5'9.2" -- I tower over that average by 0.8" or so.

http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/growt...vg_ht_male.htm

Well, you gotta remember that Skybus isn't really marketing to us (FT Community)..... They are marketing to the masses who would normally take the bus (hence the name).... On a business trip it would not be a consideration to me, but for a family vacation (I live in Columbus) it MIGHT be..... (OK, if I had no miles available on another airline)....

So, given the opportunity (in an ideal situation) of driving from Richmond (if I were going to rent car) I might consider it ($10+/ticket?) It would probably make more sense if I as heading to Virginia Beach/Outer Banks....

(PS, this doesn't deal with working with the airline if there are any disruptions in service, or I want a coke in flight!) :D

That’s great logic for $10 tickets. But they only sell 10 per plane, so they still have another 140 tickets to sell for more than $10. Next month ticket prices for CMH-RIC range between $50-$180 each way.

In addition based on who they are marketing to, their target customer will not buy the higher fares for shorter routes because they could just drive anyways. This is especially true if they NEED to get a rental car to shuttle themselves to their final destination. Why pay several hundred extra dollars to save a few hours. They will probably do better on longer routes where their target customer can justify spending more because it saves time exponentially.

You're right about it being a good location for the Outer Banks, Virginia Beach, and Williamsburg.

I actually looked at flights to FLL the first day, by the time I had made a decision (had to check with Mrs. wb8iny) they were $60 each! Can't win, but still in the ballpark with gas at $3.50/gal!

Still, if nothing else, they should drive down the pricing to some locations for a bit, and CMH is known for discount fares (unless it is an Airtran location, and we have to drive to Dayton)

3 New Cities
 

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One of the new airports today is Chicopee, MA (near Springfield). Hard to believe Hartford needs an "alternative" airport. :)

The problem is that this facility seems to have no infrastructure to support the new passengers. Like what good does it do to book a cheap fare if you can't rent-a-car? I'm not even sure what the parking situation is at this airport. The airport's official website is clearly not ready for prime time. Nor, it would appear, is Skybus.

http://www.wmass-arptcef.com/

There is some parking at this airport, but I don't think that there are many spaces. I don't know if it was free or if they will charge, but CEF is located in an industrial park next to the Air Force base. Also, the gate area here is rather small - I doubt all 150+ passengers will be able to sit while waiting for the flight. I can't recall if there was a vending machine airside, but it's a rather boring building with nothing to do while waiting.

Wow, this one I have to agree with! There seems to be no other commercial service, and BDL is already a great "lower cost" alternative to a number of east coast locations, including a NS DL flight from Columbus. As near as I can tell, CEF has no infrastructure to handle anything commercial at the moment...... However, I'm sure that our deep pocket friends in Columbus have thought this out very carefully! :)

This issue has been touched upon by a few folks, but I'd like to point it out again...

All flights originate or terminate in CMH. As far as Skybus and the government are concerned, there are no connecting flights, just two sets of tickets on the same day with one arriving at CMH and one departing CMH. So if you are late arriving, you're pretty much hosed.

AND, worse yet, if you pay to check a bag or two, you need to go to baggage claim, get your bag and head back up to the ticket counter to recheck it for your next flight, which also means re-clearing security. And with their policies about being there 30 minutes ahead and so forth, a lot of people are going to get left.

So when Ma and Pa Kettle and the boys decide to head out from Greensboro, NC to go see Hollywood, they may be in for a surprise when they get stranded in CMH or when they get to BUR and their bags are sitting in the CMH claim area.

Definitely. You get what you pay for. and with rumored 27" pitch, you will never find me and my legs on that a/c.

More on Skybus here.

I found this on Skybus' website:

What flight is this? I'm not aware of any one-stop flight on the same plane at this time... Maybe in the future?

Ma and Pa Kettle are going to figure out how to buy "back to back" tickets? I don't think so.

I'd also note that, unless you somehow snag the $10 tickets (again, Ma & Pa are going to figure THAT out?), you're unlikely to save enough money flying Skybus to buy 2 tickets to your final destination (cost per mile is almost always higher on short flights vs. long flights). I suspect very, very few folks will bother.

I just flew them this weekend, and I will be honest - I was looking for any flaw that I could find. I couldn't find anything. The planes were new and roomy (I know that is scheduled to change), the service was the most-attentive I have received in ages in the air. I am a NW Elite and got used to First Class regressing to the flight attendant reading the magazine for most of the flight. These crews are young, hungry, and comissioned. Between CMH and PSM, they came by my seat 4 times asking if there was anything they could get for me. It wasn't bad. I got the $10 tickets. I live in DTW, so it is a 3-hour drive to CMH, but for the cheapie tickets (and curiousity) it balanced out. I wish them well. It is what it is advertised to be, which is more than I can say for the service on NW and most of the other legacies that I have flown this year. Good luck Skybus.

You know, there have been a lot of negative comments about the commission aspect, but it obviously has positives, too. Kinda like tips in restaurants. There becomes an incentive for the fa's not to read a magazine the whole flight.

Yeah, I think this is a real flaw in the plan. I understand the cost savings argument, but for pax, especially unseasoned ones, this kind of ticketing situation is going to put them off or cause all kinds of problems, like when they accidentially book a connection that departs before the inbound arrives or mess up the dates, etc. - and then don't have anybody to call to fix it.

They're just fixing for customer service nightmares; between that and the lost revenue from pax who can't/won't figure it out, this doesn't seem like a good plan. If they were smart, what they should do is just add an extra fee for connecting passengers to cover the cost. They only have connections at one airport, so it can't be too expensive to do this. Pax may save on taxes this way, allowing Skybus to capture more revenue without such a big impact on pax.

Well, most airlines sell connecting tickets for LESS than the 2 flight segments. For instance, someone flying JFK-ORD-DEN pays less than the cost of buying a JFK-ORD ticket AND an ORD-DEN ticket.

So SkyBus -- if it did not want to dilute revenue with connecting traffic -- could simply sell a two flight itinerary as the sum of its parts. That actually makes some sense to me -- especially for a lcc. But I don't understand why you wouldn't WANT the connecting traffic. Especially if your "hub" was Columbus which, while a fine city, is not exactly the most sought after destination in America.