as pointed out above, there are logistical issues with getting to and from these secondary - no, tertiary - airports. i would love to get from Boston to Oakland for $20 but getting to Portsmouth (from where I am, Providence) is a whole other situation. really gotta want it, and it makes it tough for a weekend deal.

I see customer service nightmares. As other posters have indicated, Ma and Pa Kettle and their ten children going to see Granny and Jed are not going to "get it" that they must collect their luggage and recheck for a "connection" (that really is not a connection at all). These are the same paxs that just do not seem to understand the security screening process or that Group 6 does not mean F class. How the h...l are they going to understand Skybus.

And there will be no agents around to help them and no one to call.

Second, their destinations scream "only worth going for $20 r/t". So what happens 2 weeks out and the a/c is only 30% full (particularly during winter). Like legacies will the revenue management system start to discount tickets to put butts in empty seats or will the plane go out near empty (with the flight losing even more money). And I cannot imagine Skybus having a lot of walk up type traffic.

In all fairness I think they will transfer bags when they sell connecting flights. I believe it is mentioned on their site they do eventually plan to sell connecting flights.

Well, I will say their strategy screams "failure" at this point. The Chicopee thing is just bizarre. I think the secondary airport stuff is fine, but there has to be some traveller infrastructure. Chicopee seems to have none -- like car rentals and parking. Shouldn't they have made those arrangements BEFORE launching the service?

I've noticed that Delta has recently begun service out of underutilized airports in the Northeast. But at least they did some homework first. Cities like Wilmington and Trenton which have sizeable local populations (and even bigger nearby populations) AND infrastructure. Not sure why you have to go all the way down the ladder to Chicopee to find some place to fly to.

You'd think...apparently there are a couple of rental car companies a few miles away, but absolutely nothing on site. They are apparently trying to get a 'stand' for one of them to be at the airport.

Before inking a deal, that really should have been worked out. Right now, the only good candidates for those flights are those who live in/near Chicopee and need to get to CMH. Big market, huh...

Skybus could start operating their own (or contract with someone) bus service to/from their remote airport, for a fee, of course.

It really depends on how much cheaper Skybus is relative to the competition. I don't think people think about the fact that they're going to have to pay an extra $20+ to get to the airport, or $5 a checked bag, etc, when they buy their ticket.

Here's a report of multiple problems on the inaugural flight to GSO.

I could be wrong, but this whole SkyBus thing has "train wreck" written all over it. It's too easy in this business to lose money, even when you do everything "right." SkyBus seems to be doing plenty of things wrong.

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/news...FREE&cm_ite=NA

http://www.boston.com/business/artic...from_chicopee/This should be interesting to see, as they don't have many parking spaces to begin with.

That's what RyanAir does in some places. For example, they fly to "Frankfurt-Hahn" which is about 85 miles away from Frankfurt and not easily accessible by public transport.

Just look at the satellite map of Hahn--middle of nowhere and not bustling financial city:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=e...&t=k&z=12&om=1

Interesting observation from the article:
"Initially airport officials expect, as has been the pattern so far at Portsmouth, more people fly Skybus in to New England from elsewhere in the country than outbound to Columbus and beyond."

So Skybus seems mostly to be used by people living in Columbus.

Two reasons for that, I think:
1. concentrated marketing in CMH
2. of little use for others (unless they happen to have travel plans that include CMH)

But the point is, on Skybus's web site, you can't even book a ticket that makes a connection. You have to book two separate tickets. One from your origin to Columbus and a second from Columbus to your destination. An unsophisticated traveller such as the canonical "Ma and Pa Kettle" is not going to think about buying such an end-on-end ticket in the first place, so there's nothing to worry about.

Shocking as it may seem, this airline really seems to be designed purely for people heading to or from the Columbus area -- at least for now.

Ed

Perhaps, but their Contract of Carriage says:

So let me get this straight, they're going to fly from obscure airports where no one lives nearby to an irrelevant city in a state that no one goes to without a very good reason. Furthermore, they're going to do this in an industry with razor thin margins at a time of ungainly fuel prices. They're going to make money how???

Skybust, anyone?

I love it!!

Perhaps Skybus thinks so as well...
They registered the domain name skybust.com last year!
http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIsVerify.a...rog_id=godaddy