so in a cost-effective manner (they’ll likely get a few billboards or put some ads on some buses or at the minor league ballpark - not necessarily the best method in this day and age).
You say
Then you say
Everyone, if they know about bts.gov, has access to the loads.
You seem to contradict yourself. At first you say the struggle to fill the CRJ then you say they operate several frequencies because the yield is good.
LAN/DTW and LAN/ORD are very short flights and therefore are actually more expensive to operated on a per seat mile basis than a longer flight. The direct operating costs may be lower but you have the indirect (fixed) costs that are constant. These costs are what tends to bring up the cost per seat mile on a short haul flight.
expensive on an ASM basis, but very cheap on a total cost of acquiring that passenger. Airlines don’t make decisions on simply a CASM basis, if they did, it would make more sense to actually fly passengers to hubs that are farther away.
DOT/BTS information is a very poor view of the data. First of all, it calculates load factor as RPM/ASM, this results in long segments having an undue influence over a station’s LF. Secondly, it only provides the route on aggregate, not individual flights. Often, if a destination has multiple frequencies, one may have a very high load while the other 3 might have very low loads. DOT data won’t provide you with such insight. DOT data also doesn’t give loads by day of week or by direction.
Another thing I didn’t mention is that these flights won’t be operating every day. How do you expect to serve what are ostensibly business markets and not even operate the flight every day and be successful?
And yes, yield can indeed be good while loads can be low.
However, a carrier like Air Azul won’t have access to these high yield passengers due to their inability to sell to them and their lack of frequencies or a network.
Flying under the radar
Upstart airlines descend on U.S. cities just as the big boys are pulling out
By Brad Tuttle
ARTHUR FROMMER’S BUDGET TRAVEL
updated 7:33 a.m. PT, Wed., March. 11, 2009
When Delta and Continental dropped service out of the Toledo airport last year, residents were left with only a few daily departures - or a 65-mile drive to Detroit’s airport. Then something happened to ease the pain: Direct Air moved in, offering flights between Toledo and two warm-weather spots, Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Punta Gorda, Fla., for as little as $49 each way.
I don’t see service to somerset anymore. I must have blinked and missed their pull out announcement.
They are having to change it over to locair due to some sort of conflict. Locair was the company they originally intended to use but had it under Air Azul for some reason.
The locair website is up and running but doesn’t seem to have ticket purchasing available. This thing is getting more hacky and obviously government-subsidized by the day.
Yes. Allegheny Commuter (USAir) took the route for a while, too. They built a new terminal and it didn’t get used long for passenger service.
Locair has announced service to Cincinnati coming late May and service to Dulles coming later in the summer.
TAXPAYERS SUBSIDIZE SERVICE THAT COINCIDES WITH WEEKEND
[quote=“drdisque”]
This won’t last more than 2 years.
A finely accurate predictions - a year and two months. Service ended February 19, 2010.