DALLAS — Southwest is well-positioned in tricky times for the airline industry and will launch new service to Minneapolis-St. Paul in March 2009, Southwest Airlines chief Gary Kelly said today. The Twin Cities are the first new Southwest market since 2006, and the first planned service will be nonstop to Chicago’s Midway Airport.
The announcement of [...]
Posts Tagged ‘budget airlines’
“Wild times”: Southwest’s Gary Kelly announces service to MSP, discusses challenges in airline industry
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged airports, budget airlines, business, delta, faa, network airlines, northwest, open skies, southwest, travel, usa on October 1, 2008 | 1 Comment »
“Stop Oil Speculation Now” won’t make oil cheaper
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged budget airlines, business, congress, energy, network airlines, regulation on July 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’m going to resist the airline lobby’s link bait for their Stop Oil Speculation Now website (google it if you care), but the airline CEOs’ letter calling for passengers to lobby Congress for tighter regulation of oil futures “speculation” deserves some attention. The aviation blogosphere sees through this as the bad proposal it is (see [...]
Of course IATA wants to have it both ways
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged budget airlines, iata, network airlines, regulation on June 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The International Air Transport Association, the worldwide trade association for airlines, issued the following demands at its summit in Istanbul this week.
Governments must eliminate archaic rules that prevent airlines from restructuring across borders.
In view of existing fees and charges, governments must refrain from imposing multiple and additional punitive taxes and other measures that will only [...]
That didn’t take too long
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged budget airlines, business, prestige on April 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Skybus founder John Weikle’s plans to start an ultra-low-cost-no-frills airline based in Charleston, W.Va. — see here and here — are being dropped due to insufficient financing, persistently high fuel prices (the Energy Information Administration projects that $100+/barrel is here to stay in 2008), and the slowing economy. All investors are getting their money back.
Good [...]
Skybus shuts down, proves commenter’s ignorance
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged budget airlines, misc. on April 5, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I usually let negative comments slide off my back unless they point out an error, which I then correct. But some really get to me. When I wrote recently on the impending idiocy of starting a budget airline based in Charleston, W.Va., an idiot commented:
Also, the airlines will still be flying with oil at $100 [...]
Bad ideas dept., Rockford division
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged airports, budget airlines, prestige, travel on March 26, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Benet Wilson writes that Chicago Rockford International Airport, an airport on Chicago’s far western fringe with limited commercial service, is going to partner with a charter airline (actually, a brand — Southern Skyways) to offer scheduled services to Denver and Detroit, the former to replace service United is withdrawing this summer. Rockford will control routes, [...]
Airfares: you get what you pay for
Posted in Evan's Debates, tagged budget airlines, business, history, regulation, travel on March 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Last week, Sean O’Neill addressed the tricky nature of measuring changes in airfares. Air fare indexes pick up or decreases in base fares over time, but they don’t pick up “nickel and diming” (the addition of lots of charges for luggage, food, over-the-phone booking) or declines in service (cranky flight attendants, less legroom).
I’m on record [...]
The Music Man, airline edition
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged airports, budget airlines, business, prestige on March 7, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Yes, this sounds like a good idea: start a low-fare carrier in an era of $100+ oil. Compound that brilliance by making it point-to-point only, but based at an airport with less than 285,000 enplanements in 2006 and a metro area of 300,000 people. Throw in the fact that even scheduled charter services masquerading as [...]
Thought leaders on aviation trends
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged budget airlines, business, consumer advocacy, delays, network airlines, open skies, southwest, travel on October 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
DALLAS — Our lunchtime entertainment here at Southwest headquarters was provided by a panel of five airline industry thought leaders who offered their thoughts on the future of the industry. Rick Seaney of FareCompare.com kicked off the discussion. Some of the trends he noted include a “decline in human interaction” through the increasing utility of [...]
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