Originally Posted by
iahphx
I still think the most telling sign of impending failure is America West's history at Columbus. They tried for YEARS to make it a hub, losing money repeatedly. But when Doug Parker and Scott Kirby took over the reigns, they realized it was hopeless, and pulled out.
If Parker and Kirby thought CMH could never work as part of a low fare national network -- and this was after successfully battling WN at PHX and LAS for years -- what are the odds for the newcomers? Almost nil, I would think.
Well, look at the shape America West was in when Parker took over. It may just have been a case where they couldn't make it work given the condition they were in at the time. Also, Skybus has a very different business plan than America West did. Just look at the seating to see what I'm talking about. America West has
124 seats in their 319's (12/112), while Skybus plans to put 156 seats into the same plane type. I will, however, concede that trying this out of Columbus is batty, just because of the size of the city.
Originally Posted by
iahphx
long, relevant article involving lots and lots of math that I'm not going to quote because of the length
Keep in mind that most airlines also get revenue from freight in the cargo hold - although I question how much they could carry while carrying that many passengers. Also, could the shear number of seats that they are cramming into the planes bring the CASM down? Does anyone know easyJet's CASM for their 156 seat 319's? I tried to Google that, but found no relevant information.
Speaking of easyJet, you can probably get a sense of what Skybus will charge for their in flight sales from
this section of easyJet's website.
Originally Posted by
winodj
Spirit Airlines doesn't seem to think that'll work either. That's why they're selling $6 and $69 airfares. They're following the same business model and they have a lot of longish flights too, maybe not CMH to BLI, but Guatemala City to FLL, for example.
Right now there is an ad on Spirit's website promoting airfares to Honduras for 8¢. Just Saying.
Originally Posted by
lebowski2222
Good Ideas for Skybus to use as Alternative Airports like there bellingham idea
...Rockford or Gary Airport - Chicagoland...
North Las Vegas Air Terminal - Lol, man that would be nasty...
A few months ago, Skybus announced that, while they hadn't finalized their destinations yet, they had ruled out Las Vegas and Chicago. I kind of got the feeling that that was a polite way of telling Rockford to piss off
.
One thing that causes me some concern is the range of the 319 with that many passengers. The
range of the 319 is 3700NM, but that is with 142 passengers.
The longest flight by easyJet with the 319 is 1363NM (LTN-IST), while the longest flight by Skybus is 1833NM (CMH-OAK). Does anyone here know weather or not that is a problem?