Independence Air Flight Schedule To Be Announced

[funguy2]

Well... I am surprised they are doing this less than one month prior to start-up... Maybe the June 16 date will change? I guess we will find out soon...

MEDIA ALERT: Independence Air News Conference - Wednesday 5/19 11:00am Eastern; Airline to Announce 35 Summer Launch Destinations, Schedules, Low Fares

 

[coolflyingfool]

Kind of seems a little crazy to cut yourself off from UA and DAL and pick Washington, D.C. to be your hub, knowing that SWA will match all of the fares, while operating out of BWI. Good luck. Just my thoughts.........

 

[C54Capt]

So crazy....that it just might work.

 

[whlinder]

Kind of seems a little crazy to cut yourself off from UA and DAL and pick Washington, D.C. to be your hub, knowing that SWA will match all of the fares, while operating out of BWI. Good luck. Just my thoughts.........

WN doesn't fly to EWR or BOS or SYR or ATL or a bunch of places that DH will be flying to. And there is a large contingent of passengers that will drive from Northern VA to BWI for their fares but would much rather just fly out of IAD.

DH has a long way to go, I think they need to have their fares on all the websites instead of just flyi.com, because not everyone has heard of them, and if you go to Orbitz or Expedia thinking they search all airlines and buy there, you'll never know that DH was also available and competitive. Southwest can get away with this cause everyone knows who they are; no one knows who Independence Air is. They also need a MUCH better loyalty program; $25 off your first purchase cannot touch the promos UA has out of IAD right now. But those issues can be fixed rather easily. Certainly much more easy than making sure that you don't piss off so many customers from delayed flights this summer (IAD has a runway closed all summer) that they never want to fly you again.

Oh yeah, and no service to LGA, I guess UA owns all the slots they use.

 

[funguy2]

I think the surprises for me were Lansing and ORD. Lansing just seems like an oddball, since its a smaller town where ACA did not fly from IAD already (as opposed to most of the rest of the system which overlaps its UA Express system fairly comprehensively).

I was surprised about ORD just because

1. It will draw even more attention from UAL for a response
2. ORD is a notoriously difficult place to find gates/facilities for newcomers. I guess ACA/IAIR isn't new to ORD, but I would have thought UAL would have had enough control to keep IAIR out...

 

[Bigsky]

Surprising that DTW is one of the destinations. NW already has 4 daily flights to IAD, 8 daily flights to BWI and 9 daily flights to DCA for a total of 21 daily flights from DTW to the Washington D.C. area.

 

[C54Capt]

bigsky,

Obviously Independence Air doesn't know how NWA operates. I wouldn't be surprised if NW goes from 21 flights to 29, placing DC-9s or A-319s along side FlyI's CRJs on the route. Then after that, NW will probably throw a few extra DC-9s in IAD and start a couple competing routes to cities NW doesn't even currently serve.

NW protects its turf more aggressively and more ruthlessly than any other airline. Independence should establish a good route structure from IAD before they go pick on the toughest bully on the block. Its probably all Rich Anderson can do, not to throw a Whale on the route.

Good luck FlyI.

 

[NVFlyer]

I think this is great. Finally PVD and BDL options from IAD.

 

[Fly]

They're taking bets over on FlyerTalk on how many months until liquidation. :huh:

 

[46Driver]

They're taking bets over on FlyerTalk on how many months until liquidation. :huh:

Maybe we will just go Chapter 11 and stay there as long as UAL has.....

 

[Fly]

According to Aviation Week and Space Technology:

Atlantic Coast Airlines (ACAI) will have a tougher time as a startup low cost airline than US Airways will competing with Southwest in Philadelphia.

Principal reason for ACAI: fuel hedging and competition in local markets. According to the Wall Street author, with the proliferation of low cost carriers, the current ACA model is even tougher to market. This coupled with rising fuel rates and no hedging on the part of ACA puts the company at risk from the start.

 

[ngneer]

Additionally, ACAI is using mostly RJs which, on a CASM basis, are not low-cost aircraft to operate. The late Midway Airlines found they had trouble competing with RJs against SWA. I'm not sure why ACAI thinks it can succeed as a LCC.