US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Publishing Florida Fares to Carribean and Mexico

Copy of a letter send to US upper management concerning this important issue.

Dear

As a Florida resident, Chairman's Preferred and a US stockholder, I thank you again for re-loading the fares for TPA and MCO to SJU. They have been a great asset to us in the Tampa Bay Area. We are TRULY very grateful.

I wanted to inquire about opening up the entire Caribbean from these FLORIDA markets. There is a market for then as DL and AA due fly people to ATL and DFW to make connections to Caribbean and Mexico destinations. PEOPLE DO NOT MIND CONNECTING IN CLT , ATL or EVEN JFK OR PHL TO GO TO THE CARIBBEAN OR MEXICO. Delta and AA are proof of this. They do it all the time!

These markets can be easily accessed via the Charlotte hub to the entire Caribbean Market.

Cities I reference are:
(STT, SXM, GCM, POS, MBJ, SKB, ANU, UVF, BGI, GND, AUA, CZM, CUN)

Benefits to US Customers are the following:

Expanded route network for revenue travel not giving the business to competitors.

Expanded route network for redemption of award miles who cannot use them now w/o having the published fares in the system, and must use 2 awards one to gateway and other to destination. Creating loyalty to business customers who only want to FLY US, and not AA or DL.

Easy connections thru the early morning flights to CLT in Caribbean early to mid afternoon.

I would even go a step further and add ALL Florida cities that can connect to these Caribbean destinations, if the Cities are there and US services them even add MIA to SJU via CLT. People will buy the tickets on US if they are loyal to US. Add the fares and the people will follow. US has nothing to lose to add these fares, but the increase in REVENUE if so please advise.

Thanks again for your time!

It has also been mentioned on another thread how you can't find fares for certain routes, eg LAX-SEA on US. That makes me wonder what the 'fare publishing fee' is.

Assuming the incremental fee per city-pair fare isnt ridiculously high, I wonder why there aren't fares in the system for such cities. Nobody said it had to be cheap (or even competitive - but then again since when has US been competitive?). I can see why they wouldnt match a direct Alaska Air fare , but load a $600 fare in and see if people buy it. Same with some of the fares ex-DFW.

Same thing applies to these Florida-Carribean flights. When the alternative is flying through ATL, why is CLT so much worse?

And do people really backtrack to DFW and not go through MIA to get to Caribbean cities?

To answer your question about the SEA-LAX market, as you know US only does the East West as of the early 90's. It would not be feasable to fly LAX-PIT-SEA or LAX=PHL=SEA. I do not forsee that they would ever load these fares in. When they had the PSA routes, they did have a variety of intracalifornia, and caifornia nevada and WA services.

As for the FL caribean markets, DL had always had the fares via ATL, and US when it went to SABRE RES, never loaded them in until many people in FLA made them aware to add the TPA SJU and MCO SJU fares in the System. CLT vs ATL is no difference at all for connections.

As for the DFW question, this is mainly for central america connections and Mexican Yucatan destionations, that I referenced this, and not the eastern or western Caribean.

USAir had definate intracalifornia through at least 1994 and a few through 1996 or 1997 (mainline).

Express was around until about 1998 (December).

According to my Sept. 1993 schedule, LAX jet service was available to: LAS, RNO, SAN (1 jet), SFO, and SMF. Express service was available to: FAT, MRY, ONT, PSP, SAN, SBA, and SNA.

SFO had jet service to LAS, LAX, and RNO. Express service was available to FAT, MRY, SBA, and SMF.

Thanks ITRADE,
I do love how thorough the members of this Fourm are. It refeshing to see other people that are so in to US as I.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by hscottm:
Assuming the incremental fee per city-pair fare isnt ridiculously high, I wonder why there aren't fares in the system for such cities. Nobody said it had to be cheap (or even competitive - but then again since when has US been competitive?). I can see why they wouldnt match a direct Alaska Air fare , but load a $600 fare in and see if people buy it. Same with some of the fares ex-DFW.

</font>

You all are missing my point. Who cares how few people would backtrack to take these flights. If the 'listing fee' isnt high, why not load them and just make people realize they would have to connect ?!? Let people decide if they want to do it. In the SEA-PIT-LAX case, US has decided for us. Just like they ha been doing with the ex-Florida routes.

I realize the LAX-PIT-SEA route is one that would not likely be popular. But there are lots of much less ridiculous routings which are not published for some reason.

My whole point is they should be doing this, but apparently the listing cost is prohibitive.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by hscottm:
You all are missing my point. Who cares how few people would backtrack to take these flights. If the 'listing fee' isnt high, why not load them and just make people realize they would have to connect ?!? Let people decide if they want to do it. In the SEA-PIT-LAX case, US has decided for us. Just like they ha been doing with the ex-Florida routes.

I realize the LAX-PIT-SEA route is one that would not likely be popular. But there are lots of much less ridiculous routings which are not published for some reason.

My whole point is they should be doing this, but apparently the listing cost is prohibitive.</font>

Is it the listing cost or the effort of establishing a fare for such a routing that is the problem?

I can easily envision a computer program that would create a fare for every imaginable city pairing with all possible connections to a depth of X -- but that would only work in a world of rational fares. In the world of airline fares some person has to sit down and dream up bizzare ways to gouge customers while appearing to have "low fares" -- I think it probably just isn't worth it to have a person put together SEA - LAX.

BTW -- you can do this yourself. Use the multi-city option...