I commute between DEN and OMA. A year ago I had the pick of a lot of flight options on Airbus and RJ. Now the route is down the Q400 and a mainline here and there. No Early flights from DEN to OMA any more meaning I have to go in the night before.
It's strange because the flights are always full and cranking. I don't undertsand the logic to be honest...any insight?
As a side note Froniter have cut back to, because I was going to take their Monday AM till I discovered it was gone!
Come on Denver....lets get some OMA competition going!
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I just checked and there are (2) competing airlines on this route, 1 of which is selling 1 way fares (all in) for under $50 with only 1 week advanced purchase.
It looks to me like the market is oversaturated and cannot support 3 carriers with high frequency and low price. I don't know the economics of the market, but that is some heavy competition between 2 cities that in 2010 had a total of 1 million people between the 2 combined cities.
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Full and fewer flights are just the first step. They should pull more capacity and raise fares so that the flights are *almost* full. Only then you know you're pricing it right...
I just checked and there are (2) competing airlines on this route, 1 of which is selling 1 way fares (all in) for under $50 with only 1 week advanced purchase.
It looks to me like the market is oversaturated and cannot support 3 carriers with high frequency and low price. I don't know the economics of the market, but that is some heavy competition between 2 cities that in 2010 had a total of 1 million people between the 2 combined cities.
I think the metro area of both cities combined is closer to 3 million.
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Think of the combined NYC/ATL metro areas, and then realize that UA basically only flies RJs between the two markets (DL is near 100% mainline, but that's another story)
You can make the same argument for just about any market pair
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Quote:
Originally Posted by UA-NYC
Think of the combined NYC/ATL metro areas, and then realize that UA basically only flies RJs between the two markets (DL is near 100% mainline, but that's another story)
You can make the same argument for just about any market pair
True, I've flown CRJ200 on DL from NYC to ORD, so they're just as susceptible when attempting to fly into rival hubs
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When I was working, I used to fly COS-OMA quite a lot, through DEN. I remember being upgraded on a 767 between DEN and OMA, and provided a half sandwich snack on another type mainline aircraft, on this one hour flight.
When I was working, I used to fly COS-OMA quite a lot, through DEN. I remember being upgraded on a 767 between DEN and OMA, and provided a half sandwich snack on another type mainline aircraft, on this one hour flight.
Ah yes, the byegone good old days.
A 767 in Omaha? Are you sure they didn't landed there by mistake? Quite a few years ago, a larger-than-usual a/c landed in Riverton, Wyoming by mistake. The pilot became a local hero. His boss (either CO or Western, I think) didn't think so.
we used to fly 757's into OMA quite often. I loved that layover. Sadly this seems to be part of the UniCal drawdown of Denver. Very sad to walk through that airport right now and see all the empty gates and RJ's everywere.
AD
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Of course they can fill the aircraft, fares are in the tank. Consumers don't often complain about low prices, but this is an example of too much competition. The inevitable free market result is capacity cuts which will drive up the fares.
