Seems like an awful lot when AA only does 3/day. And certainly a good chunk of those connect on AA to somewhere else from there.

I don't understand why people can't envision people connecting on VX to somewhere else from SFO.

Who cares what AA does? It's irrelevant, especially considering AA's history of purposely limiting capacity on monopoly markets, something they've been doing at MIA for years.

VX originaly schedule to MIA, as of NOV07, was looking at 1x LAX / 2x SFO / 3x JFK. Of course, things change all the time and I don't know what it will look like when it launches. While they've hired some "higher ups" in Miami (like cargo sales reps), they've put a hold on hiring until they get a better timetable in place of when planes are going to arrive, and in what order Miami, Chicago, and Boston will launch.

My bad, poor choice of words. I meant to say they have more flights than any other carrier at SFO (takeoffs and landings).
Here here!! ^

People may still connect MIA-SFO-LAS if the flight is cheaper, but then VX would have to charge less than the compeition to make up for the lost time. VX would then get less revenue per mile as the low yielding MIA-SFO-LAS pax are cluttering up MIA-SFO for logical connections. If VX went to a mile based FF system than adding 21% to flight millage is a good thing, but if only revenue matters than people would be less inclined to take the longer route among those who care about FF miles.

Just wondering, when the FAA awards routes like IAD-PEK to UA (for example) and there is competition for the frequencies what do they consider a logical connection to be? I thought it was less than 10% off great circle for the city and to be a 1-4 hour connection. That idea (possibly wrong) is what I based my logical connection idea on.

In theory, sure--I can envision it. In reality--maybe. When there's more flights and places to connect to then the idea of 3/day SFO-MIA/MIA-SFO might seem realistic.

I like the VX product, and think that those who give it a try will like it as well. But I've also had last-minute itin changes (cancellations) on my last 2 SFO-JFK flights, presumably when they re-arranged their schedule to fill up the planes. 3 MIA flights a day is a lot of seats to fill with limited same-airline connections on one end, none on the other, and no codeshare partners.

http://flyertalk.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=9192150
 

VX doing 3/day would double the current non-stop flights from any Bay Area airport to any South Florida airport. As someone who flies that route 1-2 times a year, I'd love to see that. But if there were a pent-up demand for additional capacity, wouldn't the marketplace have taken care of that? Why did B6 just stop their OAK-FLL n/s? UA used to have 1-2 flights SFO-MIA as well, but that's been a while.

Here's hoping 1-2/day works, and they have to add more.:p

The "hiring cargo sales reps" part cracks me up--as a freight forwarder, the VX reps offerings at SFO were laughable--totally non-competitive service with any domestic carrier save for B6 (who wasn't accepting any cargo but human remains at the time.)

I agree that 3 is too many, and considering the planes they have on order, I think impossible. If the times are good (not redeye in either direction by my definition of redeye), I would be happy with 1 per day LAX-MIA and SFO-MIA.

All I will say is that VX's res system already has several cities loaded into it that are not currently served. PDX is one, MIA is another. Only administrators and managers can see these cities, and perhaps they are indicative of future plans. For reference, SAN and SEA were also present in this list the last time I looked at it, when LAS was opened.

"Administrators and managers" of what?

How bout Hawaii? An orbitz search pulls up a whopping TWO nonstop flights (United and Aloha) between SFO-Kona, for example, at a whopping $1250. If Virgin America can undercut that with a $850 fare on that route for economy or something like that, they'll surely attract customers.

Three nonstops from the bay area (ATA, United and Aloha). I believe an A320 can handle SFO-Hawaii....if not, they can get A330s or something. I know an A321 can't handle Hawaii.

Or Alaska. There doesn't seem to be that many competitors to Alaska either from the east or west coast. Maybe Hawaii-Alaska?

I know Air Canada has a virtual monopoly on US-Canada routes. For example NYC-Montreal costs like $400.

Not to derail this thread with discussion of Hawaii, but NWA and Hawaiian offer service to Hawaii from SFO as well, just not to Kona.

Well my point is, it costs like $800 to fly to Hawaii at certain times. Seems to be a huge demand and not enough supply.

On the flip side, there's not a SINGLE nonstop between Honolulu and Anchorage. Like, NONE. ZERO.

The cheapest flight is $1000, and it connects through Seattle.

Doesn't AS fly ANC-HNL?

I'm not sure. It didn't show up on Orbitz. I'll look it up on flightstats.

Note: you're right. AS871. But that's a duopoly. Virgin can like almost set their own fares. The fares on Alaskaair.com for default dates are like $927 all in. A month out, the fare's more like $850, and you can't even book the nonstop both ways.