irabk

US Scare is bailing out of Vegas. They are shutting down their crew base in Vegas and cutting back on flights over the next few months.

SCGustafson

Not to infringe on your ice fishing hole, but that article was almost 20 months old.

formeraa

But, to be fair, several LCC carriers had entered that route over the years! I remember buying a ticket for $75 roundtrip, several years before WN entered that market. Remember PSA and AirCal!!

mvoight

The lower fares probably sold out and the higher fare buckets remain.
It s usual for low fares to be about the same on different carriers. One of the main reasons for seeing a higher fare is because that specific carrier sold out its lower fare buckets. I don't think this is due to WN not charging change fees.

irabk

Sorry, grabbed the wrong link. This is the correct one, from last week.

Nevada1K

While the link in irabk's post was to an old article, US is cutting more flights at LAS and also closing its LV crew base. Newer articles:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010...ing-lv-schedu/

From Las Vegas Revue Journal 1/8/2010: "The company [US Airways] is reducing its daily departures at McCarran from 64 to 36. Further, the Las Vegas crew base for 133 pilots and a dozen flight attendants will close on Jan. 31, Wunder said, adding that those employees are being offered transfers to Phoenix."

http://www.lvrj.com/business/aiming-...-80983822.html

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Originally posted before I saw irabk's update.

uastarflyer

Absolutely. The point of that "effect" is you might find a great fare on someone OTHER than WN. It pays to shop around. For anything over 1,000 miles, for my domestic routes, over 1 month in advance, I have rarely seen WN actually have a clear cut lower price than the legacies (who all wink-wink seem to magically all match each other).

tigerpaw580

Sadly, it's true.The most recent time, as the times before when I checked schedules this year TPA (or MCO) to LIT on WN, AA was cheaper and WN would have required a longer trip via connections.AA had shorter connection times via DFW.Same for return also, so AA was the choice.Unless you have the luxury of buying weeks in advance, it hasn't been the cheapest. I can use Airtran also drive from MEM 4 hrs,to DFW 4 1/2 hrs to my destination and save more that way even last minute, just hate that drive!

SacFlyer

A bit off-topic, perhaps, but his thread reminds me of how high air fares were pre-deregulation.

Back in the mid-1980s, my wife had a good job with AT&T in the Bay Area. Every month she had to attend a meeting of her peers, usually in NYC or New Jersey, sometimes in other major cities. Since AT&T always seemed to schedule those meetings at the last minute, less than three weeks in advance,I was astonished to see them regularly pay fares for her of $1600 to $2000 RT, COACH CLASS.

When Southwest entered the Sacramento market in 1995, my wife and I often got flights to the East Coast for $99 each way, though always with one or two stops. (The $2,000 flights on "major carriers" also made at least one stop.) The "major carriers," as we called them then, always cost considerably more than Southwest in those days.

As a result, I still have a loyalty to SWA all these years later and choose them when fares are comparable, or nearly so, due to the consistency of their product, the extra inch or two of leg room in coach, the free baggage carriage, and the ease and lack of penalty for changing tickets, as well as for the loyalty they earned back when they were out-hustling and undercutting all the traditional carriers.

Although widebody aircraft have clear advantages, all of the major carriers out of Sacramento tend to fly 737s, MD80s, and AirBus 319s and 320s, with less leg room than on Southwest (the main exception being United's Economy Plus, which may have an inch or two more than Southwest). In fact, many of them now fly smaller jets than Southwest on flights to places like Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. In this market, Frontier is the only airline which can consistently match Southwest in comfort and economy (along with Jet Blue's one nonstop a day to/from NYC).

I realize that the facts and comparisons would be different if I were regularly flying out of a larger hub. But I also remember what fares were like before Southwest entered this market, and I continue to appreciate them for it.

nsx

To a great extent, he "Southwest Effect" is literally history. It changed full fares industry-wide, and that change is virtually complete now.

rtalk25

A lot has to do with the city pairs too.

Generally, on certain non-stop flights, esp. where no hub/focus city is involved, WN fares are low, because its a P2P route where WN is relying heavily on O&D traffic and is most often competing against another legacy airline on the route.

For example, being from PHL, I know PHL-PIT, PHL-RDU and PHL-PVD or MHT flights are generally cheap. PHL-RDU can be $60 after taxes.

As a result, US Airways fares are low to RDU, but I suppose US Airways doubles or triples the markup on the PHL-CLT flights. because US isn't making money on PHL-RDU. If you're a business in the Philly area, look to do business in Raleigh not Charlotte.

Even though CLE is a WN city, PHL-CLE flights aren't as competitive (unless there is a special sale), because the routing requires a MDW changeover. If I want to go to CLE, it may wind up cheaper booking an Amtrak ticket to BWI, and flying the BWI-CLE nonstop flight. BWI is a focus city, but isn't as connection big as MDW.

I know from SLC area, it's not as easy use the Southwest website to use alternate airports and find the best deal.

rtalk25

I think what's true about WN and AirTran is that when they enter a market, they always have reasonable to low price fares, and provide a check to high fares, esp. if one is going east coast to west coast (atleast 2 time zones..where 1 stop is understandable), or to North-South, like to Florida.

The legacy carriers view mid-size and small-size markets differently. They view them just as a connection point to a nearby (within 200 mile) hub airport, fares are usually not competitive ever, and when the times get tough for the airlines, they cease operation at markets never really given it the chance.

pinniped

A couple of other thoughts in addition to what others have already posted:

- SLC to FLL sounds likely to me to be (a) a several days' trip for most people and (b) higher probability than most destinations to be a leisure trip. Therefore, I would expect a sizable percentage of those travelers to want to check a bag, thus selling out a lot of WN's lowest fares more quickly.

- To expand on what others have said, I still see the WN Effect on a lot of my frequent citypairs, but I see it on the high end, not the low end. I'm also out of MCI and I use UA as my main big-alliance carrier these days. I have bought last-minute fares to the West Coast that used to be $1200-1500 R/T fifteen years ago. Now those fares are usually spot on with the WN full fare.

(There may also be a little bit of a YX Effect out there too: when YX has entered a market in the past few years, I've noticed UA throwing a few Q-UP and H-UP fares out there to match it.)

- I don't think the WN Effect has totally runs its course yet. It seems like at some point WN will decide to attack some of the DL/NW fortress hubs a lot harder than they do today. (I'm thinking MSP and DTW, but maybe throw SLC in there as well...)

uastarflyer

SMF-IAD nonstop on the Airbus is quite nice on UA. Especially E+. Especially x 2 up front. By the way E+ is 3-4" greater than 32", and it is noticeable, especially in the Airbus. Also UA runs the 757 to/from DEN and/or ORD many times from SMF.

Also note an Airbus has wider seat than 737.

SacFlyer

I agree.