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Old Mar 30, 2014 | 10:35 pm
  #5  
rtalk25
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 1,120
Originally Posted by coplatua1k
Adding CLE would be great but that would mean going up against WN. UA is dropping the service although they claimed to be keeping it.
Southwest sells BWI-CLE one-way tickets for about $90-93 advance purchase WGA, and about $200 for a two day out one-way WGA ticket. Both include checked bags and ability to change without fees.

I can't see Frontier wanting to directly compete on that one, since Southwest would just add capacity and discount the fares, but maybe Frontier could on BWI-YNG and sell tickets for about $50-60 Economy advance purchase (2-3 weeks out). This would be ideal for those willing to drive a little to save some money on fares.

It can offer a BWI-YNG-MDW itinery and sell $60 tickets on the YNG-MDW sector as well. That second sector could be really popular for people from Pittsburgh seeking low fares to Chicago and vice versa. I came up with $60 as that's the fare on TTN-CLE currently 3 weeks out, and it's roughly the same distance.

In my opinion, Cleveland to Chicago is too close of a distance for a leisure/low fare carrier, although F9 now has a growing presence in both CLE and MDW. MegaBus covers that route. I've driven it a couple of times and found it's straightforward ride on Indiana and Ohio turnpikes. I once rented a car at MDW that had an Indiana I-PASS tag that I paid a daily fee, but it covered all tolls during my rental. It came out to a lot less than the actual tolls of crossing states. I think Pittsburgh being 2-2.5 hours extra however makes the drive a little too long, so YNG being somewhat straddled between CLE and PIT might be a good airport for F9 as well, even though F9 is already in CLE and has international service out of PIT.

Last edited by rtalk25; Mar 30, 2014 at 10:47 pm
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