holocker

Do you think Indy will still be around the end of May? Is it safe to buy tickets.

bursa

Of course it's safe to buy tickets for May. Although I'm not sure why you'd book so early unless you were taking advantage of some low fares...
Independence Air is actually starting to get its act together and even expand to the west coast with Airbus (i.e., normal-sized) jets. Book on FlyI as you would with any other airline.

DataBaseDude

Not only is it o.k. but I just noticed that you can now get their tickets off of travelocity.com (maybe this has been there for a while and I'm just now noticing it but it makes comparing prices darn handy for me).

StSebastian

They signed deals recently to be on Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz. Hopefully that'll increase the ticket sales some more.

I did a search the other day and they were the cheapest option.

Seat2C

I will have to wait until after fourth quarter results are released before making any decisions on the short term survivability of this company. They are in default on a lot of thier bills.
The company has not yet announced a date of release for the results and they will be in violation of NASDAQ regulations on March 1. In the past, those results were released in the third week of January.

sipples

I believe Congress renewed the law that allows passengers holding tickets on an airline that ceases operation to fly standby with other carriers for a $25 (?) charge. (That's to prevent people from getting stranded.)

Also, there's absolutely no risk if you're paying for the ticket by credit card.

If Independence's flights and fares otherwise match your requirements, go ahead and book.

dundoleo

Ditto. It is pretty much impossible to pay cash for a ticket, unless booking with at TA. You are 100% protected with a credit card purchase if any airline were to cease operations.

channa

Most carriers matched Indy's fares, so if you're concerned, why not just buy on another carrier?

BigBeerBelly

That's the spirit!

Why bother supporting the airline who brought down the costs? We love paying a thousand dollars for a short hop. How dare Independence offer such good rates?

When they are gone we'll be saying how unfair it is to pay that much. If you like low fares, you had better support your local low fare airline before they are gone.

BBB

prhs1989

People seem to be supporting Jetblue on their west coast hops. Personally, I think United has much better service, and there fares are not that bad. If you book a few months in advance, their fares are pretty low. Newark-Ohare: 220 roundtrip. There are no loco's on the route.

DataBaseDude

I had heard about them signing a contract to join Travelocity months ago when they were signing up all of those GDS's but I didn't hear anything about them getting listed on Expedia and Orbitz; are you sure about that?

DataBaseDude

I just tried a search on Orbitz leaving IAD to TPA on March 18th and returning to IAD on the 20th using anytime as the timeframe. The best fare that Orbitz spit out was $374 (leave IAD at 3:10 p.m. leave TPA at 6:05 a.m.). At the same time SideStep cam up and found several flights at slightly different time (about an hour or 2 different) for $278 and $283.

Shouldn't Orbitz put up the lowest fare that is available? I have tried this same thing with other city combinations and DH comes up as the most expensive on alot of them while SideStep still shows cheaper fares for those other cities on either the next or the previous flight that Orbitz picked.

Do they have a bias over there at Orbitz? Maybe someone at Indy should ask them to fix that.

spampurse

Just for giggles I looked up flights going from IAD - TPA on March 18th in the employee listing service which tells flight loads and every one of them is within one or two seats of being completely full, so that is probably why it is giving you the higher price. Although the return flights were not as full... they all had lots of seats sold.

The fare sale earlier in the month created an explosion in sales (especially for spring break destinations like TPA).

It sucks if you are looking for the cheapest fare, but in other ways is a sign of improvement for the airline.

Seat2C

To answer the original question here, no, I do not think that Indy will be around at the end of May. The fourth quarter and mid-first quarter updates look very bad.
The smart move is to buy a ticket with another carrier that is comparably priced and you know will be around at the end of May. Just think of the stress of worrying if Indy will be in business if you buy a ticket with them.

bursa

But many times Independence Air outprices its competitors by $50 or more. FlyI will most likely be around in May, I say go ahead and book if you want to book this early. Personally I'd wait a few more weeks.